Vogel Internet, Information Technology and e-Discovery Blog : Texas Internet, Information Technology, eCommerce & E-Discovery Lawyer & Attorney Peter S. Vogel : Gardere Wynne Sewell Law Firm : Dallas TX

Apparently Microsoft did not learn its lesson hiring Jerry Seinfeld to help launch Vista in the fall of 2008, now apparently Tiger Woods will be Microsoft’s spokesman for Windows 7! Is it possible that Steve Ballmer actually said???: “This guy is big – really big from what I hear, and he’s known as a great multi-tasker who can juggle different extra-curricular activities – just like Windows 7!” Now that Tiger Woods is playing in the Masters in Augusta we will see a media frenzy like nothing else.

Microsoft Loses Its Appeal

The Federal Circuit Court of Appeals rejected Microsoft’s appeal for an en banc hearing that Microsoft willfully infringed i4i’s patent and owes more than $240 million in damages. Last January Microsoft removed the offending XML technology from Word 2007 and Office 2010 will not include the infringing technology. Next for Microsoft is the US Supreme Court, who may take the case. However, since less than 4% of cases presented to the US Supreme Court by Petition for Writ of Certiorari are accepted.  So it's unlikely that the US Supreme Court will consider Microsoft's appeal.

10 years after Microsoft vs. DOJ

It’s hard to believe that in April 2000 “U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson ruled that Microsoft violated federal and state antitrust laws and ordered the company to decouple its operating system and browser technology, pay hefty fines and undergo years of scrutiny to prevent future market monopolizing.” Apparently Microsoft if doing well since Microsoft reported “in January record revenues of nearly $20 billion for its second fiscal quarter.” One of the major problems 10 years ago was the monopoly of Internet Explorer, and even though Netscape is no longer in the market apparently the browser wars now continue in the US and EU with Google Chrome and Firefox.

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Cloud Computing is not to blame for the General Services Administration’s exaggeration that it saved $850 million when in fact the savings was $1.8 million! At the recent FOSE conference a GSA official failed to describe how the federal agency managed to save $850 million and over what time frame the saving occurred, but later the GSA had to admit the spokesman “misspoke.” Of course Cloud Computing is a pretty hot topic these days, but hardly a new concept. Before personal computers and servers, in the 1960’s and 1970’s many companies bought computer resource time on mainframes over phone lines which was called “time sharing,” now that same concept of buying computer resources over the Internet is referred to as Cloud Computing. There is much debate about whether Cloud Computing is a great savior to IT, but the GSA’s unbelievable exaggeration of savings does little to help! Having good Cloud Computing contracts is the best medicine.

EDWARD TUFTE – A Most Brilliant Communicator

In 1995 I attended a day-long Edward Tufte seminar with a handful of individuals about how to better communicate information. Tufte is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Statistics, and Computer Science at Yale University, but with the proliferation of the Internet now Tufte’s seminars are attended by hundreds when he tours the country. I have relied on his concepts since that seminar to try to communicate better.  Tufte's books which have won more than 40 awards are wonderful, you should take a look: Beautiful Evidence, Visual Explanations, Envisioning Information, the Visual Display of Quantitative Information, and Data Analysis for Politics and Policy. If ever you have an opportunity to hear Tufte speak, please do as it will ignite great thoughts.

TUFTE to the Rescue

In March the President appointed Tufte to advise the Recovery Accountability and Transportation Board to help the public understand how $787 billion in stimulus monies are being spent. As a former federal employee I understand how the government can bury information so the public is incapable of understanding. When Tufte was shown the first web design about the stimulus monies he called it “intellectually impoverished. So check out recovery.gov and you will be amazed how easy it is to understand. Many thanks to Professor Tufte!

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As more business rely on cloud computing and ERP systems it is essential to negotiate contracts to suit the needs of each enterprise. Please watch my new video entitled "The Price You Pay for IT: From ERP to Cloud Computing" where many of the important IT contract topics are presented.

Videos from SmartPros Ltd.

It is an honor to be a contributor to the library of video programs for SmartPros Ltd. which I have done since 2001. I encourage you to investigate SmartPros Ltd. where my video is one of many outstanding programs for “corporate accounting, financial management, public accounting, governmental and not-for-profit accounting, financial services training, banking, engineering, legal, and ethics and compliance.”

