There's no inevitability as long as there's a willingness to think

I was back in Brisbane. My third trip, and, sadly, things weren’t improving.

The Financial Controller was still meddling in technology stuff and the IT guys were watching their jobs and their employer get flushed down the sewer by this stupid bean counter.

It was a recipe for disaster.

I actually felt sorry for the owners of the business. It was a family run operation and the board was made up of three family members, the Financial Controller and a friend of the family who was reasonably successful in his own right.

They were really clueless about technology and had trusted the Financial Controller. They got taken for a ride by someone who should have stuck to what they were good at rather than getting involved in something that they were hopelessly ill equipped to deal with.

The final straw for me was the cost of conversion moving to a complete Windows monoculture was massive.

While the Financial Controller was busy explaining to everyone that there were huge benefits from using Windows. George and his crew were seeing budgetary estimates rise quickly.

The root problem was the demand to go to a Windows monoculture. Had they stayed with the mixed environment they had, upgraded their Windows XP devices to Windows 7 as well as spend some money on addressing the few shortfalls they had in the environment they would be spending around $55,000.

Taking everything out and replacing it with Windows from start to finish was going to cost the company in excess of $425,000 - and here’s the thing - after spending all this money they’d have exactly the same capabilities that they had with their old environment.

That’s right. No net change in capabilities or functionality. A lot of money gets spent and nothing changes.

Now there’s a real strategy for success.

I was invited to a board meeting by the Financial Controller to provide my opinions regarding the migration.

This was going to be an interesting board meeting.