Slashdot is powered by your submissions, so send in your scoop

 


Forgot your password?
Close
typodupeerror
×

Comment Re: Incompetent contracting (Score 1) 190

by lucabrasi999 (#50263843) Attached to: U.K. Government Seeking To End Reliance On Oracle

I suspect that some of it is incompetence, and some of it is the fact that there isn't a single 'they' here. For small orgs, or super-regimented big ones, there is indeed a single Ministry Of Central Procurement through which all external commerce flows. When that isn't the case, purchasing is usually a patchwork of confused individuals with budgets tied to specific things buying stuff in scattered tiny lots.

Yep, and Software Vendors are experts at identifying who in that patchwork has purchasing authority and what their procurement limits are. They will craft their software sale to stay within certain limits in order to avoid the next level of procurement approval.

Comment Re:Incompetent contracting (Score 1) 190

by lucabrasi999 (#50263727) Attached to: U.K. Government Seeking To End Reliance On Oracle
In their defense, it is not just incompetence on the part of the customer. Software Vendors love to come up with intricate and convoluted licensing terms. They are experts at obfuscation. Of course, just using 'open source' as an answer isn't necessarily the right thing. It should be a combination of closely monitored procurement practices along with select open sourcing when it make sense.
Image

IT Worker's Revenge Lands Her In Jail 347

Posted by samzenpus from the bad-idea dept.
aesoteric writes "A 30-year-old IT worker at a Florida-based health centre was this week sentenced to 19 months in a US federal prison for hacking, and then locking, her former employer's IT systems. Four days after being fired from the Suncoast Community Health Centers' for insubordination, Patricia Marie Fowler exacter her revenge by hacking the centre's systems, deleting files, changing passwords, removing access to infrastructure systems, and tampering with pay and accrued leave rates of staff."
Education

Submission + - Your Beliefs versus the Facts (yahoo.com) 1

Submitted by lucabrasi999
lucabrasi999 writes: Professor Thomas W. Martin of Arizona State University has an interesting article in the Chritian Science Monitor and was picked up by Yahoo. The basis of the article is that despite all of the evidence to the contrary, many of his students still prefer to believe in creationism over the evolution. This leads him to question why there are people who refuse to consider the opposing point of view. Even in science, there are scientists that fight publication of opposition articles, because they don't believe in them. Professor Martin's main point is, what would it take for people to realize that being 'wrong' on an issue is not necessarily a bad thing, but is part of the way we all become more intelligent. Learning, by it's very nature, means that we must be taught when our opinions are incorrect and we must learn to accept the fact that our individual views are not always correct.
Businesses

Submission + - The 10 most overpaid jobs in the United States

Submitted by lucabrasi999
lucabrasi999 writes: Almost everyone can point to a co-worker and say, "They are overpaid". Maybe that co-worker is lazy. Maybe they work hard, but their results are say, lackluster. Maybe they are a great worker, but they landed in a nice, cushy job. Well, Chris Plummer from Marketwatch has identified what he thinks are the most overpaid jobs in the United States. Longshoremen? Motivational Speakers? This list may make you wonder if it is time for a career change. Especially for those of us in IT.
IBM

Submission + - IBM to go "Green"

Submitted by lucabrasi999
lucabrasi999 writes: Big Blue has announced an effort to become more green. IBM is the largest Data Center operator in the world, and it will be introducing technology to reduce data center energy consumption and also offer those technologies to customers. By 2010, IBM plans on doubling the computing power at its own data centers without increasing energy consumption.
Microsoft

Submission + - JetBlue's Windows Infrastructure Crashes

Submitted by hawks5999
hawks5999 writes: JetBlue's reservation and communication systems have been down for 5 days leaving thousands of passengers stranded and stockholders seeing red. It was almost exactly 4 years ago that JetBlue trumpeted it's reliance on Windows to help it see black. From a 2003 news.com article:

So we marched down the road of the Windows platform. We don't have any Unix; we don't have an AS/400; we don't have any mainframes — we don't have anything outside of Windows. There has been tremendous cost savings. ...everything's Windows. Every technician that works on a server works on a Windows server. Every technician working on a desktop works on a Windows desktop. That's quite a bit easier than other flavors of desktops or OS/2 or whatever else is out there.
I guess they didn't look at redundancy or reliability in their cost equation...

Slashdot Top Deals

Scientists will study your brain to learn more about your distant cousin, Man.

Close