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Members

Mohammed Shamma

Rick Murtha

Jennifer Lee

Universal Locator
Universal Locator Project: Rough Budget

We have completed the prototype of the Universal Locator (UL). The next step involves enumerating the components required to take the prototype to the production phase (startup and maintenance) as well as their associated costs. As part of the implementation plan, we have segmented the budget into four general categories:


I. Data Services

This will principally comprise the data critical to the deployment of UL such as address listings, census data, statistical data, maps and data subscriptions.

Data Listings One-time Purchase Annual subscription Semiannual subscription
by zipcode $200.00 $100.00 $75.00
by county $1,000.00 $400.00 $300.00
by state $5,000.00 $2,000.00 $1,250.00
entire U.S. $15,000.00 $5,000.00 $3,000.00

We recommend making a one-time  purchase for the initial implementation on a regional basis. Subsequently we would recommend a semiannual for the entire U.S. based on the goal of a national rollout.

II. Architecture and Technology (A&T)

A&T will serve as the backbone infrastructure of UL. All platform, network and desktop specific support will be administered by A&T. The following projections assume that our organization is equipped with basic hardware, network and desktop support such as file servers, Web servers, managed LANs, distributed databases etc.

Project Specific Software Initial Cost Licensing Cost
Cold Fusion Application Server 4.0 $1,295.00  
Cold Fusion Studio 4.0 $395.00  
ESRI Internet Map Server $15,000.00 $1000/yr
MapInfo MapXtreme $17,000.00 $1000/yr
Mapper Applet Free  
Optional Software    
Oracle 8i $1,200.00 $1500/yr
MS SQL Server $1,300.00  

In the case that UL will not be supported on any pre-existing hardware, the following items are specifications and costs for a suitable server machine:

  Description    
Equipment Hardware Abbreviation    
Server Model/Manufacturer Dell PowerEdge 2200 Server Sun Netra i 150 Macintosh Server G3
Processor Dual 233 Pentium II capable UltraSPARC 167 MHz 266-MHz PowerPC G3
RAM 64 MB 64 MB 128MB SDRAM
Hard Disk 4GB SCSI 4.2 GB (2) 4GB Ultra/Wide SCSI
Software      
Operating System NT Server Solaris 2.5.1 or 2.6 Mac OS 8.0
Cost $4,387.00 $7,495 $4,489.00

III. Human Resources

The UL staff will require a wide range of technical, marketing and management skills on an ongoing basis in order to successfully implement and maintain its operation as well as penetrate its target market. Implementation will consist of the necessary application engineering, user-interface design, beta testing and initial deployment of UL. Production includes maintenance. The application also requires marketing for commercial exploitation.

The primary implementation roles we have identified are as follows:

  • Project Manager  (full-time) responsible for the overall project execution and administration in order to ensure successful implementation
  • Database Administrator  (full-time) responsible for the design, development and implementation of address listing database
  • Database Analyst  (part-time) assists in the design, development of the address listing database
  • Senior Web Developer  (full-time) responsible for design, development, and implementation of the web interface to the back-end GIS database
  • Web Analyst  (part-time) assists in the design and development of the web interface to the database
  • Application Tester  (part-time) responsible for testing the database and web interface designs proposed by design the team by assessing usability/functionality with test client groups
  • System Administrator  (part-time) responsible for providing system support for the design/development environment

The primary implementation roles we have identified are as follows:

  • Database Administrator  (part-time) responsible for the GIS database, including maintenance, growth and overall ownership of the application
  • Senior Web Developer  (part -time) responsible for maintenance of web interface including any required application development, as well as web content management
  • System Administrator  (part-time) responsible for providing system support for the design/development environment
  • Application Marketer  (full-time) responsible for establishing and implementing marketing strategies and plans to bring the UL to market, forge alliances with prospective partners, market research, etc.
UL Implementation and Production Human Resources Budget Planning          
Implementation Headcount Dedication (%) Assignment Duration (%) Resource Yearly Salary Projection Project Salary Allocation
Project Manager 1 100% 25% $60,000 $15,000
Database Administrator 1 100% 25% $52,000 $13,000
Database Analyst 1 50% 25% $40,000 $5,000
Sr. Web Developer 1 100% 25% $45,000 $11,250
Web Analyst 1 50% 25% $32,000 $4,000
Application Tester 1 25% 25% $40,000 $2,500
System Administrator 1 25% 25% $60,000 $3,750
Total 7       $54,500
           
Production     Assignment Duration (%)    
Database Administrator 1 50% 100% $52,000 $26,000
Sr. Web Developer 1 50% 100% $45,000 $22,500
System Administrator 1 10% 100% $60,000 $6,000
Marketing 1 100% 100% $60,000 $60,000
Total 4       $114,500

The salary allocation calculations below are discriminated by implementation and by full-scale production and maintenance. Implementation refers to the human resources (largely technical) required to ramp the prototype up to initial production. Full-scale production refers to the period after initial rollout in which ongoing maintenance and promotion of the system will predominate. The Project Salary Allocation is calculated by multiplying Headcount*Dedication*Assignment Duration . As such, the total implementation expenditure to staff the project is $54,500 for the three-month implementation project. The total ongoing production maintenance and marketing staff expense is $114,500 per year.

We get to the overall implementation and production expenditures by aggregating the totals from the three (3) categories above. The sum total for the UL implementation $xxx,xxx. The yearly expenditure associated with UL production is $xxx,xxx.

In terms of revenues, we consider that the UL enjoys two potential avenues of income. These are 1) advertising revenues arising from the establishment of the application on our proprietary web site; 2) licensing fees from portal sites (Yahoo!, Excite, TheStreet.com, Sidewalk.com, etc.). Through an entirely unscientific estimation, we believe our revenues would be $500,000+ in the first year, $1,000,000+ in year two, 25% growth thereafter.
 
Last Updated: October 25, 1998