Identifying and replacing critical systems. Modified rapid replacement is the idea that it is not necessary to get a 1:1 feature/function replacement ratio when replacing a system. In the context of the Year 2000, the only thing that matters is "Did you get done on time?" If you look at a business application and recognize that it will either be replaced or retired due to time and resource restrictions, the first step that needs to be taken is an understanding of the business process that drives that application. If the application provides 24 great features, but only six of them are critical to its functionality, replace those six and move on to the next part of the overall project. The most cost effective objective is to create solutions to save those critical systems prior to the very real deadline.
Familiar technology. The advantage to the Microsoft strategy of Modified Rapid Replacement is that it uses existing investments in knowledge of Microsoft technologies as well as the products that are already in use. Success with the Microsoft solution set will not come from having to learn an entirely new set of technologies.
For example, a business’s need for a uniform email system within an environment may be crucial. In order to meet the Year 2000 deadline, though, perhaps the organization deploys the Exchange 5.5 infrastructure with servers only. They use browsers as the email client throughout the enterprise. Is this the optimal way to use Exchange? No, but it will get the organization through the year 2000 and position it strategically for growth in the years that follow.
Another example involves an organization with a report-writing engine on a legacy platform affected by the Year 2000. The organization is faced with the decision of dedicating resources to fixing that component or retiring it. (Ideally they would fix, but if they are already behind on the core, mission-critical applications, those legacy resources will have to be dedicated to that core portion of the project.) Instead of retiring the report writer, the organization creates a server-side ActiveX control using internal or third-party resources to handle the report-writing component. They deploy it to the desktop for any type of browser. It may be that this replacement only does 15 of the 75 reports that the original one could do, but those 15 are the critical ones.
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