I'm Fred Morris, I have been in business as an information technology consultant in Seattle for over 20 years. A lot has changed in that time, but then again many underlying principles have remained the same: serve your customers, strive for reliability, view controlling costs as a strategic imperative, be flexible, and focus on your core business.
Whether you're a large business or a small one I'm here to help you solve problems, meet new challenges, or just make old headaches go away. One of the biggest changes in recent years has been the explosion in alternatives to Microsoft.. in terms not only of their Windows branded operating systems, but also their philosophy of how software should work and how it should be licensed.
Linux is something of a cause celebre or bete noir for many people (or at least gets the press), but it's only part of a technology puzzle which also includes the tools for storing data (alternatives to Microsoft's SQLServer) and tools for developing and delivering business support services, in particular web-enabled applications. Technology in turn is part of a larger puzzle which also includes business processes and data standards.
I'm willing to make a bet that you went looking with Google or some other search engine for an answer to some question and found this page. If you're in the Puget Sound area and you want quality in-depth advice or assistance, then keep reading. The rest of this page is basically a questionnaire; check the boxes or provide information where pertinent as you read. At the bottom, provide some contact information and click the "Contact Me" button.. or pick up the phone and call me at 206.297.6344.
Licensing costs can be out of control because of business growth, unnecessary, or seldom-used applications; for that matter some software simply costs more than it's worth.
Staying in compliance with software licenses is not only a headache, it takes time.. if you get audited or slapped with a lawsuit for noncompliance it will cost you both time and money!
Inefficient processes or poor software "solutions" waste employee time and lose data. Employees aren't doing their jobs.
Software "upgrades" have hidden costs if they require hardware upgrades as well.
New markets, branch offices, field personnel.
Exchanging information with customers, vendors and suppliers, business intelligence.
Security concerns.
Time tracking, billing, resource management, time planning, project management.
Data standards, business processes, technology management.
Distributed document authoring. Version control. Checkin and checkout.
Typesetting, templating and document layout.
Publishing on the web or the internet.
Publishing to CD-ROM.
Printing and pre-press.
Catalogs, mail-merge and other database-driven publishing projects.
Going beyond e-commerce: rich customer interaction, on-line catalogs/inventory.
Order/issue tracking.
Extending internal project/workflow processes to include customers.
Document management. Records management. Version and revision control.
Auditing: Who has seen a document? Who has changed a document?
Who has access to documents?
How permanent are various types of documents and document storage?
Collaboration tools, groupware, workflow, scheduling, alternatives to Microsoft Outlook and e-mail.
Content management, wikis, intranets.
What is Linux? What else is there? Can I read Microsoft Office documents? What other web browsers are available?
Can I continue to use Microsoft Windows? How do I manage a gradual migration?
Thin clients. Web-based applications.
Firewalls. Virtual Private Networks (VPN).
File servers. Web servers. Databases.
Programming tools and scripting languages.
Fred Morris Consulting
6739 3rd NW, Seattle
206.297.6344
personalized service
exceptional value
a licensed local business since 1984