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Telstra Considers 45,000-Seat Linux Deployment

Posted by timothy on from the or-pretends-to-as-a-bargaining-chip dept.

stressky writes: "Looks like major Aussie telco Telstra are looking at deploying Linux as the new Standard Operating Environment across their 45,000 desktop LAN workstations." An anonymous reader offers evidence that Telstra isn't alone; apparently, many other Australian businesses are considering a similar switch.

7 of 261 comments (clear)

  1. Good news for Home Linux by Alranor · · Score: 4, Insightful

    And once people start having to use Linux at work, and see that it's a perfectly usable system and a nice desktop, they might start switching over at home.

    People are lazy, they know windows, they're not likely to change to something they don't know unless they're forced. But if they've already had some exposure to Linux, they'll be much more willing to try it out at home.

    1. Re:Good news for Home Linux by BlueWonder · · Score: 4, Insightful
      I don't believe that linux is ready or designed for home use

      I don't believe that Linux is designed for anything. Keep in mind that there isn't a single driving force behind Linux which works towards a well-defined design goal. Instead, Linux is a collection of software, written by many different people with different goals and ideas. IMHO, this is both its weakness and its strength. :-)

    2. Re:Good news for Home Linux by mgv · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Or did you just repeat whatever your local Microsoft-representative told you?

      Or are you being zealous to the point of not admitting problems with linux?

      I've switched over to RH Linux for my workstations for about 3 months now (Have used Linux as a server for much longer). It finally got the level that met all essential criteria for running functional apps (Open Office, Evolution, Galeon and successful execution of all M$ card games under wine!) for myself and wife.

      So I'm hardly anti-Linux. But copy and paste between most apps and open office seems to often not happen.

      Just because Linux is rapidly becoming the best desktop system doesn't mean that everything about it is the best. So if someone says that there is a problem with the clipboard, the right response is to work on fixing it. Denial of problem is a Microsoft trait (esp. with security issues). I don't think that the Linux community really this sort of attitude. Anyway, most microsoft representatives don't know enough about linux to criticise it meaningfully.

      My 2c worth.

      Michael

      --
      There is no cryptographic solution to the problem where the intended receiver and the attacker are the same entity.
  2. normal business procedure by 4im · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Telstra simply evaluate the alternatives. That's normal business procedure. OK, it's nice they consider Linux instead of just ignoring it, but that doesn't (yet) mean that they'll actually select it.

    You can be sure that MS will throw in their full marketing weight on such a business...

    Oh well, we can hope...

    1. Re:normal business procedure by (outer-limits) · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Probably 1/2 bluff, but at least they have something to call the bluff with. Expect to see them looking to lower the microsoft price for their site, especially in light of the recent MS price hike. At least Linux is there, without linux, microsoft wouldn't blink at calling their bluff.

      --

      Microsoft - Where would you like to go today, Maybe Jail?

  3. knowing where you going by oliverthered · · Score: 5, Insightful

    is like knowing where you've been.

    The problem with the current Linux desktop is that it's almost very hard to 'know',

    You never know exactly what cut and paste is.(crtl+insert, drag over , crtl+c{things are sure to break!} anything else).

    Or how the printer options are going to come up. {KDE print dialoge, configure lpr dialoge}

    What a right click will do.

    Where the help is (man, info{ahhh the great info},kde help or /usr/share/doc/myapp) ....

    Things are far better than a few years ago..

    Some things that might help would be:-

    Put some UI, design (aesthetic and technical) principals into the LSB
    and have a LSB certification for applications.

    Resolve the GTK,QT issues (should hopefully happen over the next year or two)

    Ask other people if they could kindly implement there GFX toolkits/widgets using QT or GTK.

    --
    thank God the internet isn't a human right.
  4. Pot calling Kettle black by joweht · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The suggestion that Tel$tra might resent Micro$ofts monopolistic rent seeking price practices is so ironic that it is not even ironic (as Baldrick would say).

    Tel$tra's business practices make Micro$oft seem a paragon of open access in comparison. Telstra is little more than a revival of the old (and justly reviled) Roman practice of tax farming, and it's massive profits come at the expense of decent information infrastructure and impose a disproportinate economic cost.

    Of course there are many Telco's around the world who similarly abuse their monopoly control of the local loop. Governments should wake up and realise that Telecoms constitute startegic infrastucture and that the short term windfalls that might arise from the creation of private monopolies and cartels come at the expense of massive flow on costs to the economy as a whole through communication costs being much higher than they should be.

    If we privatised all roads and allowed them to be run by gigantic vertically integrated transport conglomerates with no restrtictions on their prices the result would not be difficult to predict, a starving economy dominated by hugely profiatable transport congomerates. To see what this looks like one has only to go to modern day afghanistan, the ubiquotous "toll gates" are the sign posts of an economy there are no public goods exist and the result is a diminishing of private goods as well.