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Linux Business

Telstra Considers 45,000-Seat Linux Deployment 261

Posted by timothy from the or-pretends-to-as-a-bargaining-chip dept.
stressky writes: "Looks like major Aussie telco Telstra are looking at deploying Linux as the new Standard Operating Environment across their 45,000 desktop LAN workstations." An anonymous reader offers evidence that Telstra isn't alone; apparently, many other Australian businesses are considering a similar switch.
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Telstra Considers 45,000-Seat Linux Deployment More

Telstra Considers 45,000-Seat Linux Deployment

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  • Good news for Home Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Alranor ( 472986 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @04:57AM (#4110104)
    And once people start having to use Linux at work, and see that it's a perfectly usable system and a nice desktop, they might start switching over at home.

    People are lazy, they know windows, they're not likely to change to something they don't know unless they're forced. But if they've already had some exposure to Linux, they'll be much more willing to try it out at home.

    • But if they've already had some exposure to Linux, they'll be much more willing to try it out at home.

      Im not so sure, in the workplace machines are supported by specialist, running specified suits of software and used pretty much only in perscibed menners. At home people want easy set up of perphierals, esspecially modems, games, dvd viewing and all sorts of other applications. I don't believe that linux is ready or designed for home use just as 4 years ago the consumer would not want to run NT

      My view is that Linux is great for the work place, just as NT was, however, it is different from a consumer OS and all the will in the world is not going to change that at the minite. Just remember horse for courses

      • Re:Good news for Home Linux (Score:4, Insightful)

        by BlueWonder ( 130989 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:32AM (#4110171)
        I don't believe that linux is ready or designed for home use

        I don't believe that Linux is designed for anything. Keep in mind that there isn't a single driving force behind Linux which works towards a well-defined design goal. Instead, Linux is a collection of software, written by many different people with different goals and ideas. IMHO, this is both its weakness and its strength. :-)

      • The whole PC was never designed as 32-Bit workstation. Windows was never designed as a multi-user operating system (and it shows, BTW)

        Anyway, all the *technical* prerequesites are there and are well tested.

        What we need is: More games, more drivers and more Linux-preinstalled machines.

        More Linux penetration in the business sector will make the latter 2 available also for home users. Games will follow as soon as desktop-usage increases.

      • Isn't that funny?

        Thoughts like this were known already.
        Weren't people saying something like?
        Linux as a server yes, but there's no way to use it on corporate desktop.

        And this thoughts aren't even one year old
      • At home people want easy set up of perphierals, esspecially modems, games, dvd viewing and all sorts of other applications.

        Even in this environment people will tend to use far more that they set up either hardware or software. IMHO most people would not really have too many issues with a machine which had a user mode and a setup mode. Since they are already familiar with this concept on other domestic applicances.
        What I think would be a good design would be a system with unprivleged users; a more priveleged setting for software/driver install and configuration, user management, network settings, etc and a fully priveleged setting for maintance of the OS and critical settings. Most importantly applications which would only run in a non privileged user mode.

        I don't believe that linux is ready or designed for home use just as 4 years ago the consumer would not want to run NT.

        It dosn't really matter if they want to or if it's well designed for home use. People don't really have much of a choice. In many cases it's XP, not even, "or nothing".
      • Linux on the desktop at home is no different than at the office.

        It all depends on what applications you want or need and how much you are willing to pay.

        And, Linux on the desktop has come a very long way. And, with Lindows, Xandros and apparently RedHat getting into the act, Linux on the desktop will improve significantly.

        The old Linux versions were pretty much limited to a corporate environment where some high paid expert was required to set it up for use.

        That is no longer the case.

        Witness Lindows Click-n-Run. You may not want Lindows for your own machine but you will not find an easier way to install thousands of software applications. Of course, you can get most is not all of them on CDs. But, how are you going to get a new application next week or next month? Get another CD?

        Lindows has illustated a very important concept for Linux. And, the concept is not simply an easy to install system. Rather the concept is that the many Linux distributors will be working hard to develop easier systems to use. And, no one distributor is going to be restricted by some idiot at the top nixing something that is not decided to be forced upon everyone.

        That simply means that Linux is in a situation to deliver a full range of distributions. Some extremely difficult by high powered. And, some extremely simple to use.

