Our experience with Microsoft database

["Drews, Jonathan*" <DrewsJ@cder.fda.gov>]

Last year we solicited bids for a backup server here for the FDA. We invited
three open source vendors to come and give proposals for the backup data
base. The FDA turned down the MySQL data base solution because it did not
have a nice gui front end. Instead they went with the Microsoft vendor
solution. Here is what has happened:

1) Although the data base was purchased last September, it still is not
installed!
2) This wonderful data base has:
* disabled two Waters HPLC instruments, when they were needed for a
congressionally mandated drug study. That days work (a time consumming
dissolution) had to be thrown out !
* disabled a UV/Vis spectrophotometer, when the analyst was ready to start
testing. 
  I got it working for him by disconnecting the machine from the intranet.
* Wiped out the fonts on a Differential Scanning Calorimeter.
* Disabled the functionality of an Agilent HPLC's run time menu.
* When they hooked the Microsoft solution up to my HPLC it wiped out my
column data
  base. The result was that it could not print out it's reports. It took me
two days to figure out what was going wrong. NOTE: you have 5 working days
to complete an USP candidate!
3) The original implementation price has gone from ~$25,000.00 to
~$100,000.00. 
4) The company that sold us the database has been bought by another company.
So it's unsure whether the problems will be resolved.
5) The implemented data base has *less* functionality than the proposed Open
Source ones.

 I think sys admins and software developers should actually be made to use
their Microsft implementations, when they are going to be used to process
toxic substances. It's no fun to have to *redo* a test because the crappy
Microsoft locked up or failed to work right. Microsft is atrociously buggy
software. This is the reason, I hate Microsot's products. 
 Another point, I had a friend and she worked night shift where the sloppy
Microsft application would overfill vats with *Nitric Acid*. I mean the
stupid MS software would just go bonkers for no reason at all and not stop
filling the vats. Result: They had to work overtime mopping the mess up : (.


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