Farr Systems/BravoTECH CIO Roundtable Breakfast

In February I had the privilege to participate in a CIO Roundtable sponsored by Farr Systems and BravoTECH and here is a summary of the topics we discussed:

Please reach out to my friends Phil Farr (Farr Systems) and Andrew Jackson (BravoTECH) to discuss important IT issues. I thank Farr Systems and BravoTECH for allowing me to participate with a group of CIO leaders. Events such as this allow IT leaders to share experiences and create thought-provoking discussion about common thorny issues confronting businesses today, including cloud computing and social networking.

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Alarming Headline: Eight indicted for $9 million hack

No one is really surprised by this recent headline that 8 individuals (at least three of whom were in Estonia, Russia, and Moldova) were indicted in a $9 million hack within 12 hours after breaking into a computer network operated by credit-card processing vendor RBS WorldPlay. Allegedly counterfeit debit “cards were used to withdraw more than $9 million from more than 2,100 ATMs in about 280 cities worldwide, including cities in the U.S., Russia, Ukraine, Estonia, Italy, Hong Kong, Japan and Canada.”

Daily Computer and Internet Threats

In the meantime headline after headline show how vulnerable our computer networks and the Internet are, but to add more complications the federal government also has budget restraints. Clearly we have to improve the protection our financial and defense systems. Without question the public deserves better than what’s going on now. Something has to change otherwise everyone is at risk. However just appointing a person as Cyber Czar is not enough, as it will take commitments from governments around the world. Computer and Internet crime is not new, but it's time to get control over it because it seems we are more vulnerable than ever!

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As a frequent flier with millions of air miles I was as shocked as anyone to learn that a pilot and first officer were preoccupied with their laptops while flying to Minneapolis from San Diego last week. The crew apparently was so mentally invested in their laptops that they did not hear their radios for more than an hour and over flew their destination by 150 miles. Surely new rules will be instituted to protect the flying public.

Computers are Addictive!

In 1967 I took a course in statistics, but the first half of the course was FORTRAN programming, and I’ve been addicted to computers ever since. Many of you reading this blog know that one loses all sense of time and space when sitting at a computer, and with the advent of the flood of information on the Internet losing oneself into a computer has never been easier. Is it any wonder that this flight crew were deeply engrossed and lost all sense of time and space?

Wifi in the Air

Now that airlines are providing wifi services on aircraft one might wonder if wifi will be a good thing or bad. It’s impossible to be on a plane going anywhere today where passengers are not using laptops, netbooks, and cell phones, whether they are checking email, or preparing spreadsheets, powerpoints, documents, or just watching movies. So it seems the sky is full of computers and unlikely to ever be less, however the flying public should have better expectations of the pilots.

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On the heels of Dell’s purchase of Perot Systems, Xerox announced that it was purchasing Affiliated Computer Systems (ACS) for $6.4B. Dell just agreed to buy Perot Systems for $3.9B. Now that 3 major hardware companies have purchased outsourcing vendors the outsourcing/sale of hardware market will get more interesting. ACS claims it is the “world's largest diversified business process outsourcing (BPO) firm, ACS is a $6.5 billion company with revenue growth of 6 percent and new business signings of $1 billion in annual recurring revenue during its fiscal 2009.”

Other Developments with Perot Systems

Apparently not everyone at Perot Systems thinks the purchase by Dell is so wonderful as some Perot Systems’ shareholders filed suit to stop the sale. In the meantime Perot Systems announced that it will acquire BearingPoint China Consulting and made the following statement:

BearingPoint China Consulting has earned numerous industry awards. In 2008, the China Software Association and ERP world.net ranked the firm among the "Top 10 IT Consulting Firms" in China, and named CEO Machan among the "Top 10 People of the Year in the IT Industry" in China. The firm also was chosen as "Most Trusted Consulting Firm" in 2007 by the China Enterprise Confederation.

Of course this acquisition is subject to U.S. Bankruptcy Court approval as well as that of the Chinese government. It seems that Perot Systems is not sitting idle while the Dell acquisition is taking place.

