migrating a redhat box to dpkg/apt-get?

[Krzys Majewski <majewski@cs.ubc.ca>]

Anyone taught a redhat box to use .deb packages instead of .rpm's? 
I'm helping administer 100+ redhat boxes, and investigating the
possibility of  using dpkg/apt-get,  rather than rpm,  for propagating
local customizations.  Since the redhat file  structure would probably
need to be preserved, I'm  thinking of a mechanism which would upgrade
existing  off-the-shelf redhat  packages by  converting them  to .debs
first. The  other possibility  would be to  use rpm  for off-the-shelf
packages, and  dpkg/apt-get for  custom ones. Anyone  know if  the two
package mechanisms can coexist?  

-chris