Standard Operating Environment
The University is in the process of imposing a standard operating environment for desktop and laptop computers, without much discussion. The policy is here (PDF).
This page attempts to summarise the arguments for and against this policy, as well as over what form an SOE should take.
Current Situation
Policy is about to come into force that desktops and laptops must be leased under a Sole Supplier agreement with HP, unless an exception is approved by a College PVC or administration area DVC. There's apparently an exemption for people buying systems from Apple, though I haven't been able to find details of that.
Problems
- Pricing
- Prices are not competitive with market prices for similar systems. (Matt did a calculation in June that Dell machines superior to the HP "staff machine" were 16% cheaper.) In the absence of competition, there may not be any pressure for a sole supplier to improve prices.
- Older technology
- Systems are not regularly upgraded. They were slow getting USB 2.0 (?), don't have DVI video cards, etc.
- Lack of options
- The HP systems are physically too small for many applications -- they won't take full-size PCI or AGP cards, or a second hard drive -- and have insufficient power, to few PCI slots, no option for a second hard drive, etc.
- Forced acquisition of unnecessary software
- It is impossible to buy machines from HP without Windows.
- Leasing drawbacks
- The leasing deal may not be that good -- it depends on how
the valuations will be done after three years, which is not clear.
Current machines may have lifetimes up to five years -- Microsoft
has pledged to support current software for ten years.
Funding within the university is often volatile and unpredictable. Users leasing computers will have to set an unknown amount of money aside to purchase them at the end of the lease, or risk being left with no computer if their funding has dried up.
Advantages
We haven't been informed of the goals of imposing an SOE, but some of the possible advantages are obvious.
- Reducing support costs through standardisation
- A smaller range of hardware systems is obviously less work to support. (But units or faculties that have already standardised on non-HP equipment will suffer increased support costs if they're forced to switch.)
- Achieving good prices through collective bargaining
- It should be possible for the university to achieve better prices through collective bargaining than any individual unit could.
- A first step in imposing centralised IT (?)
Credits
Lots of people have contributed to this page -- Matt, Paul, Chris, Jim, Joe, .. -- but I'm responsible for mangling it all together.