Where are We Going? Proprietary Systems?

What’s going on in the outsourcing world with these major acquisitions? One answer might be that outsourcing vendors will now try to tie their customers to them more closely by creating special hardware/software systems that make leaving more difficult and expensive. Remember a year ago that Oracle and HP announced that specialized hardware systems for Oracle databases. Sounds a lot like the old minicomputer days when every hardware manufacturer had a proprietary operating system and as a result customers found it cost prohibitive to change vendors…hard to image in today’s world of Windows Servers and Linux. Time will tell.
 

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HAPPY 4TH ANNIVERSARY TO DISPUTING!!! – conceived by Karl Bayer and Rob Hargove.  These days Disputing is ably managed by Victoria VanBuren. Victoria recently reached out to me and posted some of my materials and now I am a Guest Blogger for Disputing. This ADR (Alternative Dispute Resolution) Guest Blog was posted on August 12, 2009.

MY GUEST BLOG ABOUT A MEDIATION CONFERENCE:

Blog by Peter Vogel, posted August 12, 2009.

After receiving a Temporary Restraining Order (”TRO”) the Judge ordered a mediation conference between the plaintiff software licensor and their customer in Alabama. The software in dispute was a specialized tax website that the plaintiff had spent many years developing, and after defendant abruptly terminated the license the plaintiff was shocked that the defendant had a competing website providing specialized tax services somewhat a kin to the plaintiff. So the trial judge had no trouble issuing a TRO. As oftentimes happens the Judge ordered me to mediate the case since I was a programmer and have a masters in computer science. My law practice of more than 30 years has always been limited to representing buyers and sellers of IT and Internet services.

Step One – In Depth Review of Plaintiff’s Technology

Since the defendant was in Alabama I arranged a meeting with the plaintiff licensor’s technical staff at my offices a few days before the mediation conference. Plaintiff’s IT staff demonstrated the construction and schema for their data base, and how the website processed data. This exercise lasted a couple of hours, but provided good insight about their IT solution and web business.

Step Two – Review Defendant’s Technology

When the defendant arrived from Alabama for the mediation conference I immediately requested that they demonstrate their website, database construction, and schema. It did not take a lot to determine that the database structures and implementation were not related to the plaintiff’s at all. Further that there were no clues that defendant developed their systems with the aid of plaintiff’s technology.

Settled at the Mediation

The case settled immediately. As a neutral observer of the databases and websites I was certain that the plaintiff’s and defendant’s tax websites were not related. Although on the surface it seemed obvious to most that how else would the developed their website were it not for access and use of plaintiff’s software.

Without question my IT experiences saved both parties from expensive litigation, and allowed them to move on.

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A permanent injunction was entered based on Microsoft’s patent infringement that prohibits the sale of Word products for certain custom XML codes! Also US District Judge Leonard Davis (Eastern District of Texas in Tyler) ordered Microsoft to pay $40 million for willful infringement and $37 million in prejudgment interest. This injunction and award of willful damages follows a May, 2009 jury verdict that ordered Microsoft to pay i4i $200 million for infringing patent 5,787,449 that deals with metacodes. Needless to say Microsoft will appeal and/or settle. However, in the meantime this will send shockwaves in the IT community.

Word Free Online v. Google Apps
 

Days before the Judge Davis’ order Microsoft announced that Word would be available free online in a Software as a Service (SaaS) model in direct competition with Google’s Apps. This makes for interesting news since Word is the mainstream word processor in the world and has become the de facto standard. So coupled with the permanent injunction precluding Microsoft from selling Word with certain XML features, this is an intriguing development.
 

SaaS Word Processing?
 

Microsoft Office, Google Apps, and OpenOffice all provide pretty much the same Word type documents, operate a great deal alike, so do users need to have their word processor on their computers? Laptops? PDAs? Or just available on the Internet in a SaaS? Time will tell, but most users like the ability to process Word documents on their computer without relying on Internet access, regardless of which word processing software they use. SaaS and Cloud systems have in common that their customer data resides on the hosted systems, not in the confines behind firewalls and on users’ computers.
 