        And, "extremely simple to use" is going to be the key to putting Linux on the desktop. It will not be the power machines. It will be the simple to install, simple to use and simple to install additional software systems that will be the key.

        If RedHat does not do it, Xandros will. If Xandros does not, Mandrake will. If Mandrake does not, Lindows will. On and on.

        The desktop market is completely different than the server market.

        But, Linux has a clear advantage in the desktop market. It is a different advantage than in the server markets, but it is a real one.

    • knowing where you going (Score:5, Insightful)

      by oliverthered ( 187439 ) <oliverthered@hotmail. c o m> on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:39AM (#4110176) Journal
      is like knowing where you've been.

      The problem with the current Linux desktop is that it's almost very hard to 'know',

      You never know exactly what cut and paste is.(crtl+insert, drag over , crtl+c{things are sure to break!} anything else).

      Or how the printer options are going to come up. {KDE print dialoge, configure lpr dialoge}

      What a right click will do.

      Where the help is (man, info{ahhh the great info},kde help or /usr/share/doc/myapp) ....

      Things are far better than a few years ago..

      Some things that might help would be:-

      Put some UI, design (aesthetic and technical) principals into the LSB
      and have a LSB certification for applications.

      Resolve the GTK,QT issues (should hopefully happen over the next year or two)

      Ask other people if they could kindly implement there GFX toolkits/widgets using QT or GTK.

      • Agreed, geeks are not necessarily good GUI designers, and this is what the KDE usability project is trying to solve (http://usability.kde.org). I just hope the project won't fade away.

      • Cut and paste is Highlight and middle mouse click. The only time I have a problem with this is when I'm in Windows. It even works between systems. This has been around as long as I can remember.


        I have a little question for you that I cannot seem to get anyone to answer. I run X with 6 desktops. Each desktop has a purpose. Here is my setup.


        Desktop 1: Internet, Mozilla

        Desktop 2: Accounting,

        Desktop 3: System Maintenance xterm

        Desktop 4: email

        Desktop 5: Office

        Desktop 6: Temp, sh1t



        I'm working in a spreadsheet or an office document and get a call from a client. I switch desktops and start helping him. I check his account status while he identifies himself. I switch desktops and verify that the problem is not on his server. I verify if the problem is on my server at the same time. I look at the logs, and ask him to reboot his system. when the system comes back up. He thanks me for the help and I return to my work. AND HERE IT IS the cell that I was editing in the spreadsheet is waiting for me. Can you please show me how to do this in Windows.


        You see each OS has it's strong points. Most of which are very stupid like the one mentioned above. I do not find that the UI ALWAYS needs to be aesthetic BUT the OS ALWAYS needs to be stable. NO I CANNOT wait till the next version. I do NOT want Linux to become Windows if I wanted Windows I would buy Windows. I BUY Linux and FreeBSD and OpenBSD because they work how they work.

        • it's called MultiDesk [techsuperior.com]
          • You missed my point. I have it on my current system why would I want this other incomplete solution. You touched only on one aspect of my problem while creating others. I do not wish to get into a war here. Windows does not do everything that Linux can.


            And no the cell has to be reselected.

            • but what if you don't have it?
              you want to know that if you install a new application to do something you can't already do that the UI is familiar, be it command line, GUI, voice controlled.....
              • XP is not familiar it is new. Have you tried to set up a Dial-up networking connection on it? It does not work like 95/8. What is this firewall? Where is this familiar feature in 95/8.



                Windows is not that great it does not do everything. It's trying to become Linux as Linux is trying to become Windows.

            • I've just checked you kind of scenario and
              the cell doesn't have to be reselected with multidesk.

      • I don't find find the differences between Linux apps any wider than those between different Microsoft OS releases. Most users seem capable of overcoming the latter just fine.

  • normal business procedure (Score:5, Insightful)

    by 4im ( 181450 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:00AM (#4110109)

    Telstra simply evaluate the alternatives. That's normal business procedure. OK, it's nice they consider Linux instead of just ignoring it, but that doesn't (yet) mean that they'll actually select it.

    You can be sure that MS will throw in their full marketing weight on such a business...

    Oh well, we can hope...

