Homestead Christian Care
Charitable organization helps boost stability and productivity by switching from the Red Hat Linux platform to Microsoft Small Business Server
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Company Overview
Homestead Christian Care was founded in 1974 to provide mental health services to residents in Hamilton, Ontario. Homestead came from modest beginnings - the first facility was a six-bedroom home located in a residential neighbourhood – a building that remained the foundation for Homestead operations until 2000, when it opened a modern, 25-bed facility. Homestead has since grown further, expanding outside of its Hamilton roots to provide supportive housing and rehabilitation services to communities across Ontario.
Business Challenge
As a small, non-profit charitable organization, the need to keep costs to a minimum is a priority. This philosophy extended to technology. For three years, Homestead relied on a Red Hat Linux and then a Gentoo Linux platform to run its primary application server and its user desktops. The platform eventually grew to cover Homestead’s three main locations. The organization believed that a Linux-based solution would help it to control its technology costs while also helping it meet business requirements.
A growing number of challenges, however, led Homestead to rethink this strategy. Administration of the Linux-based system proved to be difficult. Users routinely called their third-party tech support for help, even for the most minor issues.
“We found that the Linux platform wasn’t user friendly. It required special skills to do even very simple things, like switch a mouse or keyboard. There was very little we could do for ourselves. If a monitor malfunctioned, and we needed to switch it, we had to call the expert. This was quickly becoming inefficient and too costly for us to sustain,” says Jeff Neven, Director of Operations, Homestead Christian Care.
The Linux platform also did little to foster collaboration. Homestead relied on OpenOffice to handle its office productivity needs, but the application lacked features found in competing applications making collaboration difficult. Meetings and discussions had to be set up manually, and conducted face-to-face. Homestead clients and partners outside the office also struggled to open and read documents created in OpenOffice.
“We had the ability to convert documents, but this would affect the document’s look and feel – converting bullets into dollar signs, for example. This was a big problem. We compete for a limited pool of donor funding. These small things were having a significant impact on the image we conveyed to potential donors,” says Neven.
Also, since Homestead’s server was located in Hamilton, remote users, especially those working in satellite offices, were effectively cut off from information residing in the internal system.
Homestead decided to review its technology options. After turning to Krikke Computer Services Inc., a Microsoft technology partner and Small Business Specialist for help, Homestead decided to implement a new platform based on Microsoft® software.
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Solution
Krikke recommended that Homestead migrate away from Linux in favour of the Microsoft Small Business Server 2003 (SBS) Premium edition. SBS 2003 is a server solution specifically designed for the needs of small businesses, providing them with file and print sharing capabilities, an Internet connection, remote access to data and a complete messaging and collaboration and database solution.system.
“They wanted the new solution to help address all their concerns from the start. They also wanted to eliminate issues related to downtime and lost productivity, which were proving to be big problems.” says John Krikke, president, Krikke Computer Services.
SBS enables Homestead staff to take advantage of Office 2003, in particular Outlook® 2003 messaging and collaboration software, which is included Small Business Server 2003. When used in conjunction with Exchange Server 2003, part of the SBS 2003 suite, it enables users to communicate and collaborate with each other more effectively. Krikke also installed a Windows Server® 2003, enabling Homestead to take advantage of Terminal Server, which helps connect remote users to the Hamilton office via a Virtual Private Network.
Although SBSthe migration from Linux to Windows presented Homestead users with a major change to its technology platform, training was a simple process, as most workers were already familiar with the Windows-based platform.
“The Windows-based solution that Krikke recommended appealed to us from the start. Small Business Server provided us with everything that we needed, in particular the ability to ensure our staff in different cities stay connected to each other,” says Neven.
Business Benefits
Committing to the Microsoft-based platform helped Homestead realize a range of user benefits and efficiency gains, everything from reduced operating costs to increased employee productivity.
Lower operating costs
The Linux platform required Homestead to frequently leverage the services of an off-site technician with specialized skills. Since even the most simple requests or changes to the computing environment required his attention, the costs associated with supporting technology at Homestead had climbed steadily upward. Downtime was also becoming commonplace, preventing work from getting done and making users frustrated.
With Small Business Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003, Homestead now has enhanced security and a more stable and reliable platform which has greatly reduced the need for outside assistance. This has helped cut the costs of IT maintenance and freed up more funds for charitable initiatives. As a non-profit charitable organization, Homestead was also eligible for a licensing agreement that enables it to take advantage of special pricing options, which has also helped Homestead to reduce upfront costs even further.
“We have found that since migrating from Linux to Windows we have cut our IT support costs by nearly 70 per cent. As a result we have more funds to support our clients,” says Neven.
Improved stability and reliability
Homestead felt that Linux offered the promise of an inexpensive, stable and bug-free platform. However, the platform required extensive manual intervention. Prior to implementing Small Business Server 2003, downtime was commonplace. This issue was made all the more frustrating by the inability of Homestead staff to carry out fixes in a timely fashion. Since migrating to the Microsoft-based platform, stability has become the norm and downtime has virtually disappeared.
“While Linux is not without its merits, we've found that Windows has delivered the reliability we need. I'm not an IT professional, but I can easily add a new email account or engage in other routine tasks without putting our uptime at risk. There’s a cost saving there as well – we know that someone is not going to suddenly lose computer access for a day or more,” says Neven.
More user control
Among the unexpected benefits of Small Business Server 2003 and Windows Server 2003 is the ability it provides staff to control their time and helped be more productive. Homestead relies on HTML-based email communication and its Web site to help it keep in touch with donors and solicit new sources of funding. Taking advantage of FrontPage® web site creation and management tool, staff can now quickly and easily maintain and update the Homestead website without turning to Web designers.
Leveraging the power of Terminal Server, Homestead staff can stay in touch with the office via their laptops, and ensure they have constant access to critical data. Homestead is also investigating the potential of Office SharePoint® Portal Server to house a new client and donor database, which would provide a centralized and easy-to-access source of critical business data for Homestead staff.
“We’ve just opened the door to what we can do with our Microsoft software. This has allowed us to start planning for a range of new projects and processes that will help Homestead carry out its core mandate, which is to provide supportive housing and rehabilitation to those suffering from mental illnesses,” says Neven.
Windows Small Business Server 2003
Microsoft Windows Small Business Server 2003 is a powerful advantage for your business success. Improve the security of your data and help your network run dependably. Release new productivity from your desktops while empowering your employees to do more. And connect to your customers like never before.
For more information about Windows Small Business Server 2003, please visit: www.microsoft.com/sbs
For More Information
For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to: www.microsoft.com
For more information about Krikke Computer Services Inc. products and services, call (905) 639-7291 or visit the Web site at: www.krikke.com
For more information about Homestead Christian Care products and services, call (905) 529-0454 or visit the Web site at: www.hscc.ca