This is how Google’s offers its Apps:

“Outsourcing to Google lets you run your business instead of running routine IT systems.
* Google Apps is 1/3 the total cost of competing solutions.
* No special hardware or software is required, and Google runs the servers so you can focus on your business.
* Get better reliability than on-premises solutions, with a 99.9% uptime guarantee.**
* Data can remain on Google's infrastructure, rather than on unsecured devices.”

Everyone on earth can see how much power Google has developed and Google Apps is a great success. However since Google is not in the top 20 most trusted companies it can certainly make one wonder where is the Internet going?

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A recent review of a vendor’s proposed contracts for a new ERP (Enterprise Resource Program) system reminded me why so many implementations fail and lead to litigation - vendors generally underestimate the scope of the systems (on purpose to keep the price tag low, or just don’t know what they are doing) and as a result a large number of ERP implementations are failures. Actually Y2K may be the blame since as 2000 approached many companies decided to replace aging systems, many of which were silo applications systems did not share data (like HR not sharing data with accounting). So SAP, Oracle, PeopleSoft (now part of Oracle), and many others offered unified systems to allow companies to share data between all business operations and activities referred to as ERP systems.

The Ten Commandments of IT Contracts Apply

Since an ERP system includes software, hardware, implementation services, and on-going support clearly I believe that my Ten Commandments of IT Contracts apply. My Ten Commandments are based on negotiating and litigating hundreds of IT contracts:

1st Commandment – No Computer Project is ever completed on time
2nd Commandment – No Computer Project is ever complete
3rd Commandment – If you cannot see the software, it does not exist
4th Commandment – New versions of operating systems never work
5th Commandment – There are no Industry Standards
6th Commandment – Do not buy brand new hardware
7th Commandment – Do not buy brand new software
8th Commandment – Sales people have answers to every question
9th Commandment – Sales people know absolutely nothing
10th Commandment – Individuals who negotiate contracts are never around later

After posting my blog on the Ten Commandment two clients offered Commandments 11 and 12:

11th Commandment - Any IT development project large enough to have its own acronym name (BEST, BIGGEST, CYCLONE, etc) will fail
12th Commandment– Before every project, select a scapegoat and do not invite that person to meetings

Surely some readers may have others Commandments to offer, so please let me know.

What’s Different about ERP Implementations?

Often times a third party is responsible for the ERP implementation and on-going support, and the software vendor only offers a license. Depending on the software and vendors in any particular market this may be the norm. But the ideal circumstance is that the software vendor for the ERP system also does the implementation and on-going support, but prudent contract negotiations are still required.

The EPR vendor whose contracts I reviewed recently included two agreements, one a license and another for system implementation. However if the implementation does not go well, the customer should not be stuck with the software. So my advice to the customer is to sign one agreement for all software, implementation services, and on-going support. Other critical components were missing from this proposed vendor agreement – a schedule of events and a statement of work. Customers should never sign contracts to acquire ERP systems if there is no precise schedule of events and clear responsibilities of the parties in a statement of work. Detailed schedules and complete statements of work provide help because this forces the parties to think through what will happen, and payments can be based on the completion of major milestones in the schedule based on the statement of work.

With a little planning and foresight disastrous ERP implementation systems can be avoided, but it’s critical that customers user lawyers and consultants who have been through the wars to avoid major disasters.
 

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Recent reports from the EU potentially impact a number of Internet and IT industry issues of great import, including plans for new laws to protect consumers from IT security breaches, Microsoft’s strategy to defend antitrust claims regarding the Internet Explorer (IE) browser, and a ruling that Intel violates antitrust laws.

EU Notice for Loss of Data

The EU plans to pursue new laws that would create more stringent reporting of IT security breaches, more like the US and Japan. Of course IT breaches are not a new topic in the IT community nor on this blog. However the new California law in 2003 requiring notice to consumers was a model that many states of have adopted, and citizens are clearly better off that they are notified of possible loss of their personal information.