    • Re:normal business procedure (Score:4, Insightful)

      by (outer-limits) ( 309835 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:40AM (#4110177)
      Probably 1/2 bluff, but at least they have something to call the bluff with. Expect to see them looking to lower the microsoft price for their site, especially in light of the recent MS price hike. At least Linux is there, without linux, microsoft wouldn't blink at calling their bluff.
    • Telstra has probably heard of what has happened in Peru and Mexico, this is just a plot to get a big rebate from Microsoft :). Big switching stories are the worst nightmare for Microsoft, they will do all what they can to stop them, and with 30 billions $ (or whatever this sum is today) sitting in the bank they have enough munitions for years.
      • So, what you are saying that companies and governments that are large enough to be able to make the transition to Linux will have Microsoft giving them discounts? I'd hate that. That means that Mr. Average Joe will be the one footing the bill, along with smaller companies without the sufficient resources to evaluate, plan, execute and maintain a transition.

    • Indeed - just part of negotiations (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Sounds like Telstra is going after some MS licencing discounts. End of story.

  • maybe it's due to M$ licensing... (Score:4, Funny)

    by potcrackpot ( 245556 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:13AM (#4110138) Homepage

    From the article from Australian IT:

    The Australian IT reported on deep scepticism among corporate decision makers about Microsoft's Licensing 6.0, which took effect at the beginning of the month

    OK, sounds reasonable. However, when asked about this, M$ came up with (also from the Australian IT article):

    Microsoft product marketing manager Danny Beck said organisations had accepted the new licensing model and Windows server sales had enjoyed double-digit growth since 1999.

    This doesn't seem to tally. Perhaps he meant the middle finger on each hand?

  • Telstra and MS go back a ways. (Score:5, Informative)

    by child_of_mercy ( 168861 ) <johnboy@NOSpam.the-riotact.com> on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:13AM (#4110139) Homepage
    Telstra have been MS junkies a long way back, Bill G made a point of wowing the Australian Government with presentations to Cabinet in the early days of the commercial net (1996/7 - early for MS) and with that push went the Govt owned corporates, of which Telstra is one.

    Telstra nearly lost their commercial ISP business due to faillings in Win NT's stability in those days.

    They also got extremely upset with MS publishing criticism of their Broadband strategy earlier this year (they'd thought they were buddies)

    At a guess though I'd say Telstra are using this bit of smoke to help their negotiations with MS, negotiations on a number of fronts.

    • Telstra actually has one of the largest MS Exchange deployments in the world - in fact I believe Microsoft has several case studies out there about the Telstra Exchange deployment. I find it interesting that they are considering Linux workstations when there isn't actually a Linux client for their messaging system.

      On the flip side, many of their client applications use quite a thin client (at least according to some of the devs I know that work there) so in the general case it wouldn't be too big a shift to just rewrite the thin clients and leave the servers as they are.

      Personally though I go with the "bit of smoke" theory. Telstra has far more corporate weight than Microsoft in Australia and MS would do almost anything to keep their golden egg.
  • There was no trend towards Linux, he said.

    Rather, each organisation that deployed Linux was doing so for specific, discrete reasons, Mr Beck [Microsoft Marketing Manager] said.

    so does it follow that there was no reason for using Windows? or...

    in other news, following MS marketings logic, RMS declares there is no trend towards people using Windows, they were using it for specific reasons.

  • On one level Linux is really just an operating system, and will not neccesarily promote world peace. But on the other, Linux has won the "hearts and minds" of people with an anti-corporate image. If large evil companies like Telstra (which I hear is even worse than Qwest, if such a thing could be imagined) start endorsing it, Linux may be seen as just another corporate tool.

    • A tool for all (Score:3, Insightful)

      by DoctorFrog ( 556179 )
      Linux may be seen as just another corporate tool.

      I don't think the majority of the Linux community are anti-corporate per se, they tend to be anti-corporate-abuse from what I can see. Obviously just about any useful tool can be used for evil as well as good.

      The advantage of open source software (including BSD, etc) is that it is apt (or can be made apt) for your purposes as opposed to someone else's, while the advantage of libre software (GPL and other "strong" licenses) is that it's resistant to abuse in certain common ways, albeit sometimes at some cost in flexibility.

      Those are the things which make Linux appeal to the rebels out there, and even if one Evil Empire or another adopts it as well, those advantages will still accrue to the Light Side also.

      • I don't think the majority of the Linux community are anti-corporate per se, they tend to be anti-corporate-abuse from what I can see.

