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IBM Pushing Microsoft-Free Desktops
Posted by
kdawson
on Tue Aug 05, 2008 07:50 PM
from the straight-for-the-jugular dept.
from the straight-for-the-jugular dept.
walterbyrd and other readers are sending along the news that IBM is partnering worldwide with Canonical/Ubuntu, Novell, and Red Hat to offer Windows-free desktop PCs pre-loaded with Lotus software and ready for customizing by local ISVs for particular markets. The head of IBM's Lotus division is quoted: "The slow adoption of Vista among businesses and budget-conscious CIOs, coupled with the proven success of a new type of Microsoft-free PC in every region, provides an extraordinary window of opportunity for Linux." One example of the cooperation: "Canonical, which sells subscription support for Ubuntu, a Linux operating system that scores high marks on usability and 'the cool factor,' will re-distribute Lotus Symphony via their repositories. Symphony 1.1 will be available through the Ubuntu repositories by the end of August."
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Great... (Score:5, Funny)
... but can I get one without Lotus Notes too?
Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
To paraphrase Yoda, "Notes leads to anger. Anger leads to Notes consultants. Notes consultants lead to suffering."
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Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
That's no moon, it's DOMINO!
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Re:Great... (Score:5, Informative)
Lotus Notes is truly bad. I've held a job as a notes developer for 18 months before quitting and went back to C++/C#.
It's often sold as an exchange replacement.. but in practice I've seen it more often used as a document-oriented distributed database (a quick way to write day to day business workflow apps). Where I worked, this technology held the company together.
As easy as it was to say "let's develop it in (name your favourite enterprise technology)", we built apps from start to finish in less than 2 weeks flat (a.k.a. the time it takes to say Oracle, Java, JSP, Struts, Tomcat, Log4J, setting up your Eclipse and getting people to give you test instances of everything you need). Maintenance was however a nightmare. We had to routinely jump through hoops to get the software to do things it wasn't designed to do.
Management was happy however! They could easily start new projects and deco old ones - just as quickly as they would start getting replication errors :-D.
Bahhhh!! Can't stand notes!!
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Re:Great... (Score:5, Funny)
... but can I get one without Lotus Notes too?
In anticipation of a thousand Slashdotters nodding approvingly, I'll point out that the head of the White House IT Dept. testified (during the recent missing emails scandal) that Notes is obsolete software, and then went on to explain the problems they were having with Exchange, and why those problems couldn't be fixed. The senators, reassured the White House was using state of the art technology, nodded approvingly.
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Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
If only there were some old Lotus ideas in this. WordPro's (and 123s) InfoBox was the best user interface module I ever used. If was very easy to work proper (with format classes) and it was quick to use. I installed it in every company i worked, and soon everyone had it, and was used to it. There are still people who now have to work with that nightmare of an UI that Microsoft provides (a modal dialog to get to all formatting options... really??), the comparably bad imitation that Openoffice is (why does open source imitate more than innovate? and wort of all: imitate Microsoft? either you can say how bad MS is, or you can imitate it. you can't have both.), or another - strangely similar - office package, who tell me how bad that thing is, compared to SmartSuite. (Yes, this is all subjective. But for the vast majority i think they (would have) liked SmartSuite more.)
But instead of just implementing the InfoBox in OpenOffice (an idea that i would pay serious money to have), they just used the sidebar click-orgy paradigm + the gnome dumb-down* paradigm. ;)
Great... idea...
* No, I do not have anything against simplifying the UI, as long as it's only for people who WANT it simple [eg. don't want to spend much, or don't have much resources for it]. Make your UI *SCALABLE* and make everyone happy. :)
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Re:Great... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it feels like software designed by committee. "We need feature X, oh but we've run out of 'room' under the menu it should be under, so stick it under the Utility menu under the Tools menu." And so on. Good software takes usability into account, and that evidently didn't continue after IBM bought Lotus.
Back when IBM introduced the PS/2, they offered a hardware option they rather blithely dubbed the "Data Migration Facility." Otherwise known as a cable adapter for connecting two computers together. The style of thinking which produced that product name suffuses and pervades throughout IBM's corporate culture.
That's the best I can do to prepare you for the Lotus Notes experience.
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Finally! (Score:5, Funny)
The 2008 will be known as the year of Lotus Notes on the desktop!
Re:Good thing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Because it breeds the thought that there are alternatives to MS software. It's easier to 'convert' someone that has an open mind.
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Working link (Score:5, Informative)
Perfect example (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Perfect example (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Perfect example (Score:5, Insightful)
..from 'world domination' to 'also run'...
Eh, they seem to be doing better than Standard Oil, Carnegie Steel, and I would even say Ma Bell.
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Re:Perfect example (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm surprised you mentioned Ma Bell, as AT&T seems to have almost all its pieces back together again. It seems that they aren't such a Humpty Dumpty after all.
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Re:Perfect example (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure that you posted the revionist history tha the current AT&T managment would like to see, but it simply isn't true. The present AT&T is not the same as the old one. Another company assembled the pieces, not the old AT&T.
Who cares which company assembled all the pieces. The pieces are back together, so the old company is back together.
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Re:Perfect example (Score:5, Interesting)
Standard Oil was renamed to "Exxon", and recently posted the largest annual profits of ANY company, EVER.
