And don't forget interoperability/integration. I could choose to use Star
Office, but if my co-workers all use Word, Excel, Access, etc., where does
that leave me? Unfortunately, we don't live in a vacuum.
Sometimes it is possible to have it both ways, of course. I run procmail on
my ISP account to sort mail into folders and then access it via IMAP. Not
only does the give me basically[*] the same functionality as Exchange, but I
can read mail using any MUA implementing IMAP. And, indeed, I sometimes read
mail with Pine and sometimes with Outlook Express (and I suppose I could use
Netscape just as easily).
[*] As an example, I can request as DSN when sending mail using Pine, but
MDNs (message disposition notices) are still only a proposal.
===
Gregory Woodhouse <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Financial Product Line
+1 415 744 6362
"Computer science is no more about computers than astronomy is
about telescopes." -- E.W. Dijkstra
-----Original Message-----
From: Wayne Wilson [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2000 11:06 AM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: Re: Anybody using VistA? [screenshots here]
"Woodhouse, Gregory J." wrote:
>
>. However (and there always is), if they can
> become so entrenched through proprietary "standards" that it is impossible
> to migrate to another product without incurring expenses beyond what can
be
> justified, then that is another matter.
>
You don't need proprietary standards to incur very large migration
expenses, you just need large numbers of users and business process's
embedded within the user interface's. e.g., despite what anyone might
thing about the technical shortcoming, both WordPerfect Office and Star
Office are far cheaper to buy and continue licensing then M/S Office,
yet M/S Office remains entranced in many places due to the extremely
high cost of re-training users.
