I can’t tell you have many companies that I have met with annual sales from 30 million to 6 billion that have absolutely no technology strategy. I have seen company’s growth stop due to technology strategies that do not add value and are inefficient and outdated.

The CIOs of the various companies have good credentials and decades of experience and leading the various companies in a terrible direction with very expensive technology plans that are laughable at best.

One company I met with was 25 million dollars into a bad People Soft implementation. After I was told what they were trying to get People Soft to do through massive customizations I about fell out of my chair. I could not believe how this company was being misdirected. The CIO squirmed a bit when I asked some hard questions while the CFO perked up. If only I helped them when they were in the design stages of there technology plans.

The company I am mentioning is a public company and I can mention the name however with 25 to 30 million dollar budget they could have purchased, built the most advanced technology in the industry with some basic innovative technology strategy and unfortunately they could barely process payroll.

I have architected many systems over the past 15 years. I have a very specific methodology that uses the “off the shelf” back office to operate the financial perspectives of a system. Microsoft Great Plains has been the back office of choice fro many reasons.

I like Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Great Plains has Visual Basic for Applications as a development tool. Microsoft Great Plains also has an Application Programming Interface (API) called eConnect. eConnect is an outstanding API. I recall the days before eConnect and to integrate into Great Plains from either a custom application or a third party system you would have to manually write the code to push or pull data from Great Plains to include the enforcement of business rules and logic. This was an amazing undertaking that is now apart of eConnect.

Microsoft Great Plains also has very easy user interface development tools. Making it very easy to modify a user interface based on how a client used the software. I usually lighten up the user forms based taking out functionality that the users were not using making the training and usage of the software much easier.

Having Great Plains and eConnect I can develop an “Operational System” that is specific to a business. My definition of an Operational System is a specific system that contains all of the businesses required work flow that is outside of the back office. This concept is very simple however a lot of system architects do not fully understand this concept. I have seen countless systems where companies try to make a financial system handle a very unique business process. This always results in a very expensive and poorly architected system is a nightmare to administer and to maintain. Not to mention a disaster in flexibility overall strategy.

The most efficient system architecture for a company that has offices all over the country or world is to develop an “Operational System” that extends the functionality of the financial system with precision information based on the user’s functional requirements. I like to build the Operational System to tightly integrate all financial aspects back to Great Plains and to handle the business specific operational functionality in a .Net web deployed application. Having a web deployed operational application to extend your back office and to enforce your business processes allows you to not to have to buy a lot of users in Great Plains and you can have 100% control of your organization from a centrally deployed system that is easily administered. The field offices only need a web browser and internet access and are fully integrated. All of your system code is deployed from an Internet Information server (IIS) that is included with a server operating system. As you update the application you only have to update the IIS servers and the enterprise is automatically updated just by logging in through the web browser. For remote access to the full back office we use Citrix it is not my favorite concept but the only current way to remotely deploy Great Plains and for accountants in the organization they can easily access Great Plains using Citrix and by deploying an Operational System the number of actual back office users is greatly diminished.

Operational Systems will allow organizations it control there business processes with absolute precision. This also means that only functionality that is required would exist since the Operational System is designed specifically for the usage of the organization. Usually when we are designing Operational Systems we are able to automate a lot of the various system operations that once again create massive return on investments and competitive capabilities for the organization that did not currently posses.

I could write a book on this subject matter and have seen companies really grow when they had a real technology strategy not just buying modules from various software vendors with no real plan or understanding on how to create a world class enterprise with innovative cost effective software architecture. Check out this site http://www.evisionsys.com/customdev.htm or call me at 713-807-9555 if you need any help.

Microsoft has released Exchange Server 2007. This new offering has a lot to offer. The biggest upgrade for Exchange Server 2007 is unified messaging. This allows you to receive email voice mail and faxes in one inbox. Here are some other features:

• Keep your e-mail system running at lower cost

New data replication capabilities in Exchange Server 2007 drive increased availability at a lower cost. Local Continuous Replication delivers database redundancy with rapid recovery, minimizing the frequency of full tape backups. With Cluster Continuous Replication in combination with Microsoft Cluster Service (MSCS), active/passive clusters provide both database and service redundancy without requiring expensive shared storage, even when clusters span geographic locations.

• Access e-mail, voice mail, calendar, and contacts from virtually anywhere, anytime

In Exchange Server 2007, your employees can access their important inbox information from virtually anywhere using their desktop computer, laptop computer, a browser window from any Internet-connected computer, their mobile device, and even using a basic telephone when no Internet connectivity is available. Employees enjoy a rich and familiar experience based on Microsoft Office Outlook 2007 functionality. Best of all, it’s all built in with centralized management and robust security, making rich anywhere access possible for your entire workforce instead of just a limited few.