Carnegie Steel became US Steel; now USX. It remains the single largest steel producer in the country. It certainly has slipped a long way from it's historic highs of world domination, but it took almost a century, nowhere nearly as quickly as IBM.
Much like the terminator, Ma Bell's shattered pieces have slowly been coming back together for the past few decades. What's worse, she's a badder bitch now than she ever was before... Much like with any disease, as the host got weaker, the viruses took over, and prospered.
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Re:Perfect example (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM has been a technology company for over 100 years. The company was founded in 1896, back when information technology was a new idea. I think they learned about "change" long ago. They adapted to the invention of the vacuum tube and every other new technology of the 20th century. How many other tech companies from the late 1800's are still around?
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Once you get rid of Microsoft... (Score:5, Funny)
...how do you get rid of IBM?
IBM PDF and SWF Would Be Better (Score:5, Insightful)
If IBM really wants to help replace Windows PCs with Linux PCs, it can do a lot more than just partner with Canonical. IBM could help fix the two biggest gaps in Linux's ability to "do what Windows does": full PDF and SWF suites that "just work".
PDF is a standard format that Adobe dominates with Acrobat. It's the favorite way for offices to send around read only documents that will have no chance of problems. Unless you send it to someone with Linux, in which case something funny can happen. Not so much in reading it, but if they do indeed want to make changes anyway. The SW for editing and managing PDF docs isn't so reliable on Linux, and not at all widely available. It's probably easy for IBM to fix that problem, because PDF availability for Linux isn't so bad, just needs some more "formalizing". Getting a brand name, but still open source, edition from IBM with support and training will help.
The real problem that needs engineering is Flash. GNU's Gnash player for SWF is all some Linux distros, like for PowerPC, have for playing YouTube and all the other Flash web content. More and more Flash is used for commercial sites, especially as Flash starts to run on mobile phones. But Gnash barely works, and often doesn't work with YouTube. IBM could really level the playing field by making enough contributions to Gnash that it "just works", even as Flash evolves and other players have to keep up with it. It takes a place like IBM to do that to Adobe's dominance without Adobe either winning or even killing the competitor. Gnash is also pretty close, so IBM's investment in it would be the finishing touches that make all the difference in corporate IT strategy decisions.
PDF and SWF are still Windows territory. With a little investment, IBM could not only make Linux a first class business platform, but also take (and deserve) credit for it under an IBM logo.
And if Novell paid a little more attention to Evolution, which competes with Outlook, the whole Desktop could be a Windows killer in the right hands.
Re:Print Link (and commentary) (Score:5, Insightful)
How much support does Microsoft give you for those purchase prices without paying more for additional support? Almost none? I thought so.
What parts of the system does Microsoft's support cover? Just the core OS, which is largely useless by itself? Yeah...
What does Ubuntu's support cover? Well, it's for a year, and it includes the "core" OS and all of the hundreds of applications that come with it.
How much would you pay for Windows with a year of core OS support, plus a year of support for several major third-party applicationswithout which you can't really do anything? Thousands? Perhaps tens of thousands?
Where's the problem again?
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Re:Print Link (and commentary) (Score:5, Insightful)
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What does Windows support cost? (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows support ain't free and it's largely useless in my experience. It's either "try rebooting" or Nothing to do with us, you need to contact the third party" buck passing.
PS: Linux support isn't compulsory, the cost of the Windows license is...
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Re:Print Link (and commentary) (Score:5, Insightful)
So iamhigh's argument is: Canonical's support contracts are too costly and doesn't give Windows desktops/server admins any reason to switch.
His argument rests on this straw man: reduced cost is allegedly the only reason to switch to Linux. This ignores Linux's advantages such as lower hardware/software cost, access to source code and thus customizability. It also ignores the possibility of adding a Linux desktop or server for testing purposes.
Notice: He doesn't tell you how much a Windows Vista Open License costs in addition to a full support contract (!) from Microsoft or partner vendors, let alone a Windows Server 2003/2008 CAL + contract. Notice that it would be costly to him in terms of both time and resources to transition to Linux, and so he wouldn't be motivated to switch over anyway. Nowhere should a Linux evangelist ever demand that all Windows shops convert to Linux, for this reason. No one's forcing him to use Linux if Windows is working just fine, so he's mostly ranting about nothing. Worst case, he's a Microsoft evangelist.
I'm sorry, but he doesn't deserve those Insightful mods. Ironic that he predicted Flamebait mods, but as of right now no one's tagged him as such.
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Re:Print Link (and commentary) (Score:5, Informative)
$881 for a year of server support, versus $500 per seat for Windows 2003 Server licenses and a year of rolled-in support, plus several thousand more to renew support, plus more if you add more servers.
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Re:Print Link (and commentary) (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem with Windows experience is that Microsoft is bound and
determined to make that 10 years of Windows experience obsolete with
each new release. I can learn something on SunOS in college and apply
it again on Ubuntu Linux 20 years later.
Not only will the Linuxen share the same underlying tools but those
tools will be similar if not identical to all the other Unixen. If
nothing else they will all share the same conceptual framework.
What 10 year old or 20 year old nugget of information still serves
you in WinDOS?
Does this years version of office even look like last years?
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