Project penguin: Novell CIO Debra Anderson talks to vnunet.com (vnunet) [LWN.net]

Vnunet talks with Debra Anderson, Novell CIO. "Novell chief information officer (CIO) Debra Anderson was given the task of migrating all of the company's 6,000 staff from Microsoft Windows to Novell Linux on the desktop. In an exclusive interview with vnunet.com she details the project and the lessons it provided."

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Migration strategy

Posted Sep 27, 2004 14:24 UTC (Mon) by scheck (guest, #4447) [Link]

For big migration projects to Linux it might be worthwhile to create an
internal market for "Legacy System Vouchers":

With a goal of 90% Linux systems, there are x legacy systems (MS Windows)
allowed. After the x vouchers for a legacy system have been assigned to the
different departments, they may be traded internally between the departments
for a fixed price or a yearly fee. This way the vouchers flow to the areas
where the legacy systems are really needed.

This approach was inspired by the Harvard Business Review article
"Bringing the Market Inside" by Thomas W. Malone (Apr 1, 2004):

http://tinyurl.com/5a5g8

"One such change is the ability to create markets inside companies, allowing
decision making to be decentralized and introducing some of the efficiency,
flexibility, and motivating influence of free markets.
[...]
BP, for example, met its goal of reducing the company's greenhouse gas
emissions nine years ahead of schedule, not by setting and enforcing targets
for each division but by allowing business unit heads to buy and sell
emissions permits among themselves using an electronic trading system."