Linux Usage in the UK 280
pdajames writes "Techies don't seem to understand that businesses want to have a support contract with their usual supplier before they will buy Linux, even though the likelihood is that they may never need support. A survey in the UK showed that support concerns were the No. 1 factor keeping companies from investing in open source software."
Another cluebie post... (Score:1, Insightful)
Nope. Businesses rarely use support. Nope. No-siree. Oh... wait...
Isn't that what Redhat is for? (Score:1, Insightful)
I totally agree 'its about support stupid' (Score:5, Insightful)
They understand the stability, the lower cost ( notice I didn't say free. it does cost something to maintain ), and that it *can* replace functionality of the commercial alternative at this point, but being out on their own worries them. And rightfully so.
Even down to the techies that defend Microsoft, that is their one remaining argument,that they have the huge support team back in Redmond to call on. And scoff as you want about Microsoft support, if you are a big enough dealer they WILL help you, they do have actual competent engineers hiding somewhere.... and the managers know this..
Having somone like IBM sell support, or even produce their own 'commercial' distrobution + support would go a looooong way to get past this.
Support is everything (Score:2, Insightful)
Yates gave the example of an installation of 50 DHCP servers running Linux, which was set up several years ago, and for which the technical support is tenuous. "The people who set them up have gone on to other projects," he said. "People are terrified about what the support would be like if something went wrong."
I think that pretty much sums it up. Too many people thing computer = Windows and don't know how to use anything else. So if the Linux server (God forbid) breaks, who will be around to fix it?
And no, whatever monkey was assigned to look after the box after the guys who were l33t enough to set the whole thing up is probably not going to research the problem. He was probably hired to look at the pretty light and call whatever vendor's tech support when the light went out.
That, and if something does go wrong, there's someone else to blame.
Why not get support ? (Score:5, Insightful)
I blame the British 'techie' environment. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have a lot of friends who are techies who came through the 'proper' way. That is, they were educated at college, did courses, and got qualifications. They're good guys, but when it comes to solving something, IIS and VBScript are almost the only two solutions!
One friend of mine was whining that he needed to build a new server and migrate and mirror data over to it. I suggested using an NFS server. This isn't rocket science, but concepts like these are unknown to the millions of lower-end techies in the UK. Why? Because Microsoft is #1. I know a lot of people studying for MCSEs, yet they're barely computer literate. They can get around in Windows 2000 or XP, but throw them at any command prompt (even DOS) and they balk.
UNIX and its variants just aren't considered cool within the larger techie environment in the UK. Microsoft has very deep roots here, unlike in the US technical fraternity, and most UK techies are so stupid they won't leave what they know.
I can't really venture as to the exact reasons for this... but perhaps it's because the British are used to doing things one way. I mean, we only had a single national telecoms provider, a single national gas provider, and a single national postal service until ten years ago. Therefore, when schools only show that Microsoft is the way.. the average Brit will nod and use it.
Another problem is the lack of decent IT education in schools. There are very few 'computer clubs' in UK schools, and those that do exist are only there for allowing kids to perhaps do something in Pascal under Windows, or to do their regular homework in Microsoft Works.
UK schools need to be more open, like US schools. US schools often give budgets to their computer clubs.. I mean, look at the Ask Slashdot thread the other day.. they ponied up $4000 for the guy to build a server system and get some connectivity. What a learning curve his computer club will have!
In the UK, by comparison, everything is so bureaucratic and purchases are so decided 'by the local education authority' that any choice other than Microsoft Microsoft Microsoft is effectively vetoed.
Personally I think this is great, because people who DO know Linux, who DO understand Computer Science properly and who DON'T have MCSEs, get rewarded reasonably well in the UK! But.. the knowledge just isn't there, and while Microsoft gets rammed down the wanna-be British techie's throat, Microsoft will prevail.
Uh, Redhat ? Linuxcare ? Suse ? Support BBS ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:No issues here (Score:5, Insightful)
What we're talking about here is places like my day job, where we have someone from Microsoft on-site full time. I was most upset when I found out, I mean, how pathetic, but there you are.
Support matters when you're a large company who is in it "for the long run" as I've been told.
Yes, we use Linux, but we have support from the supplier (SuSE just now, RedHat to come).
I can't implement software without a support contract! Isn't it insane? I was going to install a little GPL'd FTP proxy because our Microsoft proxies were failing, first thing management ask is "where's the support coming from?" Heh, a couple of hundred lines of C but it needs supported.
Really, people. (Score:1, Insightful)
Now, isn't that a bit presumptuous?
I don't care what OS you run on your desktops/servers, stuff is going to screw up. It's the techie's job to minimize the impact.
Re:Who needs support (Score:1, Insightful)
They dont advertise it well... (Score:5, Insightful)
Marketing that would help a LOT.
Even some of their techs and sales guys don't know this.. I've spoken to some at our place on occasion wile they are working on things, or working out costs for the next round of PC upgrades...... they had no clue either..
Sounds like a Business Opportunity to me (Score:5, Insightful)
Can you say "business opportunity"? I now only install and support only Linux solutions (I don't do Windows anymore - I have other "grunts" with MCSE's who do that for cheap). The sell is simply two points 1) Open Source products use Open Standards, which will interoperate with anything. 2) The business decision to keep, update or upgrade company software is back in the software buyer's hands. If you want to keep your software, or hire someone to [fix|add] features, or upgrade to the latest version - it's their choice.
