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FAQ On Convincing Big Companies To Try Linux?
Yet another of the numerous Anonymous Coward asks: "A group of us are hoping to convince a big UK based defence
organisation to break away from Microsoft's stranglehold on the workplace and to try out Linux. I am preparing a Q&A style document to be e-mailed to the company which will answer people's worries. What I
am trying to do is convince people, either at work or at home that there is a cheaper, more stable alternative to M$. So, I am writing for a general audience." A document describing the advantages of Linux to corporations and small companies can't be a bad thing. I should know: the Ask Slashdot bin is full of them!
"What I am after are examples, facts and figures as to why they should try Linux? For instance, the announcement a few days ago that Linux was running 60%+ of Web servers, plus speed trials etc.
I've broken the document down into the following sections:
- What is Linux?
- Why Should I use Linux?
- But surely Windows is good enough? (this section will include data on emulators, etc.)
- But I heard there aren't many applications available for Linux?
- What machines will run Linux?
- How much does it cost?
- What technical support is available?
- What games are available?
- Why the penguin?
Security is a major concern of most Corporations, so it should be covered quite well. Also I wouldn't mention the price of linux, for some reason, inexpensive and or free stuff seems to make corporations think it is a lesser product. (and watch your spelling, heeh)
if these guys are about defending anything and are in the military or security business then they have to be able to rely on an OS to be as secure as possible. Better than GNU/Linux in my mind would then be OpenBSD.
Opensource is great because it allows them to totally review whatever goes on in the OS and to tweak it to no end.
I use windows for two good reasons. One is to play games, two is to play with Adobe goodies.
I use GNU/Linux & OpenBSD for a great variety of other reasons - unfortunately not for gaming nor for working in Adobe.
I don't think the issue is to have them "break away from MS," if you value their opinion they need a system that does what they want it to do in the fashion they want it done. And then there are a great deal of choices, MS, Apple, GNU/Linux, BSD/UNIX, etc.
Of those to whom much is given, much is required.
Once upon a time, i had a hard drive go out on a machine that served a "critical" function. With 3 people waiting on this machine to come back up, i grabbed the most recent backup and got the machine back up within an hour. Problem was, the software this machine served was keyed to the hard drive. When i called the company to get another key, all i got was a recording saying that they were closed down that day "to celebrate the SuperBowl victory." Good reason to use OSS.
Another time, had to IPL the RS/6000 and it didnt come back up. All it did was blink a little code at me. Too bad the code wasn't in the books that I had. Called our IBM solutions provider, they too did not have the code in their book. After a field guy came out, ended up being a minor problem in the inittab. With linux, i would have had the problem fixed in 10 minutes, instead of waiting half the day for a field tech. They do that on purpose, you know. Make things as difficult as possible so that you have a false sence of value for your service contract.
hmph.
--
Rocky McGaugh
According to Netcraft, the Linux OS is behind about 35.37% of websites, while the Apache Web Server is behind 62.53%. (I'm sure that most of those Linux boxes are running Apache though).
a big organisation usually will have thousands of users using stuff like M$ office. i hate to tell you this - but converting office staff, retraining , buying copies of (insert favourite word proc here) for linux (most likely corels office suite), buying a distro with support, putting convertors in place to handle attachments and emails from outside, finding an alternative to the point and drool outlook is going to be one hell of a big job. Youre not going to convince them to change - its real unlikely. you might be able to get em off to a macintosh platform with M$ office..but lets face it - UNIX (and linux) isnt there yet in the clueless user department. heck, even windoze is hard to support in that sort of an environment.
Just a few points for you to think about. im working in an all M$ environment, altho my machine runs linux and a few others run BSD, solaris, aixm, hp/ux and macos..the majority of users still run nt4sp3 or win98. even win2k is in short supply . its not easy converting offices.