Microsoft Browser Strategy

Recent blogs that Google, joined Mozilla and Opera complaining about Microsoft’s anticompetitive distribution of the IE browser is taking an interesting turn. Apparently Microsoft plans to argue in defense that restrictions on distribution of its IE will strengthen Google’s search-advertising market in an anticompetitive way. Apparently the EU estimates that 85% of the browsers in the EU are Microsoft’s IE, but if Microsoft has its way IE will continue to be distributed with Windows Operating Systems as it has since 1995.

Intel to Get an Adverse Ruling

The EU is expected to rule this week that Intel’s marketing in the EU violates antitrust laws, and Intel’s 81.9% market share is not because it has superior products. Rather the EU will rule that Intel has illegally handed out rebates and paid computer makers to delay products with rival chips.

EU Impact on IT

It’s probably about time that the EU enacted IT security breach laws to protect consumers like many US states. The EU is taking IT very seriously, and not reacting well to US IT companies’ market strategies that may be acceptable in the US. As more countries provide high speed Internet access to all citizens, countries around world will need to be even more vigilant to protect their citizens, by informing them of IT security breaches to protect personal identity and from anticompetitive behavior.

Since I see the Internet as the greatest social change in the history of humans (since there are no boundaries of time and geography), it seems reasonable that governments will only have a higher responsibility to protect citizens since we are all more and more reliant on the Internet and IT.
 

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Google (Chrome browser) and Mozilla (Firefox browser) joined forces in the EU to complain about Microsoft’s marketing of Internet Explorer (IE) originally brought by Norwegian browser company Opera, and T3 filed an antitrust complaint in the EU against IBM for adversely impacting the mainframe market. Neither Microsoft nor IBM are strangers to antitrust actions in the US and EU, and these complaints are just chapters in very long novels. Both companies have had profound impacts on IT and the Internet, and Microsoft and IBM have an interesting history together which makes these EU complaints all the more interesting.

US v. IBM

From its origins with the 1890 Census Dr. Herman Holerith’s 80 column punch card (what I call the 1st Big Bang of the Internet) led to a company called IBM which had a monopoly on punch cards until its consent decree in the 1930s. Then in January 1969 the US Justice Department brought an antitrust action against IBM for monopolizing the computer market. At the time IBM sold its hardware, software, training, and all services as a bundled product. That is, if someone wanted the mainframe software they also had to purchase hardware, training, and everything else from IBM. So in the July 1969 IBM signed another consent decree to unbundle which led to the development of hundreds of companies for supplying software (like University Computing and Computer Associates), hardware (disk drives, memory, and the like). The antitrust trial was heard by a judge in New York for many years before the claims were dismissed when President Reagan came to office in 1981. Interestingly enough one of the lawyers who represented IBM in the trial was David Boies who represented the US government in the antitrust trial against Microsoft in 1998.

IBM and Microsoft Changed Computing Together

In 1981, the same year that the Antitrust suit was dropped by the US government, IBM launched its Personal Computer (PC) as most folks know (my 3rd Big Bang of the Internet). The IBM PC’s operating systems (OS) was a product call IBM-DOS (Disk OS) from an upstart company in Redmond, Washington called Microsoft (MS). When IBM introduced the PC this was a major departure for IBM in that this was IBM’s first product which used components made by others including the OS. There were a number of other PC’s on the market before 1981, many of which relied on an OS from Digital Research called CP/M (Control Program for Microcomputers) which was very popular. Apparently IBM could not reach an agreement with Digital Research, but did reach an accord with Microsoft. Although IBM wanted to restrict the use of IBM-DOS like Apple had done with it OS, but ultimately the Microsoft OS version (MS-DOS) was widely used on the clones (Compaq, HP, and many others) with the advent of the Phoenix Technologies BIOS (Basic Input Output System) that permitted all Intel based PCs to use MS-DOS.

Impact of IBM and Microsoft

Both companies have had a dramatic impact on IT and the Internet as is quite obvious, and these claims in the EU may chart the future of each company. Holerith’s 80 column punch and its progeny which started around 1890 last until the advent of the Graphic User Interface (GUI) which was popularized by Apple’s Lisa (from a license with Xerox) and Microsoft’s Windows products. Ironically one of the most significant events for the evolution of the Internet (my 4th Big Bang of the Internet) was in about 1995 when Microsoft started distributing IE which without additional charge. Microsoft’s IE became ubiquitous and the notwithstanding Microsoft’s anticompetitive business practices, the use of the Internet exploded. So we all should watch closely to see how the EU deals with the claims against IBM and Microsoft as the EU’s rulings will likely impact the future of IT and the Internet.
 