        The idea that the GPL and by extension Linux is "anti-corporate" tends to be a claim of the those opposing the GPL, especially the tiny number of producers of proprietary software as an off the shelf product.

        The advantage of open source software (including BSD, etc) is that it is apt (or can be made apt) for your purposes as opposed to someone else's,

        Which is possibly even more important to a corporate user. Since having a less than optimal software setup can seriously damage their business. But since their requirements may be highly specific there is no off the shelf option.

        while the advantage of libre software (GPL and other "strong" licenses) is that it's resistant to abuse in certain common ways,

        The ways of abuse might be common, but the actual abusers are uncommon.


    • But on the other, Linux has won the "hearts and minds" of people with an anti-corporate image.


      Just off the top of my head:

      NSA
      IBM
      NASA
      Cisco Systems

      If someone's sole interest in Linux is ruined by big organizations' (corporate or otherwise) interest in it... they haven't been keeping good score.

  • Ploy? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by zennix ( 601657 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:41AM (#4110183)

    Sounds like a bargaining chip deal to me, and yes, I am quite cynical. The company did recently choose a Sun Java solution over MS and IBM offerings recently though, so maybe they are trying to move away from MS. If they do go with linux, you can safely bet on the solution being provided by Sun as they appear to greatly admire Mr. McNealy.


    Without starting a war, I think that in order for linux to be deployed successfully in a corporate envrironment, someone is going to have to build a highly functional, standardized desktop environment. Gnome and KDE are the obvious choices, but what kills linux (for the newcomer) is the overabundance of choice! Abiword, Kword, OpenOffice, StarOffice, Applix (if they are still around). Pick one! Now do that for the multitudes of packages that provide duplicate functionality. This is the only way that someone is going to get Linux in the front of the day to day workers in any corp. Choice is great for geeks, but not for the standard fare business environment. Someone will ship a distro with one shell, one office package, one browser, one mail client, and they will be the company that puts linux over in the workplace.

    • Re:Ploy? (Score:3, Insightful)

      by grahamm ( 8844 )
      For deployment in the corporate environment, will the IT department not choose the packages to be installed? The user will be presented with the corporate standard desktop with a word processor, spreadsheet, email program etc. The difference with Linux is that the IT department has a greater choice of which packages to install. Also an open source Linux package is much easier for them to customise to the corporate requirements than a proprietary Windows one would be.

      • Re:Ploy? (Score:2)

        by mpe ( 36238 )
        For deployment in the corporate environment, will the IT department not choose the packages to be installed? The user will be presented with the corporate standard desktop with a word processor, spreadsheet, email program etc. The difference with Linux is that the IT department has a greater choice of which packages to install.

        The important factor is that the choice is being made by either in house people or contractors to fit the specific requirements of the tasks in hand.

        Also an open source Linux package is much easier for them to customise to the corporate requirements than a proprietary Windows one would be.
        Having picked software most suited to the tasks in hand you can now make it fit these tasks even better.
        Not many businesses operate out of an absolutly standard office, with a standard number and placement of telephone, network and power points. Typically they use custom converted or custom constricted buildings or parts of buildings. Software is an infrastructure service, should it not be treated like any other such service?
    • what kills linux (for the newcomer) is the overabundance of choice! Abiword, Kword, OpenOffice, StarOffice, Applix (if they are still around). Pick one!

      OK, Telstra picks one.

      Problem solved.

      What was your point again?

    • Too many choices? (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Trane Francks ( 10459 )
      > Gnome and KDE are the obvious choices, but what
      > kills linux (for the newcomer) is the
      > overabundance of choice! Abiword, Kword,
      > OpenOffice, StarOffice, Applix (if they are still
      > around).

      How is the matter of abundant selection going to hinder corporate adoption? It's not. In a corporate environment, users don't have any choices. Do you honestly think I'd CHOOSE to use Outlook 98 as my corporate e-mail client? Hardly! The average bloke in most organizations gets to choose whatever the folks in the server room stick on the box. Large scale corporations have IT departments that are responsible for making the decisions about which software makes it onto the desktop and what does not. Nobody, not even the CEO, gets to use Eudora when the rest of the company is committed to Lotus Notes or Outlook.

      Choice is a good thing and is nothing *but* a good thing.

