06/04/2009

• 3:30pm, N42-286, CSS Managers 

Agenda

• Email client on Athena discussion (15 minutes, othomas)
  • Looking for a decision to switch from Evolution to Thunderbird as the recommended/supported email client on Athena
  • Pros
    • Have moved away from original push to mail clients bundled with OS in favor of most popular/best mail clients
    • Thunderbird provided by Ubuntu, so will automatically get security and other updates
    • Thunderbird has extremely large existing user base among Linux users, esp. among incoming students (much larger than Evolution); reduced need for new students to learn new mail client
    • No need to assist incoming Linux users in migrating mail from Thunderbird to Evolution; such migration has a high unit cost
    • Primary reason to retain Evolution was some Exchange support, which has been ruled out by Exchange implementation decisions
    • Thunderbird ships with RHEL 4 and 5 as well as Ubuntu, so covers RHEL clients as well
  • Cons
    • Supporting Thunderbird on Linux may make it harder to defend non-support on other platforms (however, precedent exists - OO, academic software)
• Brief update on Departmental Services presentation at ITPartners (Chris)
• Brief follow up on CRM email thread (Chris)
• MITBI Project and AUE (5 minutes) (Steve)
• Brief discussion of final mobile/internet policy (Wilson, all)
  • Do mobile devices never intended for use with a data/voice plan need to be individually approved?
  • Do replacement devices for existing approved users need to be approved?
  • EVDO cards (data only)
  • "Luddite clause" still present
• Finance update
  • 6/15 deadline for all FY2009 purchases
  • 7/15 for CSS budget structure changes
• HQ update
  • initial CSS Leaders meeting 6/29 (Wilson will set charter, discuss rotation of responsibilities for meeting, have staff do introductions as to role and current work)
  • will work with management team on FY2010 goals in July