German Company To Install Linux On 10,000 PCs 328
jfruhlinger writes "Linux proponents used to proclaim that the era of Linux on the desktop was just around the corner. That may never come to pass, but there are still occasional wins. For instance, a German insurance giant will be moving 10,000 employees to Linux-based desktop and laptop machines."
Adaption... (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Adoption... (Score:5, Interesting)
That's pretty much it: where is the economic interest in getting end user apps migrated? Linux works great in a datacenter and works great for end users who are experienced with it. But where's the economic incentive to adapt users? If most everyone used linux in their homes that would kill off virtually Hundreds of thousands of jobs supporting the crap. No more $70 mom and pop shop reloads, no more field service calls that are resolved by running virus cleaner and repairing an infected machine, no more recycled machines that get put back into circulation simply because the owners perceives an infected machine as a hardware failure or simply not worth the investment in repair over an opportunity to "upgrade."
I use linux more than a decade now, and I can't imagine the hell of having to use windows again. And I feel kinda sorry for all those people out there who really don't know any better, who think windows is the only solution because they hate macs and believe the nonsense about linux sucking as a desktop. But I'm sure not going to go out of my way to convince them of their delusion.
Re:Adoption... (Score:4, Interesting)
In one place of work, we managed to get Firefox added to the new standard build by the simple expedient of writing lots of in-house web apps that didn't work in IE. (The tool used by about 20 people every day they worked there, which was broken in IE for six months with no-one noticing ...)
This is also the same way we kept Vista at bay.