Energy Company Refutes Windows TCO Claims 556
apt-get writes "Computerworld Australia has a gem of a case study on Country Energy with comments from an IT manager that shoot down Microsoft's 'objective' Windows TCO claims. My favourite; 'we get to see both sides and Windows is not cheaper at all'. Interestingly, in almost every area of its critical IT infrastructure, open source and commercial software work in peace together. The IT manager even says not having MS Office on Linux is a hindrance to its desktop take up."
Porting... (Score:4, Interesting)
I wonder how long it will be until Lotus Notes is ported to Linux? Although OpenOffice is improving all the time, would this company rather have MS Office on Linux (shudder) or a vastly comparitive open source product?
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Interesting)
Basically, the IBM guy said the code of Notes was an absolute mess, and that porting it to Linux would be more trouble than it's worth. So, it might be ported, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.
-Erwos
Re:Porting... (Score:4, Interesting)
It was a major flop. The software was seriously crappy, it was slow, and it was quickly dropped in favor of POP clients and now webmail (which from what I understand still sucks).
The code may be messy but the application itself is a POS and isn't likely to be picked up by users.
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Informative)
Or maybe they had plans to use the database and document sharing functionality in Notes but never got around to it? That would be a good, valid reason to use Notes. There are many, many reasons to use Notes, but e-mail isn't one of them.
Re:Porting... (Score:4, Funny)
Having worked with notes that does not surprise me. What does surprise me is that an IBM guy would admit that. Usually when I ask the local IBM rep about buggy software he gets this distant zombie like look in his eyes and responds with the same mantra (in a hollow, mechanical voice):
It will be fixed in the next version....
Re:Porting... (Score:4, Interesting)
I coded to their C API and found it to be a horrible mess. The API exposes all kinds of stupid artifacts of the internal database and file storage architecture. The API forces all clients, including their own client and server code to be a twisted mess.
The Java API is an order of magnitude better, but it is layered on top of the C API, so it is simply hiding the horror show underneath.
Lotus should be shot in the head. The best thing they could do is start over. They pretend to support standards, but the database and APIs force all kinds of conversions that end up mutilating the "standard" content. Case in point - I sent a simple HTML file to a colleage from Mozilla. The mess that came out of Lotus looked nothing like my original file.
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Porting to UNIX or LINUX today is technically feasible. Working with WineLib I am sure they could get a port up and running in a matter of weeks or months. The problem is one of support. Once a port is built, IBM has to QA it. Package it. Sell it. Support it for years. The costs are enormous. Measure that against the projected user base and it just wasn't cost effective. They'd rather spend the money on a web client.
Given that IBM is pushing for Linux desktops internally, the prospect of a Notes client port is more likely. On the other hand, IBM is now pushing new Java based groupware technologies that will naturally run on Linux. Who knows how it'll turn out.
Anyway Notes 5 runs splendidly under Wine and I think support for Notes 6 is on Codeweavers' todo list.
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Insightful)
The large company I work for during the day has a deal with Microsoft where I can get the full version of the latest Office for $20. I'm going to be ordering that and dumping OO, because even for my modest needs I find OO cumbersome and annoying.
While one advantage of OO is it runs on multiple platforms, the big downside is it is a hinderance to productivity. Labor is expensive - the cost of Office for the office is less than the time spent wrestling with an immature product.
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a poor craftsman that blames his tools. When I show up for work if the boss says I am working in Maya this week, I work in maya. If it's Studio Max that next week, I work in Max. (Hell, I had to work in TrueSpace once, not so bad once you learn it.) Yeah, they all have their strengths and weaknesses, but the important thing is that I am still able to get the job done, regardless of the renderer/3d engine. If I am able to handle working in different 3d platforms, why is it that 'normal' office users can't do the stupid TPS report in whatever is placed in front of them. It really pisses me off. I have to take college level physics and learn some fundamental AI as an artist, but some business guy can't even learn OO? It's truly a shame.
I am glad I am not the boss of someone who can't handle a different software package. I would be forced to fire them because they are clearly not able to 'grow' on the job. It's my opinion that the first priority is that the job gets done, how it gets done falls in second.
With all due respect, how hard could it be to do "word processor for letters, invoices, fax cover sheets, the occasional mailing label"? It's not rocket science, and doesn't require a huge amount of macros to do. If you can't work in multiple/different softwares, I am sure there is a new-comer college grad who would love your job for less that CAN do it, and will get a kick out of using something that is not the norm.
Signed, 24-bit Voxel
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Informative)
You might be thinking of Lotus SmartSuite, which is a pretty good office package, and I think it'll run well under wine, but again it would be great running native.
Re:Porting... (Score:3, Informative)
I know people inside ibm running notes on linux, using Wine. For a discussion on the pros/cons of a linux Notes client see this article [dominopower.com].
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Never.
Lotus has announced repeatedly that they are never going to port Notes 5+ to the linux/unix desktop. And now that WINE is capable of running Notes 5 they have even less incentive.