How about letting your target audience get a chance to use it at no major risk. Point them to one of the loopback distributions that exist like Phat or maybe the latest RedHat. I find the best way to make people appreciate (sp?) something is to get a chance to try it for yourself. By using a loopback installation, they can install it as a single file/directory that can be uninstalled by simply deleting that file.
The advantage is that you don't need to wipe everything on your hard drive repartitioning just to get Linux working as a trial.
The downside is obvious: going through two layers of filesystems (ext2 filesystem written to a file on a vfat partition written to the hard drive) really slows down file access, and makes running Windows defrag a royal pain. Also, a ramdisk is generally required to load the loopback device which may use a small amount of memory on the system.
Then, if they decide to take up Linux, it can be installed for real using partitions.
Check out The Practical Manager's Guide to Linux. A lot of the issues you'll face are addressed there.
SIGLOST && SIGUNUSED && SIGQUIT
How secure is it?
What about code forking?
Free? It must be garbage?
Who do we sue when it breaks?
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
You'd have to make it simple. Really simple. Chances are, the reason why these corporate beancounters cling to MS boils down to: they're used to it, all their stuff works on it, and they don't want to have to relearn everything. They want to stick with stuff they're comfortable with. Let's face it, the phrases "rebuilding the kernel" or "mounting/unmounting the drives" can sound pretty scary to Joe Microserf; I know they gave me the willies when I was first checking Linux out. Explain stuff in plain, plain language. We're not talking Linux-for-Dummies plain or Idiot's-Guide-to-Linux plain, we're talking Linux-For-Drooling-Morons plain. Demystify the scary-sounding terms as best you can. And while yes, security is an issue to the corporate beancounters, you can always mention that your average Melissa/ILOVEYOU/VB virus du jour will probably not hurt that Linux box at all.
;-)
Unless they download that Naughtily Portman movie.
The real Karma Gigolo has Slashdot ID #3.14159265358979323846...
Maybe some questions on "theory"
What is Open Source/Free Software?
Why is it a Good Thing?
A wealthy eccentric who marches to the beat of a different drum. But you may call me "Noodle Noggin."
Quando Omni Flunkus Moritati
I am in a similiar situation. Instead of MS its
Sun. I love solaris.. I make my living off of supporting it. Unfortunalty Sun hardware is IMHO way over priced at the workgroup server level when compared to equally powered i386 hardware. I could get a LOT more done with a lot less money if I could convience my company to go linux for the lower end servers. I have managed to get a few linux box's in our environment but its really tough. I need to basically shove it down their throats. Heck I would even be happy with the BSD family.. for example. I want to setup a usenet news server. Several deptartments in my company have asked for one, unfortunatly there is no money in the budget for a 10k dollar server and about 10k worth of disk. If we went i386 hardware I could at least cut this figure in half if not a third and get better performance to boot.
I totally agree with the poster.. we need to get some knowledgable people together to write some
Something versus linux documents that admins can use to convince companies that linux is the way to go. At least on the workgroup server level. I am definatly not saying that linux can replace my enterprise 6500 solaris box, but it can least replace a netra t1 webserver (at a third of the cost).
Malice
I like the clasifications shown at the top - also did my own.
Hope these provide some help......
www.ibm.com/linux
www.oracle.com/linux
www.compaq.com/linux
www.hp.com/linux
www.dell.com/linux
www.sun.com/linux
www.sap.com/linux
www.motorola.com/linux
www.borland.com/linux
www.informix.com/linux
www.sybase.com/linux
www.corel.com/linux
www.beasys.com/linux (Tuxedo & Weblogic on Linux)
www.ora.com/linux (O'Reilly & Associates)
www.sco.com/linux
www.siemens.com/linux
www.siemens.de/sap/loesungen/linux_en.html
******************* ...
Some important/interesting press stories re Linux
www.transmeta.com/ (Linus Torvalds works for Transmeta who developed a 128-bit Linux chip and who are getting IBM to produce it - press story follows)
www.zdtv.com/zdtv/zdtvnew...39,00.html
www.intel.com/pressroom/a...061500.htm
channel.intel.com/isp/cas...nuxone.htm
www.siebel.com/ (press rel re Java Clients on Linux)
www.pc.ibm.com/us/netfini...ather.html
www.starbase.com/index.htm ((was objectshare)
ported to Linux)
www.rational.com/products...key=101279 (Rational ports to Linux)
********************
And for anyone interested in clustering and robust file systems, this Byte link is a great read - several articles written by an Israeli computer scientist who specialises in large scale computing.
