Comments on: Managing Microsoft Costs http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/ This is the Blog of Will Weider, CIO of Ministry Health Care and Affinity Health System. This is the place where I share what I have learned through my mistakes and other crazy things in the life of a healthcare CIO. Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:51:46 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.com/ By: Ara H http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-1520 Fri, 20 Apr 2007 01:02:25 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-1520 I am in the midst of rolling out Sharepoint Services 3.0 instead of MOSS 2007. SharepOint Services is free and is sufficient for us.

I also use the MS viewers on low end users and their PC’s.

I came into an environment where Open Office was installed.
But many documents that were received were unable to be opened and incompatability was a big issue.

We did move to MS Office since most of the PC’s had it already.
I cant be sure if the version installed was the problem but I may give it a go in a test environment one day.

But I love SharePoint!

]]> By: Alexandra Larssonhttp://www.alexandra.st http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-169 Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:12:29 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-169 I just wonder why so many IT professionals think of MS products as the (safe) baseline without actually calculating the total cost of using them. Instead any alternative is scrutinized in every direction. Is the MS products actually that good or is it just lack of knowledge of the alternatives?

]]> By: Marcus Aurelius http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-148 Sun, 26 Nov 2006 14:28:04 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-148 I use OpenOffice as well.

Its MS Office compatibility is not bad and I don’t have problems with it crashing.

However, it is the Office Suite especially Excel where MS is okay with me. However, their default system and the total lack of dev tools that comes with an MS install is really very depressing. Of course on can pick up the tools they need but get the checkbook out.

]]> By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-140 Sun, 05 Nov 2006 11:55:51 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-140 I am surprised at how little attention OpenOffice gets here.
It really is the answer to ALL your problems.

]]> By: John Sharphttp://www.bloglines.com/blog/ehealth/ http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-139 Fri, 03 Nov 2006 21:02:07 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-139 We are working hard to only accept projects which including a staffing component. It is easy to fall into the trap of more porjects with the same amount of staff. But if you take a Total Cost of Ownership approach, any project will require a technical support group once it is launched.

]]> By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-138 Thu, 02 Nov 2006 05:38:44 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-138 Actually you can easily manage Sharepoint services by appling the same methodology with Sharepoint as you do with any Microsoft license. A full office user may, emphasize may, in our organization have the benefit of a Sharepoint site. But with a Data Warehousing Team focused on developing Sharepoint WEBParts for our EIS we avoid the higher cost of EIS components coming from propriatary types of vendors. Since we license our MS Office users as Enterprise users we selectively hand out access to Sharepoint and limit that to folks that need to access files and systems across the enterprise from multiple locations.

A very nice alternative to Sharepoint is using Sharepoint Portal Services. This non-full blown version allows you to easily distribute files to all of those Thin Client and PC devices that don’t have office installed but only have office readers. An example, we had programmed a magic program to extract our thousands of MOX Library files (Policies and Procedures, etc.) to a open folder within sharepoint portal services. We can preserve the attributes and the file is saved to the folder in htm format. As part of the process we can then appropriately categorize all of this developed MEDITECH MOX information. It allows for legimate search. So for instance looking for a nursing policy with the string “IV PUSH” in it returns a list of every policy and procedure that has that string. Overall a huge hit for our organization. Cost was about $5,000 for the server.

]]> By: Anonymous http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-132 Thu, 26 Oct 2006 13:04:08 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-132 I have to say I am quite happy with OpenOffice and never saw it crash. However, I am not a heavy user.
They do take some getting used to, though.

]]> By: Howard Messinghttp://www.meditech.com http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-131 Tue, 24 Oct 2006 04:36:55 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-131 At my organizations, we pay more for Microsoft software than GE/IDX and MEDITECH combined.

We can fix that for you :-)

]]> By: Will http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-130 Tue, 24 Oct 2006 00:31:44 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-130 EMR and HIPAA, thanks for visiting my blog. I really enjoy yours.

I installed OpenOffice once. It crashed from the get-go. Maybe I will try it again, but I don’t want to get fired.

]]> By: EMR and HIPAAhttp://www.emrandhipaa.com http://candidcio.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-129 Mon, 23 Oct 2006 23:23:47 +0000 http://candidcio.wordpress.com/2006/10/22/managing-microsoft-costs/#comment-129 Why not just install OpenOffice.org? It’s free and has all of the important features that Word, Excel and Powerpoint have.

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