[Pdx-pm] First Tech Credit Union "microsoftens" web interface

[Keith Lofstrom]

Any other First Tech Credit Union customers here?  They shut down
from April 28 through March 1, to bring up a new web interface.  It
came up today (Tuesday), and was very slow.  It seems to be Internet
Explorer specific, and less capable than the old web interface.  It
did not receive much independent testing.

The software appears to be written in Visual .NET .  Perhaps we can
get these people trained in Perl, and engage some local consulting,
instead.  Is there anyone who can provide some professional advice
to the credit union board about how this should proceed?

I am told the annual meeting is coming up soon.  If the interface is
still busted at that time, I plan on making a stink.  Anyone else
want to join in?

Here is an email correspondence I had with their support staff.

----------------------------------------------------------------------

On Tue, May 02, 2006 at 05:34:56PM -0700, HBSupport wrote:
> Thank you for writing. Please attempt to access your account again. You
> should not experience the slowness that you did earlier today. Regarding
> prior history, we are aware of this issue using a browser other than
> Internet Explorer and are working to resolve this. For now, you can view
> prior history using the Internet Explorer browser.

I do appreciate the speedup, thank you.  However, if the prior history
features are not properly enabled in the near future, I will be forced
to move my accounts elsewhere, after 30 years as a member.

Internet Explorer does not run under Linux, nor is it a secure browser
on other platforms.  By requiring this browser, you are subjecting your
customers to a high risk of fraud, and exposing First Tech to enormous
legal liability.  Nationally, Internet Explorer has an 85% share. 
However, Oregon is the open source capital of the world and the Oregon
State University Open Source Labs is the main distribution site for
Mozilla and Firefox, which are growing at more than 40% CAGR.  First
Tech in particular caters to high-tech workers, which have a higher
percentage of Macintosh and Linux users.  I would guess your server
statistics show closer to 30% penetration for alternate browsers,
and growing at a fast clip.

Will alternate browsers be supported by the time of the board meeting,
or will it be necessary to inform the board of the delays and risks,
so they can budget for indemnification and plan appropriate staff
downsizing to accomodate this unfortunate reduction in customer
access?

Keith

-- 
Keith Lofstrom          keithl at keithl.com         Voice (503)-520-1993
KLIC --- Keith Lofstrom Integrated Circuits --- "Your Ideas in Silicon"
Design Contracting in Bipolar and CMOS - Analog, Digital, and Scan ICs