[nmglug] any insight/input into the city tech overhaul?

[Mark Galassi]

Dear nmglugers,

I came upon this article:

http://www.santafenewmexican.com/news/local_news/outside-party-to-review-city-of-santa-fe-systems-update/article_572b94ef-2593-506c-9fb9-962cdff0f85a.html

in which they discuss external review of Santa Fe's IT infrastructure.

These overhauls sometimes involve picking some company, reading their
brochure, and giving them a contract.

I have seen a large institution where they replaced the UW IMAP server
with a Microsoft exchange system, going from 50% of an employee to run
the institution's email to 3 full-time people to run the Microsoft
exchange system, plus untold hours of lost productivity in dealing with
the morass generated by this proprietary system.  In this case the
executives were told by the parent company that they had to shift to MS
exchange, period.

The city is not beholden to a parent company, but group-think is rampant
with people who are out of their depth, and the 10% rule also applies
("you only need to know 10% more than someone to snow them"), so vendors
might come in and write an IT plan for the city.

This is all speculation - does anyone here have any inside knowledge on
how this process is going?

Wounldn't it be cool if the city were to invite proposals from our
city's top IT people (who are almost certainly on this list), and also
include them in the review.  It would also be cool if someone had the
ear of the city's IT planners and could propose some free software
adoption, as well as a requirement free software compatibility.