Wal-Mart, Moore's Law and Open Source

J.E. Kazor writes: "In MIT's 'Technology Review' magazine, Michael Schrage writes about Wal-Mart, Moore's Law, and Open Source. Perhaps instead of spending all of our energy bashing bashing the 800-pound gorilla, Microsoft, we should align the support of a 900-pound gorilla, such as Wal-Mart. Such a symbol of cost conscious efficiency should embrace the benefits of Open Source."

Comments

Wal-mart is a tough customer

[jACL]

When working for a past employer who sells its merchandise through Wal-Mart, I was exposed to its methods.

As a retailer with Wal-Mart, your product has to maintain a 98% sell-through rate, or you don't sell through Wal-Mart anymore. (This, by the way, says something to me about the Mandrake distro, which still sells at Wal-Mart.) You're required to keep track of the inventory using Retail Link.

Wal-Mart piloted Retail Link across the Internet via VPN in 1995 using Sun's Sunscreen product, prior to the standards even being accepted -- they're a bleeding edge company. Wal-Mart is always keeping an eye on ways to streamline its operation and cut costs. You can bet they've already checked out Linux. If it saves them on operating margins, they'll be ahead of the curve.

Wal-Mart and Open Source? Never...

[dtdns]

I for one work for Wal-Mart, and do not think they will ever embrace "open-source" in the manner that many would like, at least not in the next 5-6 years anyway.

I can tell you that they do use several types of operating systems through their stores, such as a minimized version of DOS for the handheld terminals, HP-UX as part of the POS (point-of-sale) network, another UNIX for the SMART (Systematic Merchendising and Applied Retail Technology) system, as well as Windows NT/2000 servers to cache all those ads you see playing on "Wal-Mart TV" in electronics (and throughout hanging TV's in some stores).

Would it be cost-effective for Wal-Mart to go Open Source? Not likely. The turnover in staff at the home office alone, combined with training for new positions, etc, would cost millions, not to mention that they would have to literally double their server count at all of their 3,000+ stores. They would need to develop, test and deploy thousands of servers with the new software, hook them into the existing systems to take over various jobs, and then remove the existing servers. All of that for what, to save licensing fees? No, I don't think so.

Wal-Mart has spent BILLIONS of dollars on its current infrastructure, and to change it drastically would cost even more. Wal-Mart keeps it's "everyday low prices" that way specifically because they do NOT do things like this.

Now, the Cart Pusher is a wonderful tool that they are getting for most of the stores, however, which will help save hundreds of thousands on accidents, injuries and other damages. And people wonder why Wally World does so well...

Re:Bad analogy to Slavemart.

[Drakin]

Uh. That's a big violation of company policy. Management can get in serious crap if the employee calls up regional/head office (which they're entitled to). I'd say those employees don't know their rights.

Walmart, huh?

[filtersweep]

"When it comes to managing high-impact innovation, there is no contest--Sam Walton still matters more than Bill Gates. "

What the article doesn't mention is that many metro and suburban communities VIGOROUS oppose (if not block) the openings of new Walmarts.

There have been huge union issues related to Walmarts the sell groceries.

At a more immediate level, it is downright depressing seeing retirees slaving away minimum wage.

There are a TON of sites about the evils of Walmart:

Walmart Memoirs

Walmart Trash Page

Yahoo stuff

And lest you forget all the censorship that Walmart does regarding music....Censorship at Walmart on Yahoo

I could go on and on about their business practices.

Not to mention that you could hold Jerry Springer auditions at almost any Walmart in the US...

I fundamentally find it ironic that Walmart is used as an example... a very profitable retail chain that is widely hated... that has many questionable business practices... that crushes and destroys the small "mom and pop" retailers in smaller communities.... then again, maybe it is the perfect example?

Re:Well, at least Walmart.de runs on FreeBSD

[[Entropy]]

Taken from http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/accuracy.html:

Why do you report impossible operating system/server combinations?

Webservers that operate behind a caching system, load balancer, reverse proxy server or a firewall may sometimes report the operating system of the intermediate machine. Hence reports of 'Microsoft/IIS on Linux' may indicate that either the web server is behind a Linux server that is acting as a reverse proxy, or has configured the Akamai caching system such that the first request to the site goes to one of Akamai's servers [which run Linux], or as in the case of www.walmart.com has been configured to send a misleading signature.

and another thing they sell

[timothy]

More important than naked PCs is that they sell a boxed distribution, in the form of Mandrake-Linux, actually in stores throughout the country. (The naked PCs appear only to be on their website.)

