Date: Tue, 18 Dec 2007 14:54:32 -0500
From: "Michael Walsh" <MJW at press.jhu.edu>
To: "WSFA members" <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>,
    <wsfa-forum at yahoogroups.com>
Subject: [WSFA] Re: Upgrading to XP
Reply-To: WSFA members <WSFAlist at KeithLynch.net>

> yahoo at omniphile.com 12/18/07 2:41 PM >>>
>At 12/18/2007 01:16 PM, Michael Walsh wrote:
>
>>Now ... if anyone thinks their selling skills are really really
good,
>>you could try to convince Hopkins to switch to something else.  Note
>>that Hopkins has spent - by now - over $222,000,000 on a university
wide
>>"enterprise software" package from SAP.  SAP on Windows machines
will
>>not work properly without ActiveX ennabled.  When ActiveX is enabled
SAP
>>works marginally better.
>
>How much have they budgeted for security recovery firms to come in
>and remove the trojans and spyware from the computers compromised by
>people going to malware sites with ActiveX enabled?  And for the
>lawyers to defend against the lawsuits when confidential information
>gets disclosed illegally by this?
>
>There may be a reason they call it "sap"...

The SAP package - called HopkinsOne - was rolled out atthe beginning of
the year.  A few months later a survey was sent out to gauge the end
user experience.

Surprisingly they actually released the results:
 7% were  satisfied
21% were neutral
72% were dissatisfied

As for your questions ... heck if I know.

I can tell you that about 15 years or so ago when Random House went the
SAP route it nearly destroyed the company.  How?  Well, books weren't
being shipped.  Bills weren't being paid.  It was quite a mess.

I will say, that it seems that SAP has one heck of a Marketing Dept.

But back to XP ... it's what is installed here, so I use it.

mjw

p.s. on campus someone put up poster that read:
HopkinsOne
We Lost