In 1999 IBM Server Group was literally only two days away from receiving the source code to the Notes 4.6 client and they were going to port it to linux for internal use. The Lotus higher-level managers cancelled the deal. (Even though the 4.5 client for AIX had been ported to linux, then re-ported again to AIX with better stability and performance.) With the 5.0 release they dropped support for AIX and OS/2.
Inside IBM, Lotus still behaves like a separate company and basically never give out their code to other IBM groups. I don't know who precisely is sleeping with who, but clearly there's some bad mojo at work here.
To reiterate: we will NEVER see a native Notes client for linux. Support the Evolution folks instead. Their client is very similar, and if it ever supports the Domino server natively that will be our Notes client.
Re:Porting... (Score:3, Insightful)
When businesses want something, they generally don't want a messy hack. They want something that's supported by the vendor. IBM is NOT going to be supporting Notes under WINE.
-Erwos
Re:Porting... (Score:3, Informative)
Now, another reply says that only the Notes server runs on Linux, and that the client does not. And frankly, I don't know which is right.
Also...about the "supported configuration" deal...if you get Crossover Office with the intention of running MS Office on Linux, the Crossover people support the application.
Re:Porting... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Porting... (Score:3, Insightful)
For all other parts of MS Office (Word, Access, PowerPoint) I prefer other solutions. And I especially hate MS's spellchecking. Because I am fighting with it until I have it switched off. It is good for nothing to me. But maybe that's because the words I am making spelling errors in aren't in MS's dictionaries anyway. And the nagging fe
Re:Porting... (Score:5, Insightful)
Disclaimer - I have loathed word processors for twenty years now. MS Word is at the top of that list. So I am certainly biased. To be fair, I don't like Open Office either.
Re:Porting... (Score:3, Funny)
Someone didn't take the blue pill did they?
Office interoptibility (Score:4, Interesting)
No and yes. It's might be the best package when it comes to cooperation between the programs, when it comes to intuitivity, though it can be argued thats because everyone allready knows how MsOffice works. In fact Im pretty sure that any office-package not behaving exactly like MsOffice would be claimed to be less intuitive. Because everyone knows how MsOffice works.
But let's call these things technicalities. My beef is with another part of the package. A part which usually is unseen for most users, but nevertheless presents a problem.
Let's say we take a look at MsWord, for example. My first encounter must have been with version 2. The documents were labeled with the extension .doc. Take a look at the newest version, still suffixed with .doc.
Does anyone know what the actual diffferences in the file format is? Have you ever tried exchanging documents with people working with older version of MsOffice? If not, let me tell you right away that hell will arise.
The newest version of Office will recognise the documents, and open them without any indication that it is treating a depricated format.
In some cases (no deep research conducted here, on my part) if you edit the document, and save it, and return it to the sender, it will remain in the old format. However, sometimes (if you use some new features, or god knows why) it will save the document in the new Office format. All without any warning.
Now guess what will hapeen if you cooperate on some work between Office versions. The incompatabilities between the different versions of the fileformats risks rendering your work totally useless.
And Microsoft really haven't seemed that eager to document the formats at all or their differences.
So to my point. One version of Office works fine. Yes. To different versions hardly work at all.
And their is no telling what the differences is, or have you can avoid the trouble of encountering them.
And yes, I know you can choose "Save as... (Word 95,3,2,....-file) every time you need to communicate with other versions, but how can you know what version the recipient will have, and what design/flow-coontrol-features will be disabled when you save in an older format?
Office, kinda like Windows, like things very homegeneous.
TCO analisys worldwide (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:TCO analisys worldwide (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TCO analisys worldwide (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:TCO analisys worldwide (Score:5, Informative)
For my location 24 hours of system downtime is one million dollars of lost production.
Good article. (Score:5, Insightful)
I would hope that reading such as this is sought out by IT managers looking at a migration to any other platform. Real world results are what count. Trusting studies paid for by $COMPANY is just plain ignorant.
Don't get too excited (Score:5, Insightful)
To repeat a popular statistician's aphorism:This has been a public service announcement.
Re:Don't get too excited (Score:5, Insightful)
A single counter example is enough to refute a general statement.
If somebody says that Open source software is more expensive than commercial software, having a case with says otherwise invalidates the statement. The case itself proves nothing either way, but it does disprove the general statement.
So to refute the case is useless because the case proves nothing.
honestly, I don't get it (Score:5, Interesting)
Is the cause just coverting some of the document formating used in existing
f.p. too
Re:honestly, I don't get it (Score:5, Funny)
can any of those run vb script macros?
Re:honestly, I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)
For instance I wrote some IIS script that instanciated the Word object, opened a template, filled in the contents, printed the document and then archived itself as a Word document on the server for later retrieval as required for some legal documents (these were court documents for non-payment of bills).
You can open a Word document and have it present dialog boxes and g
Re:honestly, I don't get it (Score:3, Informative)
Re:honestly, I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, I have tried other products over the years, but have always found the competition to be slow and buggy. The last impressive competition I saw was WordPerfect, back on
Re:honestly, I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
-
I have not come across anything that MS Office can do that another office programme, such as StarOffice or OpenOffice can't do.