www.byte.com/index/servinglinux
also (Motorola's Linux HA software)
www.mcg.mot.com/cfm/templ...ftwareID=6
also (another Linux HA system)
www.steeleye.com/
******************** :-
Of course there are then the regular Linux links incl
www.valinux.com/
www.linuxcare.com/
www.linux.com/
www.linux.org/
www.linuxworld.com/
www.li.org/
www.linuxtoday.com/
********************
http://www.zdnet.co.uk/news/specials/1998/10/linux _lounge/
http://www.mcg.mot.com/cfm/templates/linux.cfm?Pag eID=711
If they are an MS outfit, forget it. It's a huge mistake. System administrators? Fire them all and hire a new crew. Secretaries? Expect nothing to get done in the next 6 months (if ever again). There is a tremendous amount of inertia involved in this type of thing. If you're creating your own shop, great - load it up with Linux boxes (I hope your shop is mostly engineers and not secretaries though). But don't try an en masse shift of a workable shop. That would more likely than not be a disaster.
Another reason why commercial companies might be interested in Linux, is that it requires much less resources than, say, W2k. Every few years, your management will finally have been convinced by the Microsoft Marketing Department that you really need that new Office Assistant, only to find out that Office 2000 requires a Pentium III to work at the same speed as before. Linux, however, can reuse those old Pentium 100's easily. Why throw away those PC's? They are suitable for running AbiWord or KOffice - maybe even StarOffice. They are great as servers, firewalls or Internet workstations, too. Just test it! Using Linux is the best way to show others what it can do.
Although the original poster probably knows about it, for those reading this discussion out of the same interest, try the Linux Advocacy mini-HOWTO. The information here is not so organized as the poster proposes but some very good hints can be found.
My personal opinion about the question is that sharing your own experience is a key convincing tool.
Focus on the positive side of OSS development and the freedom associated with it. And concentrate on the tasks they will be using the system for. No use to praise Apache under Linux when they will be using it for word processing.
The Advocacy HOWTO has a lot of these kinds of things covered, including some tips on how to get suits, etc., to take you seriously. (Unfortunately, the community can resort to mudslinging and "Betamax"-style arguments all too often -- this document tries to put that in perspective.)
~wog
I can remember clearly where I was when I first heard the phrase "rebuild the kernel"! It made me tingle all over with goose-bumps :-) I was like "wow!", that sounds so cool.
Sad thing is I'm not joking.
One of the most compelling arguments I have seen in favour of Linux pits it's open source nature against the .NET philosophy that Microsoft would like everyone to move towards. It goes thus: All future versions of closed-source package xxx will need to be enabled via an internet connection nack to our main servers, where we will, using high levels of encryption, enable the product, upgrade the product, and disable it if you don't pay your bill.
.NET systems...
Your acceptance of the license agreement says you MUST keep a network connection available through your firewall, that we will send encrypted data through. If you are a government (or working on defense projects), you should immediately be concerned about developments where binary software will be transmitting enrypted data through your firewall, especially as the company it is transmitting to is a company based in a foreign country. It doesn't matter if the country is "friendly" or not. It becomes a matter of National Security. Just put this question to the US DoD (or your network administrator!) and see what they say. This does not in any way imply that Microsoft (or any other closed-source company) would transmit confidential data, just that it would be impossible to tell if they did.
The benefit open-source software has in this case is that you can see what it does. As more and more confidential work gets moved onto internet-connected computers this issue is going to become more and more important.
