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ORANGE COUNTY <br />BOARD OF COMMISSIONERS <br />ACTION AGENDA ITEM ABSTRACT <br />Meeting Date: January 24, 2006 <br />Action Agenda <br />Item No. <br />SUBJECT: Acquisition of Replacement Electronic Mail System Software <br />DEPARTMENT: Information Technologies <br />PUBLIC HEARING: (YIN) Yes <br />ATTACHMENT(S): <br />Consulting Quote Detail <br />Software Pricing <br />INFORMATION CONTACT: <br />Todd Jones, 245-2285 <br />Pam Jones, 245-2652 <br />PURPOSE: To approve the purchase of Microsoft Outlook/Exchange email and Active <br />Directory networking software, and consulting services, to address replacement of the County <br />email and networking system. <br />BACKGROUND: Funding for replacement of the County's electronic mail system is <br />appropriated in the 2005-06 Information Technology Capital Project Ordinance approved by the <br />Board of Commissioners in June 2006. The County's reliance on technology has increased <br />appreciably over the past few years. Communication with citizens and among staff has become <br />increasingly based on email. The County's email system, originally deployed in 1997, has <br />become unstable and is no longer meeting the County's needs. The County's Information <br />Technology organization, with advice from the County's Information Technology Advisory <br />Committee, is pursuing a total email system replacement <br />Email Volume and Reliance <br />The County now generates and receives tens of thousands of email messages each day. A <br />steady increase over the past 8 years reflects a growing public reliance on email to <br />communicate with Orange County government. The convenience of email has also enabled <br />staff to communicate internally with speed, breadth, and convenience. Many of the <br />technologies used in critical departmental functions have integrations within email, so that <br />status messages and critical alerts are automatically delivered through email. <br />While more traditional means of communication continue to be critical tools for engaging with <br />the public and for dialog between staff members, email has emerged as the single most critical <br />technology within Orange County government. <br />Current Email System Performance <br />Orange County had enjoyed reliable performance from Novell's GroupWise email product for <br />many years. Downtime was anecdotally deemed acceptable and the system met the County's <br />needs for the first 6 years of service. However, the 2004 release of the GroupWise product has <br />brought about a precipitous drop in reliability. The County's email system currently averages 4 <br />outages a week.