 The City of Helsinki e-mail services and their maintenance have been taken care by individual city offices over the past decade. However, the decentralized system was vulnerable and difficult to manage. Therefore the city wanted to centralize its system and outsource the hosting of it. Also in the new situation Teamware Office fulfilled the city's needs and requirements.
In the early 1990's the city of Helsinki decided to start using Teamware Office. The decentralized Teamware Office system was introduced to different city offices in 1992. Each office was responsible for the maintenance of its own system. In the end there were nearly 60 mail servers spread out over different parts of the city.
The individual offices maintained their own systems. Maintenance functions tied up several dozen people, and the decentralized system was vulnerable. It had several interfaces and solutions, and a wide variety of hardware, which made it difficult to manage.
E-mail becomes critical
When entering the 21st century e-mail had become such a critical function for the city that the existing organization of the system was no longer satisfactory. E-mail had to work 24 hours a day and no service interruptions due to insufficient maintenance or incompatible systems were tolerated.
In this situation the city started to consider new, alternative solutions with the aim of finding a reliable, cost-effective and easy-to-use system, which could be hosted by a third party.
No reason to change
After reference visits and mapping out the alternative solutions, the city of Helsinki decided to continue using Teamware Office. They decided to upgrade the system into the latest version of Teamware Office, i.e. edition 5.3. The maintenance of the system was outsourced to ICL Invia.
"We were satisfied and accustomed with Teamware Office. There was no reason for us to change the system", says project manager Olli Karvonen from the city of Helsinki.
While choosing the new system the city of Helsinki appreciated the web service and remote use functionalities.
"Teamware Office suites the outsourcing model well. By upgrading the existing system we also managed with considerably lower costs and less deployment training", Karvonen continues.
More reliability
The introduction of the new system was done in seven phases during the spring 2001. On the summer Teamware Office 5.3 was taken into use at the 36 city offices and institutes. The total amount of users is 13.000. The maintenance and administration of the system is taken care through the Invia administration centre, which is situated in the Helsinki suburb of Konala.
"A uniform and centralized system has resulted in more reliability of operations. Now mobile services are also available for more users. E-mail was not considered very significant at the beginning of the 1990s, but today it is a vital service which must function reliably twenty-four hours a day", says Tuomo Karakorpi, the City of Helsinki's IT Manager.
ASP fits in with the city's operating principles
Users are satisfied with the upgraded e-mail system with whole new functionalities. It is easy to use the familiar system, but the user interface is user-friendlier than ever and remote access has never been easier.
ASP was a good choice for the city of Helsinki.
"Outsourcing fits in well with the city's operating principles, particularly when it is carefully considered and deemed necessary. It is now also easier to manage and determine costs. Due to the outsourced maintenance of the system our in-house IT specialists can concentrate on the their special abilities", Karakorpi adds.
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