That's not the problem, the problem is all the other people using MS Office. Even if your whole organization uses OpenOffice or StarOffice, you'll run into problems with people you do business with only using MS Office. Sometimes the documents won't look/work exactly right in anything but Office so you end up having to use it anyway, no matter how hard you try.One of the problems is MS's ever-changing document formats, while WordPerfect's not changed their document format for years, MS's seems to change with ever release. I'm not sure, but I suspect the format will even change ever-so-slightly with some of the service packs. Nothing that'll affect MS Office versions, but enough to make the document a mess in anything else. Personally I dont't think this is just a coincedence, MS seems to be trying to make sure Office is the only thing companies can use without massive headaches. That's why I doubt we'll ever see it ported to Linux unless a court ordered them to, and then they'd probably find a way to hobble it enough that you still needed a Windows box to run it on for it to not cause grief.
If you're in a company that's not mandated another product, you can pretty much forget using anything buy Office happily. Last place I worked even though pretty much all the staff in my dept. preferred Word Perfect and had it on our machines, we still had to do the majority of stuff in Office because we had to deal with people outside the dept. It's insanely frustrating let me tell you. I ended up doing most of my work in Office just to save the hassle. The one thing I always used WordPerfect for was labels though, Office royally sucks for creating labels. It also sends unnecessarilly large files to the printer when it comes time to print the labels. I remember trying to print some VCR labels on an old Apple Laserwriter. Each one was a single graphic the size of the label. Couldn't get them to print, after looking at the queue size it turned out the document in the printer queue had a size of over 5MB! (The printer only had 2MB memory onboard.) What's scary is the actual .doc file was quite a bit smaller than 5MB. That's when I got a copy of WP for my work computer, when I checked its print queue size (for the same set of labels, all graphics) it was around 700k.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Printing Envelopes (Score:3, Interesting)
Script support for the mainees (Score:5, Funny)
Yeah, ofcourse man! I mean, who would release an Office package for the mainstream without perl and scripting support? That's the one feature that everyone needs.
After they learn about locating their own files on the harddisk, that is.
Re:honestly, I don't get it (Score:5, Informative)
Re:honestly, I don't get it (Score:3, Insightful)
But the fact of the matter is that it can be done with non-MS products (easier, I might add). Whether you think Microsoft's solutions are easier and quicker are, well, subjective, just as much as any other option.
comment... (Score:4, Insightful)
And it isn't easy to find Windoze admins?
Re:comment... (Score:4, Funny)
Competent ones?
Re:comment... (Score:3, Insightful)
And it isn't easy to find Windoze admins?
No, it's plenty easy to find Windows admins....it's just really tough (read: not possible) to get ahold of a Windows database stack with the performance, reliability, and scalability of Oracle on AIX.
But of course, the important thing here is that Windows wasn't even one of the stated possibilities; it couldn't even really be considered for this. The choices were Linux (on a big Altix box...probably 20+ procs) or AIX (on a 24-proc), either way with Oracle. They m
Linux alert (Score:4, Insightful)
Governments can always have second thougts.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Fortunately, on the other hand more and more government institutions give Linux a fair chance as well in competing with Microsoft and especially on the cost side, Linux (and other open source) wins! (Community of Munich, Amsterdam is considering it and I bet there are more examples)
About time, I could really welcome a tax cut. I hate to lose my tax money on Microsoft.
Re:Governments can always have second thougts.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Sometimes the truth is astonishingly obvious (Score:5, Insightful)
Product W (its primary competitor) is sold at quite a high price, by a single vendor who relies on marketing, market position, and features to sell the product. The product's users have little to say about the evolution of the product and nothing at all to say about its internal design.
The vendor of product W releases studies which it pays for proving that W is cheaper to own than L. Later, a large field trial proves that product L is, actually cheaper than product W.
Who is kidding who here? There is a very good reason that small businesses with any technical savvy at all jump onto the Linux/OSS bandwagon as soon as they possibly can. It saves money.
Small note to evangelists: convert people to OpenOffice.org on Windows first.
En garde! (Score:5, Interesting)
"Product W [...] is sold [...] by a single vendor who relies on [...] features to sell the product." (emphasis added)
Features are more important than stability to many people. Rebooting is annoying, but not being able to do certain things is unacceptable. In environments were stability is most important (always-on systems, such as internet, power, and telecom), Linux will do well. In other environments, it won't.
"Small note to evangelists: convert people to OpenOffice.org on Windows first."
You assume that OpenOffice is just as good as OfficeXP. For people who don't use any advanced features, this may be true, but not for many others. OpenOffice can never get a foothold in academea while its chart-making is so poor, for example. For individuals, there simply is no need for a different office suite. Why would someone who has a perfectly good copy of MS Office want to switch? People paying licensing fees for multiple machines are far more likely to need the features not found in OO.org than individuals, in my estimation.
Features? No, function! (Score:5, Interesting)
The essence of good design is simplicity and value comes from the elimination of unnecessary features, not their addition.
