The Isle of Man government is to standardise on Microsoft
technology to make the most of its skills and limited IT
budget.
A migration programme is under way to move from a mix of operating
systems, including Netware and Solaris to Microsoft Windows 2003
running on Unisys ES7000 mainframe and commodity PC servers. The
process will involve moving 200 application servers in multiple
locations to two datacentres.
The Isle of Man will also switch during the next 12 months from
Oracle Financials running on Unixware on the ES7000 to Microsoft's
financial package, Axapta.
The strategic partnership with Microsoft was driven by the need to
reduce costs and stay within an annual IT budget of less than £8m
and to support an integrated e-government policy, said Allan
Paterson, director of the information systems division.
His decision to displace Oracle Financials with the Axapta product
was driven by the close relationship he has been able to forge with
Microsoft. "We were a small user of Oracle, with about 350 users
and I was uncomfortable that we did not have the clout we should
have had," he said.
Patterson said a strategic partnership with Microsoft was safer and
less costly than adopting a best-of-breed approach. "If you pick
every best-of-breed product there will be a massive integration
problem. We have to make as many elements [of IT] common such as
services, suppliers and technology."
Microsoft's product set "has matured and I am confident we can
achieve mainframe levels (of reliability and performance) on
Windows," he said.