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Verizon Switches Programmers to Linux

Posted by timothy on from the these-numbers-need-some-looking-at dept.

wackysootroom writes: "According to this article at News.com, Verizon saved $6 million in equipment costs by switching its programmers from UNIX and Windows workstations to Linux workstations running OpenOffice. The article says that the average cost per desktop workstation was cut from $22,000 to $3,000." jeffmurphy noted the same story, and wonders "What kind of (Windows) desktops were they buying previously at an average cost of $22k? It seems like software alone wouldn't account for that big of a cut."

4 of 240 comments (clear)

  1. What kind of desktops were they buying for 22k ? by unixmaster · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Micosoft Office License Fees
    Visual Studio ( Development ) Fees
    Windows itself License Fees

    and many others....

    sum up all !

    --
    Never learn by your mistakes, if you do you may never dare to try again
  2. $22k boxen by Lechter · · Score: 2, Insightful

    If you consider software plus development licenses I'm sure you can easily run up a $22k bill when putting a box together. Consider you have the cost of the
    + PC
    + monitor (or two for really cool developers)
    + Windows 2k pro + Office Pro + Visual Studio Pro + development library licenses (which can get really expensive like +$5k)
    + Unixish sofware licenses - software to make Windows boxes perform the tasks of Unix boxes, even simple things long GPL'd can get really really expensive think $500 for grep

    With all sorts of proprietary per-user licenses (especially dev tools licenses) it's easy to see how a workstation could get up that high. Similarly, considering all the tools and libraries available under the GPL, you can put together a damn impressive dev platform and save yourself a raft of cash...

    --
    credo quia absurdum
  3. Re:Programmers and *Office? by Sabbac · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Us developers at large companies have a standard that must be followed (in my case ISO9000). ISO is all about documentation (and procedure (and documented procedure)). Our company standerized on MS office for the documentation.

    Some things that lowly developers have to write are External Interface Specs, Design Specs, Statements of Work, etc. They even often want it documented before you start coding, but it isn;t enforced since prototyping is allowed.

  4. Replacing real workstations with Pee Cees? Eeew. by nbvb · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Yuck.
    I'm sure that $22k was for a real workstation, like an IBM zSeries or an HP Visualize or a Sun Blade 1k/2k (Or U60/U80).

    I'm a sysadmin at a large company and I've got a Blade 1000 on my desk (with Sun's 24" LCD + XVR-1000 video board, thankyouverymuch :)

    Anyway, the LCD is somewhat excessive, but the workstation certainly isn't. I'm constantly compiling code and doing testing on my desktop -- I need a good, reliable piece of hardware that'll function under stress.

    A cheap Pee Cee running some Yugoslavian 14-year-old's idea of a kernel?

    Forget it!

    The other thing that nobody mentioned is that that $22,000 workstation will probably last 6 or 7 years. Not so with that cheap PC.

    I had one developer who was still using his SPARCstation 10 until less than a month ago when we replaced it with a spare Ultra 2. Why? Because it still worked. All he used it for was basically an X display via SSH into the development boxes....

    Would the Dell-of-the-week from 1991 still be useful today? Somehow I doubt it.

    You get what you pay for. And sometimes, not even that.

    --NBVB