      What the killer is, of course, is interoperability with MS products. I'd love to have a 100% Exchange Server-compatible NON-Microsoft mail client available for free (as in beer). That might convince me to attempt to do the OpenOffice on Linux thing that I've dreamed about for years.

      As for work versus home use, I agree that few people will bother to upgrade to Linux from, say, Windows Me. Why? Because no matter how you slice it, the vast majority of computer users in this century are almost completely computer illiterate. It takes some brain power, confidence and familiarity to make Slackware, for example, install on a Compaq 3200 Series system that was only ever intended to run with Windows Me.

      What do Joe Average and Suzy Creamcheeze do when their system goes south for the winter? Grab that QuickRestore CD-ROM and get the box running the way it was from the factory! Even if they don't know what they're doing, they know that much. The interface is familiar and that's all that matters.

      Now, when you're talking IT guys and assorted geeks, they (like me) will have been using Linux on their own time long before it finds its way into a dark corner of the server room or, God forbid, sees actual desktop use in the main office.

      When you talk of people en masse adopting Linux in the home, you need to have an installation routine that does all the hardware probing, configuration, etc. better than Windows. And even more importantly than that, when something does need its own driver, there'd better be some Linux drivers staring 'em in the face.

      That's the world of Joe Average and Suzy Creamcheeze, folks.

      That said, if/as/when Slack's installation routine changes much from where it is now, I'll be gravely disappointed. After 7 years of Slack, I can't imagine doing it any other way. ;)
    • Wait a minute... sdont weven try to start with that basket of lies...

      Windows has tons more choices in all of that... Windows is crippled by the abundance of choice. Ofice, Open Office, Corel Wordperfect Suite (used mostly by law offices) and about 95,000 differnt shareware office "suites" or off-brand versions. as well as works, etc... and about 90 different email and groupware apps, 12 different browsers, 4 different current versions that all ACT and work differently (Oh we forgot ACT as a software package too!)

      and in a corperate deployment one package setup is chosen and used. The user has no say in it, you are given a deployment and you use it or leave the building...

      Linux in corperate is far easier and productive that any other operating system that is currently popular on the corperate desktop.

      If you have fast machines, KDE + fat apps.. slow machines? XFCE + light apps. anyone can easily create a very productive and useful linux deployment.... it's someone with the balls to stand behind their decision and reccomendation is the rarity..

      Oh, and anyone who says that "linux isnt ready" please give me the full details of your roll-out and how it failed... because if you didn't try, you dont know what you are talking about. Me? I havve 2 sucessful linux rollouts.. and with the current trends, It will expand next year to put Microsoft as the minority on desktops here.

    • Re:Ploy? (Score:3, Informative)

      by schporto ( 20516 )
      actually we did just evaluate Linux as our complete desktop solution. Choices didn't hurt us, it caused some headaches to decide which we wanted to use, but then, heck, our users would never have seen that. At the end there were 3 'problems' (and these will seem odd at first).
      1. Floppies. Asking our users to mount and unmount a floppy disk was gonna be a chore. Floppies are used a lot. That was actually gonna be a headache. Windows with its waiting for the green light to go out and then pop it out is (in theory) a better solution from a user point.
      2. Palm support. This was a difficult thing to get all kludged together and still didn't feel right. Had to stop on it eventually.
      3. Monitor resolution. For the most part resoltion changes would've been difficult within X. Yeah there's some trick utilities, but again with the Windows does it better.

      Now. Those 3 problems vs. M$ licensing and prices? (And yeah that was _all_ of the problems we really had) Which do you choose?
      Ahhh see I tricked you. Office politics intruded. mummble mummble. But I can honestly stand here and tell you - it would be possible. It wouldn't be simple, or quick, or painless, but it can be done. And should.
      -cpd
      • "Floppies. Asking our users to mount and unmount a floppy disk was gonna be a chore. Floppies are used a lot. That was actually gonna be a headache. Windows with its waiting for the green light to go out and then pop it out is (in theory) a better solution from a user point."

        Linux has had automounters for years. In fact,
        I installed RH7.3 this morning, and the automounter is enabled by default, so I didn't even have to configure it.

