Admittedly, this has been done before, but a client just threw past us a quote from a MS vendor to perform the same work as we are proposing. And a potential customer from outside the US just told us they decided to look into Sharepoint.
Their proposal comes out as about the same amount as 2 weeks of work. Fine, except they proposed to install Sharepoint 2010 and migrate 3-5 Notes Apps to Sharepoint and .NET for this price.
We estimated 4-6 weeks to update them all or roughly a week per app.
So how can a Microsoft Business Partner say they will do everything for so cheap?
And this supposedly includes the licensing too! Which we know is impossible, so we are looking into the other details.
Licensing alone will equal over $15,000 with Software Assurance and here is why:
Hardware Cost for new box
Windows Server 2008 Standard License w/10 CAL $1,209 Pricing here
Windows Server CALs per pack of 20 users $799
Sharepoint 2010 License $4,926
Sharepoint CALs per user Enterprise $83 or Standard $95
SQL Server Standard $898 or Enterprise $8,592 Pricing here
SQL CALs per user $164
That is a a lot of licensing, but wait it gets better, Software Assurance adds between 25-40% to the price, if you want it.
This cost does not include any backup software or cluster/fail over options.
This also does not include the costs/time to write from scratch the apps.
Now compare this to their existing Domino environment.
Servers and licenses all paid for and support maintenance agreement is still in place and renewed.
The applications are already setup for multiple replication where a Domino Enterprise Server is not in use.
Before they get out of the gate, the Microsoft solution costs them at least $15,000 based on my conversation with Microsoft reps on the phone and to validate the pages above.
Honestly, how can they just give applications away for free? Ask them the next time you get pitched on a Sharepoint migration. Make sure you get in writing that they will not ask for more money or get any more money then their bid. Keep them honest and poor.
There is much more out there than meets the eye.
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There is another way of cutting the SharePoint licensing costs...
ReplyDeleteFor example, most organisations will have Windows Server and SQL Server included in EA/Select licence agreements, therefore no actual out-lay cost for the licences, and with the entry level edition of SharePoint being free (as in beer) the licence cost could actually be $0 (or indeed £0 here in the UK, depending on the exchange rate!). Making the only outlay the professional services for consulting/development/deployment/etc...
Tin? Who's buying tin these days? The infrastructure costs will be a slice of the virtualisation platform (handful of $'s per month) plus some storage ($varies). Both of which may be costed outside of the project delivering SharePoint, it depends on the IT dept within the client...
Also, the apps may not need much actual code, potentially none at all, it may just be a case of building the apps using configuration of out-of-the-box features. Can't really comment further as (as you know) "it depends" on the apps themselves, all I'm saying is that it's possible, although I do admit the apps would need to be pretty basic to be able to be ported directly without any code...
That said, the guys at Quest have tools that allow us to migrate Notes Apps into SharePoint VERY quickly.
So in your example, your competitor may be pitching a SharePoint Foundation (free, as in beer) based solution and be using the Quest toolset to reduce code/complexity/time/etc therfore bringing their bid price down well below where you'd think it would be looking at full blown licence costs and manual app migration...
Just a thought...
Matt, In this case neither has an EA and foundations from MS will not be used.
ReplyDeleteBut I had looked into this as well.
have not played with Quest tool.
As to virtualization, they have no box for it so they need one or host which is another story.
But we are still digging details.
Just out of interest, are these apps web based or notes client based?
ReplyDeleteThe one thing that MS apps have always had over domino/notes apps is the look. MS built their tools to look good and perform well from an end user stand point. Very often it is the sizzle that sells and IBM either didn't know this or refused to acknowledge this for years.
The OneUI is a good start, but they limit themselves by not updating the notes client nor providing features that are constantly being asked for.
It's also a case of mind share. You may have noticed that it Notes/Domino being compared to Sharepoint more often than Exchange and they do that job very well.