The French government is currently discussing this, as are the Chinese. I wonder if someone ought to post this to the US DoD?
If you thought the discussion about Echelon was hot, wait until people start really thinking about the implications of
- Paul
This is *not* going to happen easily.
Not only will you have to retrain thousands of users, but you'll also have to replace all of your applications software and stuff.
Since companies often don't like big expenditures (and the cost of a Windows or Office site license is usually the smallest part of the bill), they're not going to want to do it all at once.
Here's a suggestion to start getting the ball rolling, and it basically details what I'm doing at the company that I work for. Remember, one step at a time, as opportunity permits:
New webserver running Linux, not Windows 2K. This is a good chance to show the boss what Linux is all about.
New mail server running Linux.
New SAMBA fileserver, using a RAID setup, without incurring the massive licensing costs of setting up a Novell box. (Our current Novell box crashes daily; no one seems to know why.)
Lighter-duty users (who basically just use their computers for running a terminal and reading their e-mail) will be offered the choice of running Linux. As these pioneering users get used to Linux, I fully expect water-cooler conversation to turn to the fact that they haven't seen a BSOD in months.
More demanding users will get tired of the existing Windows 95A installations on their machines. As these machines crash out and need hard disk formats and reinstalls, the option of Linux and Corel Office will be presented.
The plan has not yet been established for how to deal with the very demanding users, like our General Manager and our Controller, both of whom are running Office 97 for a lot of the accounting. Since they make very intensive use of spreadsheets and need backwards compatibility with Windows, they may need to remain with Windows, either until the perfection of WINE or of Corel Office.
This becomes a one step at a time method. The overheads of supporting two operating systems in our office won't be all that great. I'm in a small branch office, and I fully expect that there will be less problems overseeing the Linux boxes than I currently have in administering the Windows 95A machines.
The part that really frustrates me about this whole process is that our General Manager likes to get involved with everything. He's the sort of guy who thinks nothing of walking across our carpeted office with a bare stick of RAM in his hand, giving me the added challenge of worrying about weird hardware crashes.
Recently, we got new computers for both him and the controller. The controller trusts me implicitly, and is very knowledgeable about computers. On his new machine, while we're unable for a couple of reasons to run NT 4.0, I was able to format the hard disk drive and do a clean install of Windows 95B, which is, IMHO, the best Windows version.
The General Manager wanted none of that. He didn't want to have to reinstall all his applications. So, he made me give him the computer with no operating system on it. He then used an old, pre-FAT32, version of Partition Magic to copy his existing drive over to the new computer. His machine now runs Windows 95 Upgrade (also no FAT32), which was installed over Windows 3.1 on a 486, and has been mirrored onto bigger and bigger hard disks with every hardware upgrade since then. His 8 gigabyte hard disk is now set up as 8 different 500 meg partitions, for a total of 4 gigabytes.
He complains constantly that his computer is buggy, and thinks nothing of tinkering with it for a day to try to get it stable. Of course, the amusing part is that he could have formatted his hard disk and reinstalled it cleanly in half the time. Of course, he's always short of hard disk space. And his Windows directory is cluttered with DLLs and stuff from applications that were uninstalled several hard disk drives ago.
Anyone got any suggestions on helping this guy see the light? He's my biggest challenge.
Fire and Meat. Yummy.
You have to start small and prove your solution each step of the way. If your solution is not better than the one in place, then it wont be used.
Years ago, I was hired to babysit an RS/6000 in a large international corporation whose idea of a network was a source route bridged token ring. The only protocols permitted on the network were NETBEUI/DLC/IPX. Ethernet was not used, and TCP/IP was strictly verboten.
I used the RS/6000 to demonstrate that TCP/IP could be used reliably, and it would not "crash" the network. The corporate "network managers" were astounded that I could transfer data across the country at wire speed instead of waiting for the silly NETBEUI ACK to travel back and forth at the speed of light. TCP/IP became an officially accepted protocol on the network as a result.