        • try it. Put a floppy in. copy some stuff onto it. yank it out as soon as the green light stops flashing. Any complaints from the system?
          -cpd
      • Not that this solves all your problems, just thought I'd point these out:

        1) have you ever tried linux-mandrake's supermount? Works like a charm for me. It works for cdroms too. It's actually the biggest reason I use mandrake.

        3) ctrl-alt-(+, -) should switch resolutions painlessly in Xfree86; perhaps you're annoyed with the screen scrolling that can happen as a result?

    • Re:Ploy? (Score:2)

      by mpe ( 36238 )
      Without starting a war, I think that in order for linux to be deployed successfully in a corporate envrironment, someone is going to have to build a highly functional, standardized desktop environment.

      All you need is a corporate wide standard, which could by very inflexable for the end user. Trying to have one system for everyone means a lot of work and probably ending up with something not ideal for anyone.

      Choice is great for geeks, but not for the standard fare business environment.

      When it comes to building offices and the services within them choice is very important at the planning stage. Even though you'd probably end up with the thing built by one builder, with all the sockets from one supplier, etc.

  • How they are regionalising the linux distro... (Score:3, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:46AM (#4110197)
    When linux is loading it says

    Giving linux a good kick in the arse ...

    Instead of seeing the word LILO it shows

    XXXX

    Instead of reporting your CPU type and speed in megahertz, you will see

    AMD Athlon with 2000 pounds per square inch of biting pressure

    The desktop randomly says "Crikey. Look at the size of that one!"

    The distro will be released under the GPL, however you must pay heaps of money to a team of rugby league players every week.

  • Pot calling Kettle black (Score:4, Insightful)

    by joweht ( 128960 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @05:49AM (#4110205)
    The suggestion that Tel$tra might resent Micro$ofts monopolistic rent seeking price practices is so ironic that it is not even ironic (as Baldrick would say).

    Tel$tra's business practices make Micro$oft seem a paragon of open access in comparison. Telstra is little more than a revival of the old (and justly reviled) Roman practice of tax farming, and it's massive profits come at the expense of decent information infrastructure and impose a disproportinate economic cost.

    Of course there are many Telco's around the world who similarly abuse their monopoly control of the local loop. Governments should wake up and realise that Telecoms constitute startegic infrastucture and that the short term windfalls that might arise from the creation of private monopolies and cartels come at the expense of massive flow on costs to the economy as a whole through communication costs being much higher than they should be.

    If we privatised all roads and allowed them to be run by gigantic vertically integrated transport conglomerates with no restrtictions on their prices the result would not be difficult to predict, a starving economy dominated by hugely profiatable transport congomerates. To see what this looks like one has only to go to modern day afghanistan, the ubiquotous "toll gates" are the sign posts of an economy there are no public goods exist and the result is a diminishing of private goods as well.

  • ....but the slick installer has definitely arrived. I am a Debian kind of guy but I recently had the opportunity to install Redhat 7.3. I must say that its polish took my breath away.

    Of course, once my install was complete, I discovered that a simple thing like locking the desktop was not visible on the desktop (annoying - it was in the desktop menu) and didnt work anyway (grrr! I guess I'll have to see which package needs to get installed. Even more annoying was the fact that it didnt let me know that it failed due to a missing package - it just did nothing.)

    I also looked at the Debian Woody instaler. The fact that I could select from so many locales had me impressed too (I'm sure this will win points with multinational corporations), but a graphics mode install like Redhat's would definitely impress the unitiated more.

  • Thick clients - way forward (Score:3, Insightful)

    by DrSkwid ( 118965 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @06:04AM (#4110238) Journal
    Sensible companies have methods to centralise document storage and management.

    Terminals in business are commodities. Paying a premium for all the features in Windows is expensive.

    Does every terminal need Digital camera capabilities when you've got 100 terminals in the room?

    When every penny counts the case for sticking with windows for the clients grows harder. If you've invested in servers you can probably keep those going while you phase in alternatives.

    A feature rich client is an expensive extravagance.

    • Terminals in business are commodities. Paying a premium for all the features in Windows is expensive.
      Does every terminal need Digital camera capabilities when you've got 100 terminals in the room?

      The number needing a camera may well be exactly zero. Ditto for a large number of "features" Microsoft likes to tightly embed into their software.
      Also you may want to have any user able to use any terminal. Microsoft's approach of "roaming profiles" just dosn't scale.

