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Wall Street Embraces Linux
Brian Stretch was among several
who sent in this story about Merrill Lynch
switching to Linux, this is interesting because it's actually companywide.
Talks about Red Hat, Linux threatening Unix and so on.
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$$$$$$+$$$$$-$$$$$=$$$$
LInux is NOT free as in 0$ (beer)
They are free as in Red Hat + Effort & $ = Merril Lynch Linux. Or Big Money Linux. Or I Am Free To Customise The Code Any Damn Way I Want To Because the Code Is Free As In Speech Linux.Good Move ML. I hope to see the other big firms follow suite.
Obviously Lisa DiCarlo really understands the comcepts in the story she just wrote. Yeah.
First, Merrill Lynch praised the portability of Linux applications and their ability to scale across the enterprise, with a swipe at proprietary applications. Maybe they'll wake up for a moment, and realize what their most locked-in platform is.
Second, this seems to be largely a matter of Linux moving into Unix turf. I expect to see some minor disasters happen with this type of migration, and that's a Good Thing. Why, because part of the savings is moving onto dirt cheap PCs from expensive hardware. Part of the expense of that old hardware is the label, but part is genuine quality, too. After someone starts to get a handle on money lost because PCs are too cheap, causing down-time and even some erroneous data, there will be a move to put some quality back in. We will all have a better quality spectrum to buy from, and it will be better labeled and reviewed.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
sPh
I guess they are playing both sides.
http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/press/2002/fe b0 2/02-13revolutionpr.asp
I work for one of the largest banks in the world (Top 5) and we almost ditched our entire Windows Server infrastructure in favor of Linux. Why? Not because it wasn't working.
Unlike a lot of MS haters, we know how to use Windows. Strangely enough, when used the way MS intended it works pretty well.
Instead we considered Linux for similar reasons as Merril Lynch. When we asked MS for a deal on licencing our 300+ Windows 2000 Servers the way they did for Windows NT4.0, not only did they say "No" they auditted our current licences and told use we owe them money! They were the ones who sold us the licences in the first place!
So on top of each Windows 2000 Server licence, they want client access licences for EVERY computer (6000+) and a yearly subscription fee for god knows what!
I mean, what's the point of a server if no one can access it? Per-seat licencing for 6000+ workstations?
It wasn't until we weighed it against the cost of redeveloping 120 applications for Linux that we decided to cave. MS knows this. They waited for companies to become dependant on their OS before jacking up the price. What Merril Lynch is doing is not whoop-de-doo! another company went to Linux!, it's truly amazing. For such an enormous organization to revamp on such a huge scale takes cahones.
"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake."...Tyler Durden
Read the article. Do you really think Merrill Lynch is revealing something here? Trust me, every major financial institution are doing some form of linux project, in order to evaluate the costs of migrating to the platform. And if Merrill is utilizing IBM consultants, the fact they are using linux would not be secret for long.
The reality is that most financial applications running off a database backend will be processed using UNIX (or mainframe). Its a hell of lot easier to display those remote windows to UNIX platforms than M$ platforms. And since stock broker/analysts do not require Counterstrike to run on their machines, I would imagine quite a few desktops will be replaced as well.
What is driving this actually Microsoft .NET and its licensing costs. With the recession this year, a lot of managers are looking to shine. Upper management may consist of assholes, but rarely are they actual idiots. Alot of them in the tech departments may even have been system admnistrators at some point in their lives. This is totally doable, and management knows it. The problem is risking their ass to make an implementation attempt.
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
This about it this way: the sales people at Microsoft are out there every day selling their product. They are out there telling your PHB every day that Exchange is better, that SAMBA won't do the half of what Windows 2000 Server will do, and that an all-Windows infrastructure is the way to go.
The real question is: what can you tell your PHB to dispute that?
The small company I work for had to do a server upgrade recently. We had a NT 4 server with insufficient licenses running in a multiplatform environment (Linux/Mac/Win) with a technical staff comfortable in all platforms.
After a review Linux won because of the following reasons:
1. Netatalk is much more stable than MFS for W2K.
2. W2K doesn't provide NFS shares.
3. W2K license cost was $4000. Antivirus software for the W2K box was another $1000. Backup software was another significant cost.
4. Performance benchmarks we ran showed Samba 2x faster than W2K on the same piece of hardware.
5. Samba provides all the services we need.
6. Applying patches to the Linux box is less intrusive (fewer required reboots).
7. We also don't have to keep track of license documentation for the Linux box.
8. We will never be forced to migrate because of Microsoft's planned forced obsolescensce program.
Initially the PHB was dead set against using Linux for this application. When we showed him the real story, he changed his mind.
When we were done we also found we had a system where many of the bugs and glitches that annoyed the users mysteriously disappeared.