Re: Is SBS2003 right product?

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From: Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP] (les.connor_at_DEL.cfive.ca)
Date: 02/20/05 

Date: Sat, 19 Feb 2005 19:09:48 -0600

Hi Tony,

I have a client in a very similar circumstance.

It's an odd situation, where, as an IT consultant, you provide
infrastructure to an organization, who is really an organization of
organizations. Not all of the member organizations participate in the 'host'
organization at the same level, nor are they required to do so. There are
some shared resources, and there are the non-shared resources. The challenge
lies in sorting out who your client actually is on any given task.

A real estate broker has an advantage in that in return for providing
certain resources, he is entitled to a share in the individual agents
income. So, where the broker can provide resources that enable the agents to
become more successful (increase sales), he is able to realize a return on
his investment, as well as attract and keep productive agents, which also
provides him a return on his investment.

I find it helps to help the broker identify the resources he provides, and
identify the contribution each resource provides towards the agent's success
potential.

Then there are the agents themselves. They own their own computers, some
have their own assistants. They are entities and customers of yours in their
own right; that's the nature of their association with the broker.

So it gets interesting - which parts of the IT infrastructure are owned and
operated and maintained by the broker, and which are the responsibility of
the agent?. It would make sense that the shared resources are the fiscal
responsibility of the broker, while the non-shared resources are the fiscal
responsibility of the agent. But in a client/server network, it's not always
easy to make the distinction. But it is possible.

Overall, I believe that SBS provides many benefits to such organizations, as
the efficiency of utilizing shared resources is a common goal of both
client/server networking and the broker/agent relationship. The remote
accessability and mobility features of SBS are very much aligned with the
kind of business processes that are common in real estate.

The only caveat is that in this type of implementation, you have one
infrastructure but you don't have one client. The broker is one client, and
each agent is a separate client. So long as that is defined at the outset,
it can be a mutually beneficial and profitable relationship for all parties
;-). 

-- 
Les Connor [SBS Community Member - SBS MVP]
-----------------------------------------------------------
SBS Rocks !
"Tony R" <truggeri_nospam@gte.net> wrote in message 
news:%23MClngsFFHA.1924@TK2MSFTNGP14.phx.gbl...
> Hi all,
>
> I have a client who is a real estate broker and owns 4 real estate offices 
> throughout the area.  All realtors in these offices own (independent 
> agents) their desktop PC's and printers.  The only service that the broker 
> provides at these offices is internet access via a T1.  There are no 
> shared fax, printers, or files. What the broker would like to do is offer 
> his agents in these offices the ability to access their desktop PC's from 
> remote locations.  Is SBS2003 a product that that would work in this 
> scenario? Will all the agent's PC have to join the domain in order to 
> access the internet and give users the capability of remote desktops?
>
> TR
>

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