• Get affordable, enterprise-class mobile messaging that’s better than ever

Exchange makes enterprise-class mobile messaging a reality by offering industry-leading scalability, native integration with compatible devices for lower total cost of ownership, and by providing a variety of device options to suit today’s business needs. Building on the advances in Exchange Server 2003 Service Pack 2, mobility features in Exchange Server 2007 raise the bar on user experience and deliver improved manageability. Now desktop features such as support for rich HTML, quick flags, sophisticated calendaring, and fast search are available on mobile devices. In addition, Exchange Server 2007 provides more granular security policies and enables users to perform basic tasks on their own (such as perform a remote wipe from Outlook Web Access 2007).

• Empower employees with unified messaging while saving money

With new unified messaging in Exchange Server 2007, employees can receive their e-mail, voice mail, and faxes through a single inbox that can be accessed from anywhere. Employees can manage all of their messages in one place just as they manage e-mail today. For example, voice mail can be forwarded, or if the recipient adds text notes to the voice mail, messages can be found using built-in search. With Exchange Server 2007, you can deliver these features while lowering cost and complexity through consolidation of your voice mail infrastructure.

• Get comprehensive protection from spam, viruses and phishing attacks

Exchange Server 2007 provides integrated antivirus, anti-spam and anti-phishing technologies to stop the latest threats before they impact your business and employees. Multi-pronged message filtering in the perimeter network is available through the Edge Transport server role. For customers who prefer to use a service, similar capabilities are provided in the “cloud” (as an Internet-based service) through Exchange Hosted Filtering*. Additionally, Forefront for Exchange Server* protects Exchange servers from viruses and worms by utilizing multiple antivirus engines simultaneously. To protect from evolving threats, filters are kept up to date with frequent and automatic updates.

*Exchange Hosted Filtering and Forefront Security for Exchange Server are included with the Exchange Server 2007 Enterprise CAL license.

• Reduce compliance risk in a way that makes sense for your business

Exchange Server 2007 incorporates features specifically designed to help your business comply with corporate, regulatory, and legal requirements. These features enable you to apply retention rules, scan and act on messages in transport, flexibly journal, and perform rich text searches across mailboxes in your organization. Exchange Server 2007 eases the toll often placed on administrators charged with applying and enforcing compliance policies, while avoiding adverse impact on employees and their productivity.

• Take advantage of powerful Web access

Outlook Web Access (OWA) 2007 provides a rich, Outlook 2007-like experience in a browser and is great for use at home, at an airport kiosk, at an internet café, at a friend’s house, or anywhere where there is an Internet connection available. No VPN or network tunnel is required. OWA enhancements in 2007 include a new Scheduling Assistant to help employees efficiently book meetings, fast server-side search, integrated unified messaging as well as new features to access documents and attachments more easily from outside the office. With two-factor authentication support and attachment viewing in HTML format, OWA also offers enhanced security compared with previous versions.

• See a detailed demonstration on the new and improved Outlook Web Access

Boost administrator productivity with new tools
Exchange Server 2007 helps administrators save time and reduce effort with advanced management tools. A new command line interface gives administrators complete, fine-grained control over Exchange objects as well as the power to easily automate all types of operations with scripts. In addition, the graphical management console has been completely updated, with a more intuitive user interface, improved discoverability and a toolbox work center that integrates diagnostics, monitoring, and troubleshooting tools including the Exchange Best Practices Analyzer and the Exchange Troubleshooting Assistant.

• Ease deployment and management

Deploying Exchange Server has never been easier. Exchange Server 2007 has a modern, modular architecture based on server roles. The server role concept is integrated into setup and deployment, helping to eliminate potential errors resulting from manual configuration, reducing the surface area for malicious attacks, and simplifying day-to-day management. Server roles are not tied to particular hardware configurations; they can be deployed on one server machine or many**. The new Autodiscover feature further eases deployment - by creating an automatic connection between Exchange Server and Outlook 2007 clients where no special scripts or complex user intervention is required.

**The exception is the Edge Transport role that is intentionally designed to reside by itself in the perimeter network.

• Optimize your investment for future growth

As a native 64-bit application, Exchange Server 2007 breaks through past memory and cache limitations for higher performance and increased scalability even as mailboxes sizes grow to accommodate employees’ demands for more storage. The resulting reduction in input/output (I/O) increases storage utilization so you can optimize existing storage investments or consider lower cost storage options.