You would consider a door with fifteen handles and ten ways of opening to be "worth more" than a door that has one handle which works exactly as you expect? Hardly.
As for OpenOffice.org, it is easily, easily sufficient for 80-90% of all computer users. You can argue with this but the real reason MS Office is popular in academea may have more to do with cheap licenses than anything else.
Finally, people will switch to OOorg for several reasons. Firstly when the weight of yearly licenses starts to hurt. Secondly, to avoid yet one more cycle of upgrades that break large numbers of existing configurations for little obvious gain. Thirdly, when they are running old versions and do not want to pay once more for new ones. Lastly, and I believe significantly, many people use MS Office with no license at all. OOorg provides them a way to become "legitimate".
Now, the discussion is not about "why switch", it's about cost.
In a global market, any business that pays more than it needs to for a service (including software) is at a competitive disadvantage, and will eventually be beaten by leaner competitors.
Microsoft's offerings costs more, and for the majority of its users, this extra cost simply does not translate into extra value. You cannot debate this observation away. If you work for Microsoft, you would do better to consider how such an unbalanced business model can actually survive. Eventually your customers will be unable to pay for your products, however much they like them. What will you do then?
Re:Features? No, function! (Score:5, Funny)
I don't know. Ask Larry Wall.
Re:En garde! (Score:5, Insightful)
>while its chart-making is so poor, for example.
Uhm, OpenOffice can never get a foothold in academia because everybody uses LaTeX and GnuPlot
Which happens to be an open source product, and existed way before Linux.
--Blerik
If only (Score:4, Interesting)
Best of all its EASY to author. (Well, once you've done one anyway.)
However, I'm finding more and more places that only want stuff in MS Word format. And in my university everything, and I mean everything, is in MS Word format. No other format is allowed. Not PDF, not PS, not even RTF in many cases. And sure as hell no text, sgml/xml/html or TeX. A while back I got a list of people, email, phone numbers etc that the department circulated. Not in csv format which would be the most sensible. Not in XML which would have been flexible and useful. Not in Excel format which could have been useful. In Word format. Completely useless.
And the CS department teaches computer literacy. Which translates to "Demonstrate that you can use MS Office".
Re:Sometimes the truth is astonishingly obvious (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Sometimes the truth is astonishingly obvious (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise they lose some of the "vendor lockin" that makes them so powerful...
just a thought
What TCO Refutation? (Score:3, Interesting)
The article is mostly a narrative of a large IT shop that is bringing open source into doing different parts of its business, with databases and desktops still living in the proprietary world.
The guy in charge is no zealot, just evaluating his options and doing what makes sense.
The bottom line is:
Does TCO include the cost of virus attack ?? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Does TCO include the cost of virus attack ?? (Score:5, Informative)
First, the plural of virus always has been "viruses".
Secondly, if I get an ELF executable in an email, I have to save it to disk, open a terminal, chmod +x it and then type in its name. Double-clicking on a saved executable in a file manager will probably do something like open it with a text editor until you've made it executable.
It might be a little easier if you send an RPM file in email, but then the user opens the file and is asked "Are you sure you want to install package 'such-and-such'?" by the friendly rpm gui manager. Even then, unless the user provides an administrative password (assuming the machine is running some kind of backend gui authenticator like ksudo for KDE or the Security Services API in Mac OS X), there is no way any kind of software can install itself systemwide so it starts on boot, but only to start on login (granted, this makes little difference on a single-user machine).
With these things in mind, you can very easily lock down a system so even this rpm-on-login exploit is impossible if you mount home directories (and /tmp) no-exec. This flag has been standard in Unix variants for a long time and is often used for stuff like NFS-mounted mail spools. It even works in Mac OS X and I've successfully used it for this purpose on specialized kiosk-type applications. This prevents certain users from writing their own programs and scripts, but hopefully one would feel comfortable granting an exception for these more advanced users and giving them some space for programming.
Experience tells... (Score:5, Insightful)
- Experience of personnel
- Age of the system and its knowledge base
- Number of inherent maintenance problems
- Cost of expertise
- Severity of maintenance issues
- Perceived impact of issues
and so on, and so on...Too often, the people making decisions based on marketing numbers like TCO fail to realize just how many issues are involved in these measurements. The buzzword TCO becomes another name for just one of the measurable items (e.g. Number of inherent problems).
What's needed are top-level executives that weren't churned out by a college and hired because of thier good-old boy connections. CIOs, CTOs and other executives in power need to be from one school, the school of hard knocks, so that they can make INFORMED decisions instead of blindly relying on the marketing fodder that are handed.
Re:Experience tells... (Score:4, Informative)
Having sold software and hardware for literally decades using TCO, I can tell you conclusively that it's worse than you think. TCO is MUCH MORE SWEEPING and includes:
* Cost of Acquisition (hard)
* Cost of Installation (soft)
* Cost of maintenance (soft)
* Cost of downtime (soft)
* Interest costs from loans (hard)
* Cost of consumables (soft)
* Utility costs (electric) (soft)
* Cost of anticipated moves, adds changes (soft)
* Cost of anticipated upgrades (soft)
* Cost of disposal (soft)
Most of which are highly subjective soft costs. TCO is basically useless unless it's your accountant telling you what your departmental expenses related to ____ are. If you here it from a sales person or marketing type, it is most likely bs. ROI is even worse and TCO comparisons are the worst of all. If you want reality have your CFO or controller do a ROAE (Return on Assets Employed) study.
