On Friday 12 October 2001 20:04, Ian Lynch wrote:
Just had another thought on that one. Since MS have completely revised the way they sell their software to a subscription basis, this must be a new contract because the basis of the supply is completely different from that of the original ones The previous contracts would also have been a mixture of different sets of terms and conditions with a variety of organisations eg NHS Trusts, GP fund holders etc. Some of these might even have completely changed their legal status since they last bought their software. A single contract with the NHS as a whole must be seen as a new contract especially when there are some new products involved. The NHS also claim that this saves £50m. On
There is a way of doing things known as "quoting for a Rolls Royce" which is you choose who you want to win the contract then make sure that every other possible quote is higher.
what basis did they arrive at that figure? If they are assuming that every user would upgrade everything in the next 3 years (the MS method) it is highly dubious. What reason would there be to upgrade Office 97 in a small doctors surgery? Have they the capacity to upgrade all their hardware? Does
Does that include paying the people who would actually be doing the upgrades?
the NHS upgrade all its other technologies every 3 years whether it needs to
It's questionable that this is a "technology upgrade" anyway, the likes of wordprocessors and spreadsheets appear to have actually reached a point of "maturity" around a decade ago.
or not? Does it let the supplier of kidney machines force them to upgrade to the latest technology every 3 years? In terms of patient care I would have
Almost certainly not, since before any machine is going to end up hooked up to even a healthy person doctors tend to require that it won't do more harm than good.
thought that would be a far more reasonable priority. Let's not let the NHS Senior Management get away with incompetent negotiations and then portraying them as some wonderful money saving deal.