Blog Article by Keith Fowlkes on January 22, 2020
keith.fowlkes@hessconsortium.org

I know this might be a little rant and many of my readers may wonder why I care about this little company's software... but stay with me for a minute.

Over my years as a technology leader, I've used Oracle, Informix, SQL Server, Postgres and MySQL database platforms with a bunch of different development tools.  While these enterprise platforms have done well over the years, my favorite database product for smaller projects is Filemaker Pro.  Don't laugh.  The software is the best "point-click-design-publish" database software ever created.  While most database professionals might call it a "toy database," professionals and beginners can do some pretty amazing things with this software... and fast.

By Keith Fowlkes for Campus Technology Magazine
12/5/2019 | click here to see original article

I always learn something new when I am with my friends in the higher education and ERP industries. I learned yet a new term at Educause 2019 in Chicago this year: "BURNING PLATFORM!" It sounds ominous and brings to mind visions of 1990s oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. But what does it actually mean?

"Burning platform" is a new term used by some consultants and many competing ERP solution providers to refer (harshly) to companies that are continuing to pull their customers along with a dead-end, "legacy" solution. Having implemented some of these solutions in the past, I can attest that many are using the same core code as they did in the late '90s and early 2000s. While still functional, a burning platform is older and uses somewhat outdated programming methods to post journal entries to a general ledger, move student data into tables, and handle integration records being transferred between old ancillary systems. If you are familiar with running these older systems, I'm sure you can think of a number of routines and scripts you have used for years to manage your ERP.

by Sean O'Brien, Internet2 and Keith Fowlkes, Vice President, E&I Technology

We’re excited to have announced earlier today that E&I Cooperative Services (E&I) and Internet2 are collaborating on a pilot project to bring together E&I’s public procurement expertise and Internet2’s cloud expertise, as developed through the NET+ program.

A request for proposal (RFP) for cloud-hosted telecommunications and web conferencing services will be released as part of this pilot shortly. A committee consisting of mutual members of E&I and Internet2, along with staff from both organizations, are completing work on the RFP at this time. This blog post is intended to answer some initial questions and provide additional context for our members about the pilot project. We’re looking forward to the opportunities presented by this collaboration and are eager to hear feedback, comments, questions, and ideas from our members.

If you have additional questions on the pilot, please reach out to both of us at kfowlkes@eandi.org and sobrien@internet2.edu. If you have questions about the RFP process, please reach out to Cathy Goglia, Contracts Manager, Technology, at cgoglia@eandi.org. 

Earlier this summer, something very exciting happened in the higher education ERP industry. Through the hard work of our expert RFP team and a group of visionary ERP solution providers, E&I Cooperative Services signed a contract agreement that represents a giant leap in an industry with a somewhat antiquated pricing and licensing model.

First, I know that this may seem like a promotional article for my organization, but I promise that it is not meant to be that. I truly believe that what we have done here is the first step in an industry-wide shift in the way ERP solution providers engage educational customers.