The Redmond camp keeps hammering on the point that Linux doesn't have support. So hammer back on those two points: open standard interoperabilty, and the return of the business decision. It really shakes people up to realise they _do_ have a choice, and that Microsoft is not the safest choice anymore.
Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
With Linux?
Sure, maybe if you're Linus...
Re:I blame the British 'techie' environment. (Score:1, Insightful)
Please think of the idiot choices in the UK, choose Linux and learn C/C++, god damnit!
the focus on "support concerns" is rather ironic (Score:5, Insightful)
According to the recently discussed Business Week article [businessweek.com],
If anything, open source will lower support costs as you can get support from more sources at a wider range of price points.With a global support base of people with the same software, open source will rapidly lower support costs. Today people get far more information and many times higher quality information on problems via the net than they do from a manufacturer.
And beyond support, you can now directly hire people to work on the software changes you need to make your business work. That means you don't have to wait years for your vendor to listen to you. In today's hyper-competitive global business market, the time you save may be the difference between your business succeeding or failing.
All in all, open source is a giant win for business. Hopefully we can soon move past the incredible amount of FUD the closed source vendors are promulgating in the market.
Linux has problems with UK-l10n (Score:1, Insightful)
XFree86 diidn't even support keyboards with euro keys (alt-gr 4) until recently and gnome still chokes on that. The same problems occur to other english speaking countries as well, but I'll just have to put up with 06/28/03 until gnome uses 28/06/03!
Re:I blame the British 'techie' environment. (Score:3, Insightful)
I would add: conservatism. A breed of conservatism that I don't think exists elsewhere. I mean, look at our judicial system, we've only just got rid of the 1,400 year old post of Lord High Chancellor.
It isn't about "support". (Score:5, Insightful)
They are afraid to use Linux because Linux hasn't achieved the market dominance they feel comfortable with.
If Linux had 51% of the desktop market, they'd feel comfortable with the risk of having their current Linux support person/company becoming unavailable.
This is about fear. You cannot remove fear with facts.
But who cares? The businesses that have people who can evaluate the risks and benefits will make the jump first. And they will reap the rewards.
As each year passes, more companies will feel comfortable enough to switch.
Don't sweat the "support" issue. Support is readily available and easily found. But pointing that out will not end stories such as these.
This is about fear.
Re:Hey... (Score:3, Insightful)
we had them FIRST
This isn't just the UK, it's everywhere (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Identity and accountability (Score:2, Insightful)
However, this is nevertheless often the case.
What? You have just mentioned two examples to completely undermine this position.
Not so. The only reason Red Hat and SuSE have centralized technical support is because they have commercialized their distributions of Linux as a packaged product and market it as such. Technical support is part of their package. For non-commercialized versions of Linux, such as Slackware or Debian, no such convenient package exists.
Re:No issues here (Score:5, Insightful)
Organisations absolutely, positively hate this. "Single point of failure". They piss you off, you quit and get a better job, you get killed in a bizarre gardening act, and they are up shit creek.
Unfortunately, this is also an attitude taken by lots of Admins as well (Windows and Unix, I will state). The "fuck off and leave me alone" attitude that many them put forward when asked questions. The inability or unwillingness to document what they've done ("Say, how do we re-install the sendmail installation if we have to?" "Fuck off and leave me alone").
I have seen many an office who will stick with middle-of-the-road software, even though they figure there's better stuff, because they don't want to risk the chance of getting fucked over by this.
This is why they want support contracts, this is why they use windows. "well, if Jim Bob dies, we'll just get the support folks to help us until we get someone else", or the (perhaps false sense of) security of "every here knows windows, we can fix things ourselves without Jim Bob"
OH really?! (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Support is everything (Score:5, Insightful)
I completely disagree. I went from Windows centric support to supporting Unix environments. That learning process included having to adjust to a new system. Heck, it was pretty much learning a new CULTURAL outlook. I now find Linux the simple to understand and configure system.
Setting up and running a Linux system is easy. Especially if you're performing a basic and very well defined task. But ease of use isn't the whole issue.
Even when you're dealing with a simple system, you need to understand whats going on. I've watched the trap unfold a number of times. We have a cadre of Windows (and even some Unix) admins with very basic understandings of the systems they admin. They're able to handle basic functions. But when things get squirely, it all falls back on a hand-full of very knowledgable individuals. Yes - they do exist in the Windows world too. Heaven forbid you ask these individuals to manage something that's a little beyond the standard task.
Support is important. It doesn't matter what systems you rely on. You either have the help in-house to do it, or you need to know where to go to rent it as-needed.
Re:Sounds like a Business Opportunity to me (Score:3, Insightful)
Hmm. Yes. Interoperating with MSFT is generally much harder than it need be, especially from Linux. This isn't Linux, though; it's Microsoft. Ask the SAMBA, OpenOffice, or one of the other teams about how easy it is to reverse-engineer Microsoft's ever-changing stuff. And what's more, Microsoft deliberately changes their stuff to prevent interop.
If you want to interact with Microsoft, you need to get Microsoft to change. I say, change 'em with your wallet.
[BTW, it actually isn't as bad as it seems; OpenOffice hasn't had problems with documents I've been given, SAMBA can talk MSFT's proprietary protocol, and Linux can read/write MSFT's filesystems. Interop isn't that bad, but it's not 100% guaranteed, for the reasons I've outlined, plus the fact that they're MSFT trade secrets, and thus have to be reverse-engineered. Ideally, Microsoft would use open formats, but then they couldn't leverage their monopoly nearly as effectively.]
It's all about fear (Score:2, Insightful)