MS Office -does- run on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Useful quote from the review '...it's now so easy (and reliable) to use Word, PowerPoint, and Excel for reading doc, ppt, and xls files, that I'm beginning to fear that those programs -- which I was getting so good at doing without - - might no longer be relegated to the status of "options of last resort".'
Breaking the MS Office to Windows OS tie-in will seriously undermine the MS monopoly.
TCO... (Score:5, Insightful)
After reading several TCO reports and even writing one myself, I've come to the conclusion that TCO is not something that one can make a sweeping generalization about.
Cost is one thing and convenience and time are another thing. Windows costs more than GNU/Linux is most cases, but no doubt someone somewhere can twist the numbers to make it look otherwise. Windows is less secure than GNU/Linux, but again -- someone, somewhere will come up with bullshit numbers or statistics or outright lies (Steve Ballmer!) to "prove" differently.
Companies (and home users) should choose to leave Windows because of its licensing, first and foremost. The MS EULA basically says, "we own you" and people should take issue with that. If we all followed every license to the letter of the law, very few people would be using proprietary software -- especially Windows.
Everyone has their own take on TCO and TBO (Total Benefit of Ownership) and anyone can make either "side" look like it "wins." Licensing costs and rights are undeniable though; that's one area that is not up for debate. What is the hidden cost of being tied down by fascist licensing? It costs you your freedom and subjects you to software audits. Violation of the EULA is US$200,000 and up to five years in jail...
-JemRe:TCO... (Score:5, Funny)
I'd like to see a "TCBO" study - Total Cost of Being Owned. I imagine the cost goes up with each virus... because you're owned by the virus writers then to
- Dan
Just playing the other side for a moment... (Score:4, Insightful)
OK, I feel this way too sometimes. But I have to look at it realistically too. Businesses - yeah, they have to consider TCO and licensing terms. Home users? No consideration whatsoever. I understand that *technically* Microsoft could audit everyone for license compliance, but it is not feasable that they would do so. Licensing of Windows sucks, if you care about it at all. Ask any home user of Windows what their major beef with it is, and I'll bet nobody says anything about Freedom. Hell, most people don't even like computers, let alone have a philosophy regarding them. That is why Microsoft has such a huge marketshare - they cater to the lowest common denominator. Not that the LCD is bad, just that the majority of people aren't tech-heads. People don't get it, nor do they WANT to get it. They don't care. Virus hits, they can't do email for a few days, they get over it. As Homer would shrug and say "Hmm, whadaya gonna do?"
If there is any kind of "Linux Revolution" it won't start in the U.S. All of a sudden, U.S. companies will look around and realize that the rest of the world has embraced this "new" technology and we'll have to play catch-up. Fine by me, maybe then I can get a job doing something I like - but I feel sorry for all the MCSEs.
They are migrating from UNIX (Score:5, Insightful)
The truth is, what is better for you will depend on your situation, existing applications, existing in-house skills, etc. I don't believe Microsoft's funded propaganda, but there can be situations in which Windows is an appropriate choice. Look at what you are running and then make a decision. In this case it is obviously Linux.
Re:They are migrating from UNIX (Score:5, Insightful)
One of the "Halloween documents" dealt with this -- the MS marketing people were struggling to keep up with the flood of "____ Switching From Windows To Linux!" driven primarily by the inability of Slashdot editors and other Linux media figures to read.
Best quote (Score:5, Insightful)
I wouldn't have a job if there was two minutes of downtime and I wouldn't trust Windows for that.
There you have it, in a nutshell...
Alright so I am an idiot but where is the case stu (Score:5, Insightful)
This is in fact what MS is saying. That if your company does not have significant unix skills but instead is windows based then switching to linux will be more expensive. Sure they mess around with it but that claim is pretty valid. It is always more expensive in the short term, and tco is short term roi would be long term, to switch.
So yes he does say the lack of MS Office is keeping the linux desktop down. True or not this is hardly likely to ever change. Hell MS is even backing down on MS office of the apple.
Nice headline, pity it doesn't seem related to the story.
To those impatient to see when Linux will overthrow MS windows look back at history and ask how long it took MS to go from nobody to somebody. There was a time when owning a DOS machine was alternative and weird when everybody had an amiga on wich everything just worked. With PICTURES!!!!!
Re:Alright so I am an idiot but where is the case (Score:4, Insightful)
MS-DOS was release at around 1981, and 15 years later they had a monopoly with Windows 95. Linux is already about 10 years old. Should we expect great things from Linux in 5 years? I believe that is a reasonable expectation.
