In the latest issue of Computerworld magazine, an industry trade journal, they returned to Auto Warehousing Co. to see how their Macintosh switch was going.
The article described how the employees questioned the decision to use those “expensive” computers, when that maybe they should have kept with PCs and used the money saved by not switching to increase everyone’s wages(!).
Some of their customers also questioned their decision to go to Macs–that the switch was “unnecessarily costly” and anticipated big price increases from Auto Warehousing. As the article described: “In fact, (CIO Dale) Frantz says, within hours after a July 16, 2007, Computerworld story about AWC’s technology migration plans was published, both he and CEO Stephen Seher received a flood of phone calls and e-mails with questions, positive and negative comments, and even an anonymous death threat.”
The hostility was so high that they actually had to delay the deployment to “sell” the employees and customers that this was the right decision for the company and how much money they were actually saving by switching to Macs.
In the end, the deployment resumed. Many of the key applications are converted, including rewriting the front end of their Microsoft SQL Server database using Java technology–a program that is about 10% complete. Once that task is complete, they will be able to remove Parallels and Windows XP Pro from the shop floor iMacs, reducing licensing and support costs even more.
It just goes to show you that you can’t plan for every contingency, but who would expect the absurdity of your employees and customers rebelling and almost killing the project? Education in the form of supplier conferences and employee town halls finally sold everyone on the program. No wonder it’s so hard to get Macs into the enterprise!
Why doesn’t anyone rebel like that when Vista gets deployed?
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