I'll mention that I just gave input to Idealware on an upcoming article on this
subject. Might be a good thing to look out for and read/use in your
negotiations.

The appeal of hosted services - particularly to CEO's and board members - is the
idea that they will lighten the burden of on-site IT support and, properly
selected and managed, they can do that. That is, if a reliable, acceptable
hosted solution exists for each of your applications -- a big question.
Selecting a poor vendor, or even selecting a good vendor, but not providing the
obsessive early attention required to establish the proper relationship and
expectations, can and likely will be disastrous. And, to my mind, this is the
thing that non-profit executives and stakeholders really need to understand -
outsourcing only pays off when the proper investment in selecting, negotiating
and establishing the relationship is made. If that's just delegated to a tiny
NPO IT team that is still up to it's waist managing the day-to-day stuff that
will be, but curremntly isn't outsourced, it's a recipe for a fiasco.

So moving to a hosted environment is a good strategic goal. Thinking that it
can be done quickly and/or easily would be just wrong.

---
Peter Campbell
IT Director, Earthjustice
http://www.earthjustice.org
"Because the earth needs a good lawyer"

Website/Blog: http://techcafeteria.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/peterscampbell

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