No big surprises here (Score:5, Interesting)
'Objective Studies' aside, there is little comparison in performance, ease of maintenance, etc. The answer I've begun giving the Windows Admins here at work (who are fighting for server installs - a losing battle in this age of dropping budgets and 'increased efficiencies') is this: Go and administer an enterprise level *nix network for five years, then come back to me and we'll compare notes. (Yes, I did my time as an MS Admin, MCSE+I and all that crap, back when NT was going to save the world)
IMHO, the only reason M$ still has any of the server space at all is 'time to market' considerations, and the overall lower level of expertise. Back when I was a Windows admin, I used to say: "The biggest problem with Windows is that Microsoft designed it so that any idiot could set it up - and most of them do."
Any given network is only as stable/secure as its administrator, it's true, but remember that the ideal case stability of the platform represents a hard limit, no matter how competent the admin. Anybody wanna bet their job on 5 9s from NT?
TCO of recent Microsoft Updates (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source can be commercial (Score:4, Informative)
Commercial doesn't always mean non-free. MySQL and RedHat are both companies which produce commercial software which is open source/free software.
Yawn.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course it's going to be cheaper to run Linux in their environment; they have a large in-house staff that already knows Unix. This is not rocket science and I myself would tell them to go the Linux route. However, if your a Windows-only shop like our little cranny of the world then moving to Linux doesn't make a lot of sense because their is no internal knowledge base. Moral of the story: Use what's best for you because if you don't have the resources then the alternative most times will be more expensive.
One more case study (Score:5, Interesting)
Last week I had a chance to run into my previous project manager, and he was telling me that they went completely Linux. The organisation grew from a group of 40 programmers to 250 dudes. The only reason for this is, with the recent M$ licensing policy it was impossible to buy so many licenses. Now the whole organization is running RH 9.x and they use it to monitor home security systems and medical automation.
So please dont give us bull about TCO M$!!!
hear hear (Score:5, Interesting)
If this is not acknowledged, it can't be properly addressed. Next time you say "it's just marketing" or whatever other BS on Office's success, realize you're not doing yourself and your favorite alternative Office program a favour.
Allow me to rant a bit on what's needed to get people (companies) to replace Windows and Office...
The big challenge is that apart from having to be every bit as good as Office, the working environment should also be better.
I think with KOffice and OpenOffice, Linux has two excellent candidates, KOffice for the more simplestupid crowd (me and most people although most won't admit it) and OpenOffice for the "power user". For obvious reasons though, they should be 100% interoperateble. Even if features are not fully supported, they should not result in document hell.
Right now, in a lot of environments you can't do away with MSOffice. Find out why (without resorting to arrogant BS) and fix it. Sometimes it's easy: a few people are seriously into Powerpoint, and the company distributes them to others. Well, that's enough reason not to switch.
But also, apart from having the clip art, dictionaries, etc etc etc all that stuff, there might be a lot of things that arguably are outside the scope of the software, but need to be looked into in order to fulfill the full productivity cycle people are running now with MSOffice.
Their Office runs on their OS and they don't really differentiate. So if you can map the whole experience and make that good, only then you can claim to be able to replace the desktop.
The same goes for the Gimp btw. If you already *have* Photoshop, there is not ONE single reason to go to Gimp.
Disclaimer: This mail not to make things seem easy or to in any way berate Linux developers (bless you) but in response to the many derogative remarks here on MSOffice.
Comparison: SCO is not being beaten up and undressed by "Fuck You" comments but by a bunch of highly skilled lawyers - and appropriately the Groklaw crowd.
Why isn't anyone discussing the article? (Score:4, Informative)
I did, and I find it amazing
"The PeopleSoft back end is moving to the AIX system and we would move the Windows front end to Linux if the application gave us the option," Peters said. "We have no interest in staying on Windows for those types of applications as there are just down sides. In our organisation Windows is not a threat as we get to see both sides and Windows is not cheaper at all."
My reading of the article is that large Australian energy company focused on UNIX / Linux / Sun / AIX technologies that happens to have some Windows boxes has come to the conclusion that if they were in a position to centralize even further (by ditching Windows) it wouldn't cost them any more money.
B F D
This is news?
A bit thin I thought (Score:4, Insightful)
What I'd like to see is a linux biased company come out with a similar "get the real truth
TCO -- Total Cost of an Outage (Score:4, Informative)
Why don't we look at what an outage would cost, the expenses necessary to create a redundant infrastructure to minimize those potential outages, and then compare costs.
I wouldn't have my job either if I didn't plan for network failures and the recovery mechanisms in place. Although cost is a factor, uptime and reliability are much more important.
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Anyway... such tie-ins make it hard to migrate to Linux. I'm not even talking about disgruntled users having to learn something new (computer illiterates abound!).
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Having MS Office on Linux isn't the problem, users who believe they HAVE to have MS Office is. That bit of software your business needs, just needs to be rewritten to open standards and if enough clients start to leave SoftwareCompanyX, believe me, they'll write it. Or find the same integreation with Evolution.