      When every penny counts the case for sticking with windows for the clients grows harder. If you've invested in servers you can probably keep those going while you phase in alternatives.

      Especially if the extra money dosn't make the workstation more reliable or more resistant to the user feeding it too much coffee.

  • Doens't Matter (Score:2, Informative)

    by nervlord1 ( 529523 )
    Doens't matter, don't let it fool you, Telstra are an evil monopoly, they are the microsoft, of australia, they inflate broadband prices to absolutly insane levels and inflict us all with 3 gig (thats right, 3 gig) a month for horrendous amounts of money and with absolutly no stability, dont let this ever make you think telstra are a decent company, visit www.whirlpool.net.au for more info on how they exploit there monopoly posistion in australia to keep broadband prices high
  • In this [eweek.com] article in Eweek it says that many corporate users are not ready, or are uninterested in, such a product.


    Telstra wouldn't bother producing anything that a prestigious publication like Eweek says there is no interest in would they?

  • Games! (Score:4, Funny)

    by echophase ( 601838 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @06:18AM (#4110271)
    So they will have, what, 1 year of unprecidented employee productivity before all the popular games are ported to Linux.
  • Maybe these businesses are bringing up the L word so that MS will drop their prices.

  • thoughts (Score:2, Interesting)

    by ctar ( 211926 )
    Some quick thoughts about Microsoft, and Linux. First, Microsoft, as the
    richest company in the world, HAS to keep INCREASING profits. A company
    that has made so much money for its stockholders has to not just keep
    making money, but increasing profits. Its the nature of our economy. If
    you're not growing, you're not making money for your shareholders.

    This is maybe true only more recently, where dividends are less and less
    the reason that people invest in corporations. People invest because they
    expect the market value of their shares to increase. (especially with
    Microsoft, who IIRC doesn't pay dividends to shareholders)

    Microsoft has accumulated so much cash, so quickly, that if they don't
    continue to do so, their stock value will go down.

    I don't write this as justification...Just something I thought about when thinking about why MS would be so aggresive with new licensing and pricing strategies.

    On a completely different, but relatively ONTOPIC subject, I think that
    corporations judgement of Linux as a desktop OS has so much to do with the
    window manager, especially KDE. Not to start any flame wars here, but I
    think more minimalistic window managers (while not as attractive) have the
    potential to be much more simple and stable on the desktop. (And much more
    customizable). People say KDE is customizable, but I think its very
    difficult to do correctly. With something like blackbox, and a simple file
    manager, it can be very easy to create custom desktop PC's with options
    only for the apps you are supporting. If this is a desktop PC, all you
    need is a right click menu with OpenOffice, some email app, and a web
    browser.

    • First, Microsoft, as the richest company in the world, HAS to keep INCREASING profits. A company that has made so much money for its stockholders has to not just keep making money, but increasing profits. Its the nature of our economy. If you're not growing, you're not making money for your shareholders.

      This kind of thing is basically a pyramid scheme. Which is unsustainable long term. The most likely fate of Microsoft would be to "Enron", assuming that those running the company have somewhere safe to flee to.

      This is maybe true only more recently, where dividends are less and less the reason that people invest in corporations.

      The payment of dividends is a sustainable paradigm, since it simply requires making a profit, rather than making an ever increasing profit. Making a fairly static profit or a decent profit averaged over 10, 25, 50 even 100 years is rather more attainable than making an ever increasing profit.

      People invest because they expect the market value of their shares to increase. (especially with Microsoft, who IIRC doesn't pay dividends to shareholders)

      Problem is that stock market valuations have become meaningless as measures of anything other than the thoughs of stock traders.

      Microsoft has accumulated so much cash, so quickly, that if they don't continue to do so, their stock value will go down.

      But just as they have accumulated it quickly they can also lose it quickly. The way things look is that if Microsoft's stock value starts fall they would lose a lot of their cash reserves in covering stock options. Maybe even in trying to manipulate the markets by their own stock trading, governments have lost more money than Microsoft have trying (and generally failing) to prop up their currencies..

      I think that corporations judgement of Linux as a desktop OS has so much to do with the window manager, especially KDE. Not to start any flame wars here, but I think more minimalistic window managers (while not as attractive) have the potential to be much more simple and stable on the desktop.

