On Thu, 2002-12-05 at 22:36, Grainge, Derek wrote:
I was at Capita a while back and I was told the reason they are in bed with MS is that the turn over in programmers means they have to go for the lowest common denominator in terms of expertise. I pointed out that if they used open source they could use the money saved in software licenses to pay better programmers to stay! When it comes down to it the decision makers just don't understand the options.
Regards,
-- Ian
... and the story I heard was that M$ own something like 20% of the company. WHich might also explain Capita's adoption of .NET But to be fair - if C# ( ~ Java) and C++ are typical development tools, then I don't see the 'lowest common denominator' argument.
Lowest common denominator as in the technologies the people they are targeting for employment know about. (Probably the technologies some of th decision makers know about might be more significant). Unless you mean Borland = good or GCC = good and M$ = bad. Not about good bad or indifferent but about what the decisionmakers perceive to be easiest to support.
Why do they have large turnover of programmers? Surely connected with staff satisfaction?
Maybe they don't pay them enough? Who knows - what is the general turnover in programmers outside? Have you any evidence that M$ have a 20% stake in Capita? That would be interesting if it is true. Regards, -- IanL