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

[B3ryllium]

"Linux is only free if your time has no value", the old saying goes. In this case, though, I think it would more suitably be "Linux is only free if your co-workers aren't completely fucking retarded". Sounds about right, right?

Re:I dunno

[Rude Turnip]

They would have to be retrained no matter what. You cannot go from Windows 95 to any NT-based Windows without a learning curve. Might as well save money in that regard.

Up-front costs for interoperability will likely pay for themselves in the long run because the infrastructure will open itself up to a cross-platform environment, allowing for best-of-breed solutions regardless of the platform.

Re:I dunno

[Mnemic]

I agree training costs money but MANY goverment agencies are using very old usualy custom software, many times running on *nix Backends to do their work.

The OS is just a mouse for them to double click icons. It would not be very hard to create a new interface to run in linux, and slap an icon on their desktop to run that interface, which looks very familiar to Windows, and still allows them to work comfertably in the custom software they have been using for some time.

It really all depends on what apps they have been using to determine if they need to retrain MANY things or not.

Re:I dunno

[Ami Ganguli]

Put WinXP, Gnome, KDE, and Win95 next to each other and click around a little. (Make sure you don't set up some wierdo theme - just use the defaults.)

WinXP is less like Win95 than either Gnome or KDE. You could just as easily argue that the retraining costs for XP would be greater than for Linux because MS gratuitously messed with the user interface.

As for interoperability - it's pretty straightforward and you only have to do it once. After that you duplicate the configuration on the rest of the machines.

Re:I dunno

[Hiro Antagonist]

It's more than just the "$600 for WinXP". They've got to purchase licenses for Win2K (XP is a half-assed upgrade, W2K is at least a half-decent OS), plus hardware upgrades for every system, new servers, etc. And they'll have to train everyone on the new applications, and they'll have to port existing applications to the newer Windows architecture (backwards-compatible my ass).

So, they've got to buy more hardware, and do the almost the same amount of work as they would if they migrated to Linux. Sounds more expensive to me.

Not to mention that they could chuck some of the cash they save at IBM or Sun for some nice back-end application servers, so that the next time they "upgrade", it's a transparent process to the users.

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

[4of12]

Linux is only free if your time has no value

Don't forget that in the public sector, there is a profound dislike of actually firing people (whether they deserve it or not).

In an era of budget cutting, expenditures on non-people items are the first to go; then the raises, and only then, the employees themselves.

That being the case, it is quite possible to chop IT spending down to Linux levels and to steathily reabsorb the retraining costs because you have the employee sitting around anyway. Once the retraining costs have been absorbed, you will have accomplished the upgrade and be unshackled from MS expensive licenses in the future.

[This is kind of like how charging for computer time has a lower threshhold defined by the cost of electric power.]

Re:I dunno

[Publicus]

You can't just assume that WinXP would take no "interoperability time" and that it would take no retraining.

Windows XP is radically different from Windows 95. It's going to take people time to learn how to get around.

You're assuming they have Windows Servers, maybe they have Novell servers, maybe they telnet to a mainframe application. In the latter case configuration of Linux would be a snap.

If they think ahead well enough they'll mount /home and /usr from a file server. All of the machines will have the same software and the users will have their home folder, no matter what machine they get.

I've worked as a tech in a Windows environment, migrating users (including a finance department) from Windows NT 4/Windows 95 on Novell to Windows 2000 on Active Directory. It certainly didn't get done by itself, and I would have a hard time proving that Linux would take longer if done right.

It's all about planning.

Re:I dunno

[Politburo]

Windows XP is radically different from Windows 95.

"Radically" is going a little far. From a system administration point of view, XP could be called radically different. To the end user, XP is very much the same. When changing from 98SE and Word 97 to XP and Office XP, my mom had no problems doing the exact same tasks in Word. Same with Freecell. Sure, she doesn't know the new way to change the IP of the computer, but she didn't need to know in the first place.

Recently at work, we moved from NT5 to XP. Almost all people had no issues whatsoever with the new OS. Some little things behaved differently, but the general feel of the system was the same.

My point is, for everyday tasks, and to a "normal" computer user, Windows* is the same as Windows*.

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.

Win95 no longer working?

[green pizza]

What's the reason for their upgrade? Windows 95 + Office 95 is still a decent combination and probably does more than what 99% of their users will ever need. Security isn't too great out of the box, but it's not that hard to configure the clients and/or a firewire in a sane manner.

I don't understand this "we must upgrade" mindset. If the wiz-bang product worked wonders when it was new, isn't is still working just as good today? My office recently replaced hundreds of P3/933 machines (running Win2K + Office2K) with P4/2.5G machines running WinXP + OfficeXP. Aside from the different default color and button theme, nobody really noticed a difference.... other than having to migrate files to the new boxes. The new machine rollout wasn't needed and was expensive... but the IT department said it "NEEDED TO BE DONE".

I don't get it.

Re:Win95 no longer working?

[HaeMaker]

The hardware is probably failing, and it is becoming increasingly difficult to find drivers for '95 for new hardware. Instead of running systems with different OSes, which becomes a support nightmare. Mass upgrade.

Re:Win95 no longer working?

[BWJones]

I don't understand this "we must upgrade" mindset.

The problem is that Microsoft is no longer supporting older releases thus "forcing" many users to upgrade regardless of their satisfaction with the current OS. This is what happens when your business model relys on folks constantly upgrading and is a problem with the PC market. Apple appears to buck the trend in many ways in that while they do not officially support really old versions of their MacOS Classic OS, you can still download it from Apple's servers for computers that cannot support more modern versions of the OS. This is one of the many reasons why I purchase Macs. They simply are functional machines for a lot longer than Wintel stuff, they hold their value longer, and they run lots of commonly used software making my return on investment much higher with Macintosh than with Wintel.

What about when this issue comes up again in 2010?

[John Harrison]

You make an excellent point. In the short term Linux might not be cheaper. In the long term however, what is going to be cheaper for continuing upgrades, given that the retraining (which might be minimal) only needs to be done once, but you have to pay Microsoft every few years.

Familiarity, ha!

[Sloppy]

Rebecca LaBrunerie, product manager for Microsoft's worldwide licensing, said the software giant is working with DOR and other state agencies to convince them of the benefits of Microsoft. Those benefits, she said, include familiarity, ease, application and productivity.

Heh, familiarity. My boss talked to a user this morning who "upgraded" to XP. User needed to add a printer. Anyone here seen XP? It's about as "familiar" to a Win95/98/ME/NT4/2k user as CP/M is. There's a "classic mode" but to make it act like MS' old products, but it's still pretty bizarre.

That isn't to say UI can't ever be changed (I'm not arguing against progress, nor making any comments on whether XP's approach is progress), but the "familiarity" argument for staying with MS is total bullshit.

The "ease" argument is bullshit too. You have to turn off the firewall that comes with XP to use Win98's SMB printer. Yeah, that's really intuitive and easy. Today, somebody paid a couple hundred dollars for that "ease."

Applications: this one is true; you might be locked into MS. Tell your vendor you want the next wave of custom apps to be platform independent. It is inexcusable for most business software to not be super-portable these days: PYTHON ROCKS and there's almost nothing it can't do (well, not counting realtime stuff, like monitoring the neutron rods in your reactor ;-). And I'm sure the Java and perl guys have something to say as well. If your vendors are still creating unportable apps, either find other vendors, or at least tell them that their decisions are costing YOU money.

BTW, I mean that about portability. Don't trust Linux either. Just be able to use anything and then whatever platform comes out on top .. will come out on top. I don't see Tux's flippers shaking with fear over that prospect.

This will benefit them greatly

[Zapdos]

I really like the "if it is not broke dont fix it" group here.

We are talking about windows 95.. Guess what? It is broke. It has a MTBF of about 180 hours,

The product is no longer supported by the manufacturer. This means no more security updates. Windows 95 was never a very secure networked computer OS. I am sure that the Massachusetts Department of Revenue, could use some security.

The way to the desktop .. through business?

[cannon_trodder]

A company I used to work for had around 6 users on terminals connected to a Unix box. I was experimenting with Linux at the time and was taken aback by these users who had been running tape backups, as root, from the command line years before I ever did!

Anyway - the point!!! :-

People will use *anything* at work. If the average user is sat in front of a well controlled desktop with easy access to the software they need, they'll care "not a jot" whether it's Linux, Windows or "Whatever"-soft (bought from "Whatever" local company who can supply the goods cheap enough).

As long as the Linux desktop crashes *less* than Win95 (ahem) then at least this may be an another outlet which exposes Linux to the average person in a positive way - as long as they can get stuff done on it.

In businessess I have worked in, price has always been the deciding factor and this might just be where Linux has the perceived edge to the business. Maybe business is the (indirect) way to the user desktop?

Re:But

[zerocool^]

I'm guessing you mean faster processors. It doesn't take SMP to run openoffice. But hey, what do you expect from a troll, intelligence? bah!

No, he meant processors. Not as in multi procs for one system, but as in multiple machines. Obviously it's not newsworthy if Mass. is upgrading one machine. He meant multiple machines, processors with cost over many machines.

It's compatible with more than koffice. Word isn't compatible with much other than word. If Koffice is all you're using, why the fuck do you need it to support word?

Because word is the world standard for written documents in the professional business world. Hate to break it to you, but where I work, we don't have but 2 windows machines, and one running VMware, out of about 80 computers. We get lease documents, legal notices, business proposals, ad nauseum, in word or excel format. If you can't read it, you limit your professional image and connectivity.
K-office is compatable with k-office. Open/Star office at least has basic word compatability and functionality.
Please, microsoft may suck for their draconian EULA's, their extremely high prices, their business model, etc. But they make a good office suite. Plus, like it or not, it's the world standard.

Touche, troll. Touche.

~Will

Considering wha ?

[InodoroPereyra]

Look, enough is enough. How many stories about X considering a switch from win* to *linux are going to be posted by Slashdot editors ?. This is just ridiculous. First of all, GNU/Linux is enough into the mainstream as to waste time with "potential users" stories. Second, and more importantly, many companies, governments, agencies, etc., try to fscking negotiate with MS for a discoung and this is way they announce that they are "considering" Linux. I mean, come on, this is not a secret ! Let's get real. Let's talk about real users using Linux for real. There are plenty :-)

Re:But

[molarmass192]

Not so fast with Linux Terminal Server Project you could just purchase one heavy duty box and run terminals on all the existing hardware. Also, CodeWeavers CrossOver Office would let you run MS Office remotely within Linux. Personally, I'd maintain a base image on the PCs from a central server but I'm sure there's more than just Office to consider here. What other apps do they use inhouse and can they be run without the need for Windows?

Re:hopefully it works.

[Black Copter Control]

in addition, our parts database has pdf's, doc's, xls's and such as part of the oracle database. there is a web frontend, but what good is it if you can't open the microsoft attachments.

Never used Linux, have you?? Those are all openable under Linux -- especially the Win-95 versions which are the best reverse-engineered (if only due to the time that they've been out).

there are many other layers of shackles in place, and there is no way anyone would easily be able to change platforms.

Most such changes are structural in nature... Build once, deploy to the entire enterprise. Those sorts of things amortize very nicely with OS, but not so much so with MS per-seat licenses.

Since you'd have to teach a bunch of '95 users how to use XP anyways, training costs would probably be no different than with Linux. When I forced my roommate to deal with my Linux box, he had few months of "how do you do this" -- maybee once per week. After that he was an absolute Linux booster. Even though the machine could dual boot to Windows, he almost never did that after the first month -- no need to. Linux worked so much better for him.

Govt Guy with experience here...

[Big Sean O]

I've worked for local and state governments for over 5 years now in different capacities and can honestly say two things...

1. Typical Users don't need much: The typical office worker needs e-mail and word processing. If they're lucky, they get a browser and an IM client. If they're making more money, they probably need a PIM, a spreadsheet, and presentation software. Just show them how they need to do what they need to do and they'll (hopefully) stay out of the way...
   
   
2. Atypical Users can adapt quickly to a new OS: If your job includes specialized software (for example, graphics packages, CAD, GIS, database) you will have more of a learning curve, but you should be able to climb it faster. Of course, this is also the group with the most problems, compliants, requirements.
   
   The third group, system administrators, don't really count. True, they have the highest learning curve, and they're success if often tied to a particular platform, but since they're upgrading from Windows 95, they're screwed no matter what you do...
   
   In short, the greater the number of power users, the more of a problem you will have. I'm guessing MA Dept of Revenue has a lot of data entry clerks, accountants, lawyers, and bureaucrats (all group 1 types). The people who maintain the databases and manage the data (group 2 types) will be greatly affected, but they'll probably be pleased to get away from Win95. And as usual, the SysOp gets the shaft.

Retraining Costs? Much ado about nothing.

[tres]

I've always thought this "retraining cost" argument was a ruse.

I mean, what exactly are the retraining costs when the majority of users utilize maybe three applications? On the whole, office workers don't utilize "advanced" features available in the software anyway.

For example: how many secretaries are using Word Styles to author documents? Even though Word Styles are available, and take some amount of training to understand, if they're not being used, why worry about it?

What it boils down to is the applications. If those applications are available, and operate in a similar way, it doesn't matter what platform they are running on. The overhead involved in user training is much ado about nothing.

Now, don't get me wrong, there's a number of reasons why continuing down the Microsoft treadmill could make more sense (for now). But retraining isn't one of them.