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My 10 Commandments of IT Contracts have been a common speech I have given for many years and is based on drafting, negotiating, and litigating hundred of IT contracts. Most IT professionals can guess all 10:

1st Commandment – No Computer Project is ever completed on time
2nd Commandment – No Computer Project is ever complete
3rd Commandment – If you cannot see the software, it does not exist
4th Commandment – New versions of operating systems never work
5th Commandment – There are no Industry Standards
6th Commandment – Do not buy brand new hardware
7th Commandment – Do not buy brand new software
8th Commandment – Sales people have answers to every question
9th Commandment – Sales people know absolutely nothing
10th Commandment – Individuals who negotiate contracts are never around later

Obviously there are other issues to be concerned about when negotiating IT Contracts, this is not the universe by any stretch.

Consider all 10 Commandments when you next negotiate an IT Contract, and post a comment to let me know if you know of other Commandments to add to the list.
 

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Heartland Payment Systems disclosed what may be largest payment data breach to date with over 100M cards being compromised. Apparently unknown intruders planted malicious software to steal data card information which was not detected until Visa and MasterCard alerted Heartland. Heartland’s public statement indicated that this may have been the result of “widespread global cyberfraud,” and also claimed that no merchant data, Social Security number, and other personal data was compromised. However until there’s a complete investigation we cannot be sure.

No Federal Law About Data Breaches

The US Congress has been mulling over legislation for some time, but in the meantime many states have laws that require disclosure of these breaches. The first such law as in California in 2003 (SB 1386) which requires that any computer which is breached there must be a notice sent to every citizen of California whose data was in that computer. The computers themselves do not have to be in California, merely that the computer has data about California residents. Texas (2005 SB 122) and many other states of similar laws now, but it does seem logical that there a federal law.

PCI Data Security Standards

PCI (Payment Card Industry) established Data Security Standards, however these standards are not law, and each Credit Card company has slightly different rules. Basically any company that processes credit card transactions is covered by these standards. However until there is significant disaster testing the effective of the standards, or some state adopts these standards we will not have one single set of rules.

Computer Breaches are Not New

Breaking into computer networks is as old as computers. Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s there were plenty of stories of universities whose computer networks were shut-down by incoming freshman year after year as a challenge to see who could clobber the system first. The simple solution was to provide a command that would automatically disable the system, and the challenge evaporated. Fast forward to the Internet era and we now reward hackers by hiring them to work for our government security agencies since they know how to penetrate systems.

Post a comment to let me know what you think about data breaches and how they should be managed.
 

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It seems like just yesterday that the 2000 election concluded with the US Supreme Court deciding the election because of hanging chads! So given the number of early complaints it seems that the 2008 election may also be decided in the courts….maybe not because of hanging chads, but some electronic voting glitch.

Were things better before E-voting?

Some voters wish for the old lever machines or paper ballots, but unfortunately most people don’t understand that the lever machines led to unreliable vote totals. Lever machines were simple in that each voter pulled a lever for their candidate and a wheel in the back of the machine added one more number to the candidate’s totals. However, if someone wanted to change an outcome, the wheels could be increased to help one candidate, and as long as the person changing the votes also reduced another candidate’s count no one would know. Or even paper ballots are not perfect since an enterprising person could replace ballots to change the outcome. As a matter of fact there are some elections that require voters to use pencils to complete paper ballots…how unreliable is a pencil vote?

E-Voting Systems are Pretty Reliable

In 1986, before there were any computer election system laws in Texas, I represented 6 candidates for City Council in Dallas who were concerned about the use of Dallas County’s computer election system since the only other county in the country using that particular system was Cook County, Illinois. So Dallas County agreed to a re-count mechanism to validate the count rather than deal with an injunction. The next year 1987, I worked with the Texas Legislature to create a computer election law which included a certification process by the Texas Secretary of State. For the next 13 years I was an Examiner for the Texas Secretary of State of computer election systems. During that I time Texas developed a very strict set of rules for certification and as a result it seems to me that the validation process of computer election systems in Texas means that the results of the 2008 election should be reliable. Primarily because in Texas there is a testing process before and after each election to validate the counting process, but what cannot be quantified in any election are individuals who may figure ways to change the election vote. However, that’s endemic to the election process and cannot be totally eliminated. As a matter of fact, every election requires human integrity to protect the actual votes, whether for President of the US or high school.
 

