Simon

Cumbria

IT

"The MS integration and personalisation will benefit end users by providing a familiar, easy to use interface and boosting the speed of data entry and reporting."

I disagree, whenever I see such comments I tend to cringe at the crap about to be unleashed on users !

I've seen systems evolve from 'green screen' character mode to Windows applications and I've yet to see one where it actually improves data entry speed ! Take your simple, easily maintained, and above all fast, terminal and replace it with a Windows PC. Backwards step number 1, it's already slower, more expensive, harder&slower to use. You can mitigate some of the effects by using terminal services, but why ...
Now throw at the user a bloated interface that takes loads of screen estate for 'fancy bits', and a requirement to take a hand off teh keyboard repeatedly to use a mouse - more slowdown.
And of course, being Windows, it's going to break some time, so more downtime.

So 'going Windows' usually means more cost, more support cost, and the benefit is ... slower data entry !