Town Hall Meeting questions: IBIS

As I promised, I'll regularly answer questions regarding the company sent by employees to my e-mail address (don't forget to include your SunID, just in case...) or by asking directly in spontaneous town-hall meetings (I always wondered why tey are called this way).
This is the transcript of our latest meeting, containing question regarding IBIS, the new ERP-CRM-Expenses-BUGTracker-SoftwareForEveryThingImaginable we are installing at Sun

-(Sun employee -soon to be ex-employee) What the Hell is this S@~T you are imposing us? Why are we doing it in the opposite way it would be done in a project at any other customer? It is ORACLE software and it doesn't work well!!!

(Memo to Ashok: Edit the previous question so it will appera in the following way in the blog):
So, the question is: What is IBIS and how is it helping Sun?

-(Scooter)The answer is easy: just look at the picture aside or check the Wikipedia...
Ok, I'm just joking, I'm so funny... I know what is IBIS at Sun.
We took a decision a long time ago, to substitute all our internal systems related to CRM, ERP, Travel and Expenses, thousands of applications (Siebel, SunTea, etc.), for just one integrated system that would allow us to know in real time the status of the company, of our customers, if we are making money or losing it and where. And, by using just a single system to integrate all, we save in hardware (don't need hundreds of systems doing similar things), save in workforce (less administrators needed...), and save in software support (remember, just one product to be maintained).
Besides, it is back in the 2005-06 when we signed the non-aggression pact with Oracle, so while they bought Bea to eliminate one of our competitors, we had to buy MySQL to do the same, and as we spend much less money than them, we had to compensate Larry by using their software inside Sun, quite fair.

Ok, with this the session is over, and now we are off-the-record.

-(Sun almost ex-worker) Mista Scooter, an additional question. The idea seems right but it is a pain in the ass for the people at Sun, we are suffering a lot until IBIS started working, and the substitute of SunTEA (the Travel and Expenses tool), seems to be designed to make you desist asking for your money!

-(Scooter) Hehehehe, very funny, yes, yes, indeed the idea is to save money to the company because you stop asking for expense reimbursement... Just joking!!! (Ashok, take a picture of this dumb-ass). Maybe you have troubles because you didn't read the wikis (we had manuals, but wikis are much more Internet 2.0). Have a look to this link and you'll have no problem.

-(Sun almost ex-worker) Mista Scooter, it is in Korean!!

-(Scooter) What's the problem? I thought in Bangalore you were taught to understand anything.

-(Another almost ex-worker) It is rumored that the deploying process was done in the reverse way it should be done, and that some GEMs have been a whole month unable to issue offers or to record billings and contracts from customers.

-(Scooter) (Ashok, who the hell has come to this meeting? IBM Global Services!!!!) Well, when you sell a project to install a product, you usually learn the way the customer works, you analyze the internal processes of that customer and then you adapt the product to the customer's processes. But this costs money, and we don't want to waste it, so we decided to it the opposite and cheaper way: we installed the software as-is, with no customization (we even maintained the Oracle logos), and we are adapting our internal processes to be the ones used by default in the tool, so we are teaching our 40,000 employees to the new way we are doing business, the Oracle way. Clever, uh? If you want to know the exact method we follow, Scott Adams was there when we took the decision and illustrated it here.

Ok, the session is over, I have to go to have a little talk to Jonathan on account of an unauthorized use of my parking lot with a Prius he wasn't able to turn on... (we had to bring his wife to do it...again).

(Ashok, rememeber not to publish the later part of the meeting, it is highly confidential; and find out the IDs of the two guys making the questions).
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Update1: Ashok was fired this morning and his back was painted in yellow for treason.

Update2: Ashok entered five minutes ago asking why he had so much troubles entering into the office today. It seems that his cousin Vidyacharan impersonated him in the town hall meeting (he is working indeed for HP). I re-admitted Ashok, after all I need someone to write this blog... (I find their faces all the same!!!)