The next step was to introduce BSDI unix as mail servers. Again, Corporate MIS was astounded that SMTP could deliver mail across the corporation in a matter of seconds instead of waiting minutes (or hours) for the CC:mail gateway to poll the postoffice. SMTP became the official email "backbone".
With the advent of the WWW, the same unix systems stepped up with NCSA server and became the official web server for the company.
Today, this same corporation uses Linux/BSDI/Solaris for all of their Internet accessible servers. Not one is running anything from Microsoft.
I fought for years against the corporate mindset of "Nobody got fired for buying IBM". Today, the corporate mindset is "Nobody got fired for buying Microsoft".
You have to pick small battles that you can win. Don't go after the desktop unless your solution is better than what is in place.
S.E.S.S.D.E.N.E.E.NW from west end of hall of mists
A group of us are hoping to convince a big UK based defence organisation to break away from Microsoft's stranglehold on the workplace and to try out Linux.
Summary: I think you'll be shooting yourself in the foot if you continue as you are. If you really want to get linux online, write a business proposal and make sure you show a clear return on investment. If you can't do that, you won't get linux.
You sound as though you are writing from the heart and head instead of the pocketbook.
Phrases such as 'break away from Microsoft's stranglehold' are not conducive to a business plan or course of action. Using emotional language and supplying links to news sites praising linux aren't going do get you very far.
What you need to do is write a proposal using hard numbers and balancing the risks and benefits of using linux. You're thinking like a tech head. FAQs? That's just silly.
Accountants aren't interested in what linux is or what it does. They want to know that it costs $72,000 less than a comparable setup using Microsoft.
Non-technical managers don't want to see boring benchmarks. (Who cares if linux runs 60% of web servers if you are using it as a firewall?) They want to see a desktop the majority of users can understand without additional training.
No one gives a damn about the penguin.
Does anyone care why IBM's color is blue? If IBM was trying to sell me AIX and their proposal included an FAQ about the color blue, I'd find it hard to take them seriously.
I'm not even going to touch the 'games' question. You did say these were workplace PCs.
The problem with folks who want to convert from Microsoft (or whatever) to Linux is that they want to do it as its own project. I can't see a reasonable company trying something like that. In terms of just man power to make the conversion, I can't see any way to recapture the investment. When you factor in retraining the users, I'll tell you right now that you won't be able to cost justify the action.
Do you have a reason to switch operating systems? If not, you will not win this fight. Find a new project and bring linux in the door through that project. It may take five to ten years to get linux at the majority of seats. Windows wasn't built in a day.
InitZero
Of course there's the matter of installing new machines in a computerless office, but those are few and far between these days! ;-)
I remember when I first heard the phrase "Bootstrapping binaries" and thinking it sounded as if it belonged on a porn site...
Perhaps what we need is a sort of anti-technospeak to avoid putting people off. Rebuilding the kernel could be renamed to "Putting the tiddly bits together", mounting could be called "Looking at the disc"... Any other thoughts?
As many others, I see that it is very unlikely that many companies will go away from Microsoft product.
... Just a little thought...
But I think that Linux (and Unices in general) might be able to beat Microsoft on the ASP (Active Service Providing) area.
I am aware that this will require quite some work, but I think it can be done, and that it has to be done before it is too late. If Microsoft gets a monopol on the ASP area, it will be hard to fight back.
Where I work (A small company) they won't change as long as there are no finished solutions for Linux (and when they can't do the fancy outlook/exchange stuff), but with an Linux ASP solution, I think they could be convinced.
Furthermore, I don't beleive that the pricing plays a large role, since Linux can get quite expensive too, when you have to hire one just to code all the necesarry things.
Bottomline is, we need some finished Linux solutions, and we need to look into the future, and go for the areas where people have to change to a new system anyway.
Windows wasn't built in a day.
And, just like the city usually cited in your analogy, I'm sure all the water fountains at Microsoft are plumbed with lead pipes.
It's only a matter of time.
<grin>
Fire and Meat. Yummy.