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Since its creation by the Texas Legislature in 1997 I have had the honor and privilege to serve as Chair of the Texas Supreme Court Judicial Committee on Information Technology (JCIT) whose primary focus is to help automate the Texas Court System and put the Internet on the desktop of all 3,200 Judges. Of course when JCIT started in 1997 it was impossible to predict the explosion of growth in the Internet, but nonetheless JCIT has dealt with the changes to IT and information as a result.

Texas Court System

Texas is a large State in geography, population, and local government, as we have 254 counties, more than 1,100 cities, and about 23 million people. Each of the 254 Counties are run by Commissioners’ Courts who also are responsible many other government functions, and there are over 400 District and County Clerks who receive documents filed in the various District and County Courts. Each City finances its own Municipal Court system. Generally local governments are responsible for financing the Court System except the 16 Appellate Courts which are funded by State funds, which include 14 intermediate Courts of Appeal, a civil Supreme Court called the Supreme Court of Texas, and a criminal Supreme Court call the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals. All Judges are elected except the +1,000 Municipal Judges who are appointed by the Cities.

Electronic Courtrooms

Many of the trial courts around Texas are now automating the trial courtrooms so that trial lawyers and judges can use cutting edge technology to display evidence, PowerPoint, video, and websites to juries. AMX is one such company who has implemented courtrooms in a number of Texas Counties including Dallas and Collin. These electronic tools have helped transform the trial process to keep in step with the explosive growth to the Internet and IT. AMX technology is also used by the Supreme Court to broadcast oral argument through St. Mary’s University School of Law.

eFiling in Texas Court

One statutory charge of JCIT was to implement an eFiling system for case documents. JCIT structured the eFiling project with TexasOnline since the Texas Legislature mandated that all State government agencies use the Texas eGovernment portal. TexasOnline has contracts with more than 36 Counties to provide eFiling directly to the District and County Clerks in a standard pdf format. We refer to TexasOnline as the ESM (Electronic Filing Manager) and at the same time TexasOnline has contracts with about 6 EFSPs (Electronic Filing Service Providers) who in turn have contracts with various law firms around the State. The lawyers file with the EFSP of their choice, and the time of the filing is when the lawyer files with the EFSP, who then transmits to the EFM, who in turns files the documents with the specific District or County Clerk. The TexasOnline service also provide for service of documents to other parties, and Judges may issues orders to lawyers in various cases.
 

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The announcement that Oracle and HP have teamed up to offer a specialized hardware systems for Oracle’s database sounds a lot like days gone by when Minicomputer companies long since gone had proprietary hardware and operating systems, and nothing was compatible with other systems. Oracle has spent years promoting itself as hardware independent so that one could get Oracle’s products and load them on existing technology. This may be the beginning of new proprietary systems.

Remember Minicomputers?

Most IT professionals and system buyers remember companies like DEC (Digital Equipment Corporation), DG (Data General), and Wang each of whom offered proprietary hardware, operating systems, and applications. Generally Minicomputers were multiuser computers systems that supported less than about 200 terminals, and in today’s server environment it is difficult to even image. However, over time and advent of Microsoft server software and various flavors of unix the manufacturer of hardware became less important. As a matter of fact in many technology contracts the actual manufacturer of the hardware is not specified, rather the processor speed, size, and storage may be listed and when the purchase takes place the best product in the market is what is purchased.

Where are we headed?

It seems that Oracle’s new marriage with HP may be directing IT shops to be stuck with hardware systems that they may not want, or limit their options when new technologies hit the market. Not being machine dependent has been very liberating in contract negotiations for new applications, however this new Oracle/HP marriage may only be a headline that portends the future of IT.
 

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