[Sigia-l] Tool standardization (was about visio or not to visio)

[Adrian Howard]

On Wednesday, August 13, 2003, at 06:43  am, Listera wrote:

> "David Heller" wrote:
>
>> I have one comment about why larger corps have to have Uxers 
>> standardize
>> and it cannot be every person for themselves based on their whim:
>>
>> Discount licensing.
>>
>> End of story. Work in an org that is big enough and this is the issue.
>> You can't have everyone workin' on their own whim b/c it is too 
>> costly.
>> That is if you are honest.
>
> So *all* you are saying is that they should standardize on the 
> *cheapest*
> available product?
[snip]

I think that David was just pointing out one reason why large 
organisations standardise on a product - not saying that it is a good 
thing!

Also, it's often not the cheapest product that causes this 
standardisation - but the cheapest product set. It can be a *really* 
hard task to convince an IT department that they should buy a Foo 
application that runs on Bar when Foo and Bar  differ from every other 
piece of supported software and hardware in the organisation. When you 
start factoring  in support and maintenance costs the purchasing 
decision isn't so clear cut.

Adrian