It would be nice if they also sold Red Hat or some other distribution (along with FreeBSD, etc, too), but if I were running a Walmart, had limited shelfspace, and wanted to (or was willing to at least test) selling *some* version of The GNU/Linux/XF86/ Operating System, Mandrake would probably be my choice, too, because it's the distro that has so far worked best with various and varying systems. As it happens, Mandrake and HP are also somewhat buddy-buddy, and HP and Walmart likewise. Would be nice to get a peanut butter / chocolate magic combination by selling some HP machine bundles pre-configured with Mandrake and working with *everything* (CD-RW, DVD, printer).

In the meantime (am I the only one not boycotting Walmart?), when I stop in for the random oddments of life, I tend to creatively re-arrange the Mandrake boxes in Walmart to take up more space / look larger.

timothy

Re:and another thing they sell

[Captn Pepe]

Judging from their size and crazy profitability, I'd guess that no, there's likely someone else out there not boycotting WalMart. Too bad, really, because it is really a poster child for much of what is wrong with corporate America. I.e. make as much money as possible, with no regard for the costs to society, except when executives feel like using the vast power of a megacorporation to further their personal agendas.

Consider: WalMarts destroy local business via predatory pricing, aggressive marketing, and outright intimidation. Best estimate, for every two jobs created by a WalMart, three jobs in the larger community dissapear. These jobs are regularly worse than average, too: less than 35% of WalMart employees have health insurance, a majority the jobs WalMart creates in communities are part-time, with variable hours and no benefits or opportunity for promotion, and as a result, a significant fraction (a majority in some areas) of WalMart employees live below the poverty line. WalMart justifies these facts by claiming that it primarily creates retail jobs appropriate for working part-time after school or in conjunction with a "real" job. This, when it is single largest employer in many communities.

Nationwide, a majority of WalMart employees qualify for food stamps.

WalMart is also guilty of enforcing cultural homogeneity. Because it is such a large buyer, many publishers in a variety of media -- especially music and magazines -- have begun self-censorship out of fear that WalMart executives will yank a given product from their shelves. The article linked from this story discusses WalMart's increadible influence in the IT market; their influence in a dozen other industries is even larger. People yell about Nike and The Gap because they are brand-image based empires, but most of the output of Mexican, Pacific, and domestic sweatshops ends up on WalMart's shelves, and WalMart is big enough that they don't have to care if people hate them for this.

The WalMart model is a major contributor to urban sprawl and the degradation of community-oriented life. By destroying the local business base, and by locating stores on huge plots of land on the peripheries of towns and cities, it contributes to the flight to the suburbs, thereby increasing dependence on automobile transportation and the assorted problems that leads to.

Enough ranting for now, but maybe you understand why some people aren't too fond of this company. I can't possibly include a reasonably comprehensive set of links here, since people despite WalMart for so many reasons, but a really good links page can be found at Wal-Mart Watch.

Re:Given Walmart's current Point of Sale OS...

[Animats]

The IBM 4690 Retail Operating System now supports Java and TCP/IP. So it's now almost at the "thin Internet client" level.

how walmart destroys towns.

[Da_Monk]

I saw this in a small town in upstate NY,
walmart sent reps to all the small towns in the area, advising them to prepare to be driven out of business. the reps also took not of the average prices of certain items. when the walmart opened, all the prices were lower than the neighborhood small stores. once all the small stores were driven out of business, unable to match the prices, the walmart proceeded to raise its prices ABOVE what the small stores were selling items at. whenever a new store opened up, the walmart would lower its prices again until that store went away.

I really dont understand why slashdotters continue to harp on the evils of microsoft when walmart and AOL-Time Warner are quite a bit worse.

Re:Wal-Mart sells "Naked PC"'s

[nathanm]

Um, there's no evidence that Walmart is actually saving consumers money on these machines. Quite frankly, I wouldn't be surprised to see them making a profit.

First, the whole point of a corporation is to make a profit. Otherwise they'd go out of business.

Second, the exact same model of computer is $99 more with Windows XP Home Edition.

Wrong.

[Anonymous Coward]

They are spending loads of money on teaching Linux/OSS in-house even as we speak. However, they were spending $'s on M$ ASP 3-4 years ago.
Generally when corps give money to schools, it is up to the school how to use it and they are normally targeting the current need, not the future. The students from your school will be doing Mainentence, while the MIT's, CMU, CSU and others will be doing the new development.

Re:Microsoft the lesser of those two evils

[Tardigrade]

Enron wanted to be bailed out, but they weren't. Enron wanted the Kyoto Protocol signed (they've been investing in Kyoto Protocol positive projects), but it wasn't. I hate it when people are this ignorant.