An I.T. Consultant's Case Study

8 October 2002


Our firm most often works with the SMB (small-to-medium) client segment. Microsoft defines this as 500 PC’s or less. We define it as companies and individuals with fewer than 50 PC’s and most often 5 to 15.
Here’s the scenario: A lawyer with 5 office workers is downsizing. He’s decided to move everyone to their homes. After the move there will only be the lawyer and 3 other workers working from home. However, each of the 4 people will have at least DSL or cable modem access from home. (assume that is between 500Kbps and 1.5Mbps of bandwidth for each)
Here’s the objective: Allow these 4 people to work at home as if they were at the current office. No new learning curves for new applications. Easy connectivity. Ease of sharing information.
Here’s a constraint: They want to use exactly the same applications they are currently using. They use Microsoft Office – Standard & Professional. They use Goldmine for their client database. They use Quickbooks Pro for their accounting. They also use a shared filing system on the file server for Office documents, spreadsheets, presentations, etc.

Top Five ASP.NET Web Services Tips. Alex Ferrara, coauthor of Programming .NET Web Services, offers a brief comparison between ASP.NET Web services and .NET remoting, and then delves into five useful tips for developing ASP.NET Web services. [O’Reilly Network Articles]

Here’s the question: Can these four people ’subscribe’ to an ASP that can ’host’ all four of these applications or needs? At what cost per month per user? They’d prefer to ’subscribe’ to Office rather than install it on each PC.
Here’s the challenge: They want an answer in 24 hours. Did I mention this was a lawyer?

Filed under: