MA Dept. of Revenue consider Linux

hansroy writes "Massachusetts Department of Revenue is still using Windows 95 on the desktop. Faced with upgrade costs of $500-600 per user, they're considering Linux at about one-third the cost. This comes at a very good time, as the new governor of MA is making significant budget cuts this year."

Comments

I dunno

[Erwos]

I gotta say, what's cheaper?
1. $600 for WinXP
2. Putting Linux on all the machines, configuring them to work interoperably with the Windows machines, and retraining everyone?

No idea which really is cheaper, but I wouldn't automatically say "Linux is cheaper". Training costs money. Interoperability work costs money.

-Erwos

Re:I dunno

[jedidiah]

The old aphorism is more accurately stated as:

"Linux is only free if you have more surplus time than money."

This is more often the case than not.

Re:I dunno

[Xtifr]

"Linux is only free if your time has no value"

And conversely, Windows is only <whatever the sticker price happens to be> if your time has no value. Both systems have costs above and beyond the purchase price, not just Linux. And going from Win95 to XP would involve retraining as well. Things change -- I've still got a copy of MSWord 1.0 (for DOS and OS/2), and it bears little or no resemblance to the MSWord of today.

IMO

[intermodal]

Running on 95 at this point is a good example of actually getting use out of your hardware and software. If you don't have an absolute need for the newest, snazziest, fastest machine in the world with the latest and "greatest" (YMMV) operating system and software, then don't bother. Having them consider linux is the best thing they can do, since even if a vendor drops support, updating one's system is free if you do it right. Imagine being an administrator of an all-Gentoo government department...you could easily update everyone from your own desk via terminal emulation, simultaneously from your office, while maintaining that humming little pentium II (if that high) buzzing in the corner as a portage download mirror for speed...

ah, a man has gotta have a right to dream, eh?

Why upgrade?

[zerocool^]

Not to ask the obvious, but why upgrade?

I mean, if the computers were built for a specific purpose, and they're still used for that purpose, why upgrade?

Reasons to upgrade:
1.) Your programs require more system resources. This is fair. We were using QuickBooks from ages ago until they stopped providing tax tables for our version, forcing us to upgrade *grr* and the new version has new bells and whistles so that it bogs down the P-90 w/ 32 megs of ram.
2.) You want support from Microsoft. But, then, if you really wanted to install all the updates for windows 95, wow. That's a lot of updates, probably adding enough to your system to bog it down alone.

But, then, why not upgrade the hardware and install the same copies of Win95? You'd be surprised how many programs will work with win95.

Or, how much do new copies of windows 98 cost? I don't know if they're still available, or how that works. You may have to do the MS stupid "upgrade to downgrade" thing.

If you want to keep windows there are lots of alternatives to look at. I say this because developing new software for linux and training your average high school grad 40 year old secretary to use linux won't be cheap. Something like RedHat 8 is intuitive, but it ain't perfect. Keep in mind that intuitive doesn't mean everything - familiarity is much more important.

I'm all for linux, but I'm also all for lowering the TCO. And i know that over time, linux is definately cheaper. But, then, how many politicians look long term? You look short term so that you get re-elected. Long term politicians get voted out of office.

~Will

Re:The usual question...

[Soko]

Doesn't matter.

What you have demonstrated is that there is now real competition, something that has been absent from the Desktop OS market for far too long.

Customers will start switching unless Microsoft does something - lowering prices, adding more value, reducing TCO - anything to try and keep them in the fold. Capitalism at work.

We win.

Soko

LTSP.ORG is the answer

[urbieta]

One P4 computer can serve dozes of linux X window terminals terminals, smoothly running the latest OpenOffice and Evolution replacing MS Office and Outlook, and saving productivity loss because of better uptimes, less software failures and virus inmunity.

Even if they have 10BaseT, LTSP.org will work OK 8)

The transition is *not* that painful

[chiller2]

At the company I work for, we were in a similar boat with many old Windows 95 installations, with replacement hardware only having drivers for Windows 98 or higher, and so on. Last summer we made the decision to move from Windows to Linux based primarily on the Windows upgrade cost.

The replacement consisted of RedHat Linux (7.x until 8.x came out), Gnome, OpenOffice and Mozilla. The choice of RedHat over other distros was made more because the other techs were new to Linux too and I might not be there all the time. The servers still run Slackware >:)

The results have been great and the staff had far fewer problems than expected and interestingly 98% of the tech calls that come in are from the on the road sales guys having problems using XP, which came preloaded on their laptops.