Question - since MSJVM isn't available for distribution (from MS, I know what I can find with google) why hasn't that piece of software been rewritten to work better with Sun VM? You need to demand more from your vendors, or if you're going to drink the MS punch, don't make comments about migrating to Linux. I've migrating companies to linux and all were estatic with the final results. They were quite suprised how easy it was.
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Does OpenOffice, or any other office suite for that matter, have something as powerful and easy to use as VB For Applications?
Because I can tell you that's the primary thing that would keep my company (and the vast majority of the companies we deal with) from moving away from Office. I'd also be willing to bet we're not unusual in that regard.
Not so much because we already have tons of complex macros written that we wouldn't want to convert, but simply because it IS so powerful and relatively simple. We do some truly sick shit with VBA.
Note also that I'm NOT talking about simple macros to recalculate cell values and such. I'm talking about the ability to pop open a form on top of a spreadsheet with a bunch of buttons on it, each that execute hundreds or even thousands lines of complex code, some of which upload and download files via FTP, some of which make use of other Office apps via automation to do various things, and then export out the resultant data as a Viso document with an Excel spreadsheet embedded and links to a presentation that was generated and uploaded to a web site at the same time. Yes, we have some that do most of that, and some that do more. Let's not get into the debate about whether that was the right way to do things, because it's a much larger discussion, and the bottom line is that if the people in charge say do it using those tools, you either do so or look for another job, so it is what it is, and that's that.
If another office suite could match that capability, I doubt we'd have much incentive to stay with Office, but it truly would have to match or exceed that capability, and to the best of my knowledge, no other suite can do that.
Am I mistaken?
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure, I mainly use the word processor and spreadsheet, and only in their most basic ways. A good place to start checking out what OpenOffice can do would be here [openoffice.org] Also, remember that it is a free download. You could grab a copy, and poke around to see if it does what you want, all without having to resort to warez.
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
As a junior, I worked in the Oracle IT department, and MS Access was forbidden in any computer in there. I found it really weird, because at the time I thought Access was a pretty useful tool. It still is, at home, I mean.
Later I understood the reasons for forbidding Access. I worked for many customers who had their backoffices full of really shitty applications built on top of Access, Excel and VBA. I mean, they had their whole business built on that! More than a couple times I had to debug horrible stuff made by the local programmer wannabe, usually a financial or sales guy with no knowledge whatsoever of computer engineering, who learned a little bit of VBA and started coding away, turning his office in an intricate mess of redundant data, scattered files, and very shitty VB code.
Even worse is when some company has its customer database in Access, and each employee in the sales department has a local copy that they update regularly until nobody can track accurate information about anything anymore. Then every guy starts giving the others his password so they can read his files! Help!
And when we tell the manager their stuff is completely unsupportable and propose that they buy a suitable application or have a custom one built, the guy starts crying like a baby about the price of it. Sooner or later they will have to make that decision, but only after spending thousands in support, calling us every week to customise a little shit here or solve a little bug there. Not trying to put you down, though. If you work with VBA, and it works, my congratulations. You must be a pro.
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Informative)
Secondly, there's UNO bindings for C++, Java and (less well implemented) Python. From here you can do A Lot Of Stuff, including your examples, with ease. Additions like this don't require recompiling OO, they can be distributed (simple zip file) and linked with a single command (pkgchk)
Thirdly, as it's OSS, you could just hack the source code directly, though obviously option 2 is better.
-- Azaroth
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:4, Informative)
OpenOffice 1.1 supports automation via Python scripting (http://udk.openoffice.org/python/python-bridge.h
You might find that Python is a much easier to use and powerful language than VB for this sort of task.
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
I do understand what you're going through. I'm having similar problems as well with a particular vendor who seems to think MS SQL Server, IE 6 and Windows 2000 are all that exist in the world.
MS Office is on Linux already (Score:5, Informative)
Crossover Office (http://www.codeweavers.com) runs MS Office 2000 very well under Linux, and claims to run Office XP as well. I can't personally verify the latter claim, but can testify that Office 2000 works well.
(I have no affiliation with CodeWeavers, I'm just a happy customer.)
Re:MS Office is on Linux already (Score:5, Informative)
Though it's not my personal choice, my boss forces our unit to use project to orchestrate projects. It's the one reason I'm not running linux on this machine. Running a VMware session just so I can run project is just a waste of resources.
If CodeWeavers ever get Project to work properly under linux, they'll be one less windows box in the world...
Re:MS Office is on Linux already (Score:3, Informative)
http://mrproject.codefactory.se/
http://planne
They do lack a lot of features of MS Project at the moment, but both are great tools, and should do most of what you need.
Re:MS Office is on Linux already (Score:5, Interesting)
Of course, I could be wrong about the license clause. We're still running Office97 for the time being.
Re:mS office on Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm betting that 90% of msoffice users will not know the difference.
I did that here, replaced IE on all desktops with firebird + a IE skin.
nobody noticed anything changed.
most of the time it's resistance to change, even when there is very little change.