      Something being pretty is really not any kind of big issue here, especially it it's an application or application suite specific to the organisation in question.

      (And much more customizable). People say KDE is customizable, but I think its very difficult to do correctly.

      What's important here is administrative rather than end user customisation. Indeed it may well be a requirement to restrict end user customisation.
      I don't think the problem is really technical, so much as everything being judged by a Windows yardstick.
  • [CIO] Smith has spoken publicly on a number of occasion about his preference for open standards and systems and listed Sun boss Scott McNealy as his most admired IT figure in a recent magazine interview.

    As others have noted, this is probably just a ploy to get a better price from Microsoft. I wouldn't be surprised to see an announcement, in a new months, that Telstra have negotiated a new five year deal with Microsoft.. and Smith is no longer CIO.

  • FOOLS! (Score:2, Flamebait)

    by flacco ( 324089 )
    Don't they know that Linux is a geek OS that's already dead on the desktop?!
  • Let Raster "Linux is dead on the desktop" roll this up and smoke it.
  • The great thing about linux in an enterprise is the ability to use file systems in a much more dynamic way versus NT. Doing a large scale deployment under Linux you could mount the whole damn system via NFS with a single CDROM in the drive to start the system boot. By pooling all the drive space and perhaps integrating many processes to run in a distributed fashion you could increase performance on a large scale.

    BUT (Love that word, it encompasses all that is real, there is always a 'but' looking around) with centralization comes less points of failure and failures become exponentially more damaging as the points of failure diminsh.

    The ideal usage that I have found for Linux in a corporate desktop environment is as such: Linux is effective as a hybrid Thin Client with applications running (and or cached) on the local client much like the old dumb terminals. With applications parsed between a application server and the local client, plus utilizing the clients as execution nodes for distributed tasks Linux as a desktop OS has a great amount of potential.

    One of my old clients has a setup with a master data server with a drive structure of /Home/Boot/MachineDrive and /Home/Boot/Personal. The /MachineDrive was the dynamic install of the OS, user's terminals would mount that in the boot process as root and such (I am not a Linux guru so I don't know if other mount points were also loaded from there). The /Personal became the normal /Home/USERID. The wicked thing was when you booted the system you picked what version you wanted to load for your machine (If you were on a Dell GX you could load CAD, OFFICE, ACCOUNTING) and walla! it mounted and booted from the network drive. They setup a local swap file and did some cache tricks and then as an additional layer when you logged in it mounted additional mount points so you has access to the applications you were supposed to have. It was the coolest thing I had seen. I hope these aussie-types do a good implementation. This could become a huge black eye for Linux if they have problems. The community better give them a hand. Business' here in the states WILL be watching with a critical eye.

  • This is no suprise. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by shren ( 134692 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @10:16AM (#4111207) Homepage Journal
    Everybody understands that this is the traditional accepted way of asking Microsoft for a discount, right?

  • If only Sun could sell software to save their life (Score:3, Informative)

    by SmilieZ ( 3862 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @10:17AM (#4111217) Homepage
    As a StarOffice 6.0 reseller..

    We have :-

    * No access to site licencing
    * No OEM product
    * No Marketing Tools (Posters, Leaflets, Handouts ,Shwag)

    We have lost heaps of tenders and quotes because we were just unable to provide site-licences!

    Oh yeah, sure, lets just send our business over to Sun so they can take the business that we advertised and marketing for.

    Basically, Sun think the product is SO good, it will sell itself.

    When I try and get Staroffice into retailers, it pales in comparison to just have a box on the shelf, when their shop is plastered with A1 and A0 Office XP posters that MS gave them.

  • Know what would be really cool? If all these companies that use Linux to save millions of dollars would each hire one or two full-time open source developers to advance the cause (Helping save them more money down the line.). HP has lead a good example with their shining support of PERL, time for us to encourage others to follow.

  • That's not what the article says (Score:3, Insightful)

    by tmark ( 230091 ) on Wednesday August 21, 2002 @11:44AM (#4111898)
    The article says that the company is considering Linux for the machines "supporting" their 45,000 or whatever desktops. As I read it, this is something very different that deploying Linux on each of them, and probably refers instead to the company's internal servers.

    They *do* talk about the company evaluating StarOffice as a replacement suite for their desktops, though, which to me makes it even more clear that they plan to continue to run Windows.

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