A recent case study from Microsoft states:
The Washington State Department of Natural Resources generates about U.S.$200 million in timber sales annually with proceeds funding schools and hospitals—and it was facing an ever-growing, increasingly costly mountain of paperwork to navigate the complex regulatory structure involved in harvesting timber. To lower the time and cost of managing the sales process, and to ensure that the department’s six regional offices were working with current versions of documentation, the department created a document management and workflow application based on Microsoft® Office SharePoint® Server 2007. The solution has the potential to reduce the volume and cost of handling paperwork by 50 percent, and the solution is much more affordable than alternatives. It’s also providing an easily accessible repository for the department’s institutional memory, especially helpful as longtime staffers retire.
The Washington State Department of Natural Resources did not choose SharePoint to save money. When I came on board as an IT Specialist in October 2007, SharePoint was already being used as a testing ground for things to come, meeting notes, and some IT projects. The DNR switched their intranet over to SharePoint around the time Peter Goldmark came on board earlier this year. The case study by Microsoft is a weaving of fact and fiction, perhaps as a justification for the DNR’s blind use of their products.
This is not to say the DNR will not save money using SharePoint. However, the claim of being more affordable than alternatives has no basis because alternatives were not researched. The DNR is a vendor-driven agency. Those making million-dollar IT decisions have little to no knowledge of alternatives such as Drupal or Joomla. The DNR has not made any comparative analysis between Microsoft SharePoint and an open standards alternative. Ignoring the ongoing expenses of licensing and need for additional Microsoft products for functionality, the case study focuses on an environment where SharePoint is analyzed against the already institutionalized use of other Microsoft products.
“We achieved full return on investment on Office SharePoint Server the moment people started using the system,” states Product Sales and Leasing assistant division manager Jon Tweedale. However, as someone who provided technical support for this agency, I find it difficult to believe Jon actually knows when SharePoint was first up and running. I’d like to find out how he arrived at his opinion.
A very important fact being overlooked by the study is the agency’s reduction of staff. The case study uses an organization size of 1000. If this is the actual number being used, the 25% reduction in force would factor in on paperwork usage much more than the software being used.
The benefits section states:
By moving to a custom solution based on Office SharePoint Server, the Washington State Department of Natural Resources has the potential to cut the volume and cost of paperwork by 50 percent, save millions of dollars per years thanks to fast return on investment (ROI), and preserve institutional memory even as longtime employees retire.
The idea of preserving data is entirely dependent upon maintaining Microsoft licensing. In 10 years, should the DNR choose another route, they will need to move their data to other formats in order for it to be accessible. Open standards is the only way to ensure a future where access to the data does not come with additional expense to the public.