Re:Linux much cheaper! (Score:5, Insightful)
Really? I cant find ANYTHING for linux... even something I could buy that can do movie production..
kino and the other early alpha video editing software and tools cant even touch a 10 year old version of Premiere (Premiere version 4.x) I have tried Cinderella (sucks, cant use DV2 files and crashes alot!) I bought Main Actor... it also can't edit DV2 files or anything standard for movie production that is for anything but low quality web release and it also crashes like a madman..
Finally there is absolutely nothing available for linux that can do anything that After Effects can do. and there is nothing available for DVD creation that is even useable.. DVDlab is desperately needed to be ported to linux...
I desperately want to be able to do my video editing on linux, it can not be done right now. I tried, wasted 6 months trying my hardest. Main Actor has been all but abandoned on the linux side, Cinderella is not interested in performance/stability but is on a "ooooh Shiney! New features!" kick for the past 2 years and is still only early alpha quality.
I would be 100% microsoft free if I could do my video editing and full DVD creation under linux..
but it can not be done right now.
Re:Linux much cheaper! (Score:5, Informative)
What they're waiting for (Score:3, Insightful)
The most important post you will ever read. (Score:4, Insightful)
Why should I knock myself out with Crossover Office trying to get Photoshop to run on Linux when I can just doubleclick on a shortcut and get it to run now? I can go to Best Buy, pick up a game and just know it will work.
As for all the supposed problems with Windows, they're non-starters for me. I run a firewall and a pop-up blocker. I install the updates. XP hasn't crashed since I got it 2 years ago. I've never had a problem.
In short, what's in Linux for someone like me other than headaches?
I'm not saying I never would switch but this has to be addressed by the Linux community. You need to come up with something that is obviously better and not for reasons that only geeks are interested in. Something so good that I am compelled to switch. I'd even pay money for it. The free thing that Linux nuts love to harp on is not important to the average user.
I'm only trying to help.
Re:The most important post you will ever read. (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux won't try and screw you over for the next dollar, ever.
It's good for peace of mind
Re:The most important post you will ever read. (Score:5, Informative)
For you there might not be but for Company IT people there are many.
1. You said, "I can go to Best Buy, pick up a game and just know it will work." This is a down side for many companies. You put a copy of Ultra Mega Super Pimp on your work computer and you company could be sued for sexual harasment, and or piracy.
2. You said, "As for all the supposed problems with Windows, they're non-starters for me." But they are not non issues for the rest of the world. Outlook is a security nightmare. It has allows millions if not billions of dollars in damages from exploits. Lets talk about trojans? How many have there been for Windows? You run firewall. That is nice but in a setup with even as few as a few dozen people all that has to happen to make your firewall usless is for on person to hook up there notebook at a hotel and then come back to the main office and plug into your network. You now have the worm on the inside of you network.
Windows is not secure. Just because you have not been hit does not mean they are non-starters. I know a few people that drank like a fish and smoked all the time that made it to 90. That does not prove that smoking is a non-issue.
In a corprate setting all you care about is will a computer run programs X,Y, Z and not cause me issues. The only reason I care about a game working on one of the systems in my office is that there should be no games running in my office.
My office is moving away from Microsoft products for a couple of reasons.
1. Away from Outlook to Thunderbird. Some of us already use Thunderbird all we are waiting for is VCard support. Calander would be nice as well. PS a Windows version of Evolution would be nice to help in migration.
2. Away from Office to OpenOffice. OpenOffice has worked well for us in tests and is a LOT cheaper then MSOffice.
3. Away from NT and Novell towards Linux for our severs. This is pretty much done. We have one Windows box running. The only reason we keep that is for our accounting system. All of the print, database, mail, DNS, and file servers are Linux
To answer your final question. "In short, what's in Linux for someone like me other than headaches?" Knowlege. If you just want to play games and surf for porn Windows is fine for you. This artical is not about people like you. It is about companies. It would be the same as if artical was about tractor trailer trucks and you said, "My Ford pick up is easier to park, and it works just fine when I need too haul some plants home from Home Depo, Semi trucks are usless!."
Mod this up ... its hilarious (Score:5, Funny)
we wanted to integrate the shareware version of Linux into our server pool
When you start off thinking that Linux is shareware then you've just demonstrated that you have absolutely no idea what you are talking about. Anything else that follows in your post can only be viewed as slapstick!
having programmed in VB for the last 8 years doing kernel level programming
Oh man you're a scream. This has gotta be a troll. A very funny one at that.
kernel itself lacks any support for any type of journaled filesystem
Ok gotcha, this is for those who still don't realise its a joke post. Tell em something obviously false.
Yes a hilarious post, though unfortunately some people might think you actually mean what you said. If you did .... well um ... hate to say it but you're an idiot, just hope your clients don't find out.
Re:well, duh (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Interesting article! (Score:4, Informative)
Not only does Samba 3 support Active Directory [samba.org] (see "Major New Features" on that page), but it's also 2.5 times faster than Win2k3 Server in the same role [vnunet.com], and scales up considerably better as well.
Kinda funny how Samba kicks the shit out of the thing it was designed to emulate, once again showing that Open Source is A Good Thing(tm).