[sf-lug] Request for bid

[Larry Cafiero]

Hey, Christian --

Redwood Digital Research, in which I'm a partner, does the same thing (among
other services) as Jim's company, but we're in the Santa Cruz/Monterey Bay
area. Since it would probably be wise if your employer went local, we'd
still like to participate in a bid process, if one arises.

Larry Cafiero

On Sun, Aug 22, 2010 at 3:35 PM, jim <jim at well.com> wrote:

>
>
>   As you posted your need to the SF-LUG list, I'm replying
> to the list with the hope that members find this a valid
> and interesting aspect of Linux.
>
>   My company, Systemateka, Inc., does such work and has
> converted Carol Ruth Silver's business systems to a mixed
> environment based on Ubuntu Linux that incorporates her
> legacy, Windows-based financial system.
>   Systemateka is dedicated to open source solutions and
> works in an open style with other techies, including
> experienced system administrators, PHP programmers, Python
> and Django programmers, database administrators, graphic
> designers, documenters, and trainers.
>   As this seems to be for a legal firm, note that I was
> the system administrator at the U. S. Court of Appeals
> for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco and have
> experience with law office needs as well as with training
> and documentation.
>   To make your conversion as quickly as possible
> requires a preliminary assessment of your office workflow
> and software, which entails no downtime, only modest
> intrusion, and a brief written report that maps the steps
> of the transition.
>   Let me know how to pursue this possibility.
>
> Jim
>
>
>
> On Sun, 2010-08-22 at 12:06 -0700, Christian Einfeldt wrote:
> > hi,
> >
> >
> > My employer, Al Stoll, is sick and tired of Microsoft Windows
> > problems, and he is willing to consider a move to GNU-Linux.  He has
> > asked me to find a company that could do the initial move, and could
> > provide on-going support.  We would like to speak with companies that
> > could bid to do this work.  We do have some mission-critical apps that
> > must run on Microsoft Windows, or so we think.  Number one among them
> > is Filemaker Pro.  Al is willing to consider OpenOffice.org, but we
> > would need to be assured that OOo would be able to be a drop-in
> > replacement for Microsoft Office.
> >
> >
> > I, of course, am a Linux zealot, but we need to make sure that this
> > transition is seamless, or it won't happen at all.  Al Stoll visited
> > the Creative Arts Charter School, and was very impressed with seeing
> > the kids there doing video editing on Linux.  Al sort of gets the
> > importance of Free as in Free Speech, but he and the rest of the staff
> > are very much end users, and we would need to make sure that we don't
> > put them through a huge learning curve.  They need to be able to leave
> > on Friday and come back to work on Monday, and get maybe half a day of
> > training and then they need to be able to be off to the races again,
> > as our office is a high-pressure office with very serious personal
> > injury cases (brain damage cases, etc).  Our opponents usually assign
> > twice the number of lawyers that we have to cases on which they oppose
> > us, and so downtime kills us.  In fact, one of the reasons that Al is
> > considering moving is that he is unhappy with the downtime that we
> > have been experiencing due to Microsoft's failware.  If this migration
> > is made at all, it will need to be made on the basis of stability,
> > reliability, high up-time, and competitive cost.  We would need a firm
> > that has experience in working with newbies and assessing their needs
> > and making the technology transparent to them.
> >
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>
>
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