Technology Buying Slump

mgcsinc writes "According to this Yahoo article from Reuters, IT buyers are continuing a trend of cutting costs, favoring utility over cutting-edge effect. Market researchers are estimating continuing doldrums in the industry and enterprise businesses see more 'bang for the buck' from making improvements in software as opposed to investing in new infrastructure. This is not necessarily awful, however, for those who hope businesses will start looking toward open source options as the cost effective alternatives..."

Comments

Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

Who would've guessed? Picking something that works over something that makes you say "Cool."

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[r84x]

I don't know how you fellows make a decision, but when I go to the store to buy something, the coolness factor is always huge. For instance, buy the Cheerios that I know will satisfy my breakfast hunger, or go for the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, with the awesome toy? I will often go with the latter, even though I know better. (apologies to Calvin for stealing his cereal)

The point I am getting to here is this: Americans have always, and will always, go with the shiny new "cool" object, even when they know better. This "slump" as with all slumps, is temporary. Americans, myself included, will come back to buy the product with the bells and whistles.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

Then why aren't we using metric? It's the shiny new toy in the world of measurement.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[PierceLabs]

Sadly this is true. Soon we'll be right back in the upswing with companies spending money hand over fist, raising interest rates, and rampant mergers. In part I blame some of the more clueless upper level management types who are swayed by a bells and whistles demo and then sell their IT department down the river because they spent a lot of money because they didn't know any better and never allowed their own IT shop to really investigate the options.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[deadsaijinx*]

But we aren't talking about your average american consumer whores. We are talking about supposed proffesionals in a proffesional environment, where utility and functionality should be far above the importance of the coolness factor.

My first thought when I read the article summary was this: "And this is a bad thing because?..."

Really, this is a GOOD sign.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[GregAllen]

Then why aren't we using metric?

Duh! Because it's French. :)

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Jardine]

It's new? I'm pretty sure the metric system has been around since the 1700s.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

Newer than the imperial system.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Lemmy Caution]

It's a bad thing because much of the Slashdot readership was once employed in the sector generated by the Coolness Factor. Yes, companies will save money that will get invested in other industries, but that means, at best, that a lot of people will have to start retraining for positions in those other industries.

In other words, welcome to the Buggy Whip Manufacturers Guild.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

Where does spelling place relative to coolness, utility and function?

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[molarmass192]

So's pasteurization and the x-ray but I don't see people drinking rancid milk or walking around on broken legs. I realize you were joking but the metric system is just so mathematically right from a programming point of view. I think it's really pathetic that Reagan nixed it's adoption here.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Delphiki]

I'm definitely with you on this, but you have to take into consideration that corporate purchases will follow a different pattern than personal purchases. I'm playing to buy a new PowerBook when they release the new models but if I were in charge of tech purchasing for a large company I'd buy all of my employees the cheapest computers that could get their jobs done.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Lord_Dweomer]

"I don't know how you fellows make a decision, but when I go to the store to buy something, the coolness factor is always huge. For instance, buy the Cheerios that I know will satisfy my breakfast hunger, or go for the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, with the awesome toy? I will often go with the latter, even though I know better. (apologies to Calvin for stealing his cereal) The point I am getting to here is this: Americans have always, and will always, go with the shiny new "cool" object, even when they know better. This "slump" as with all slumps, is temporary. Americans, myself included, will come back to buy the product with the bells and whistles. I don't know how you fellows make a decision, but when I go to the store to buy something, the coolness factor is always huge. For instance, buy the Cheerios that I know will satisfy my breakfast hunger, or go for the Chocolate Frosted Sugar Bombs, with the awesome toy? I will often go with the latter, even though I know better. (apologies to Calvin for stealing his cereal) The point I am getting to here is this: Americans have always, and will always, go with the shiny new "cool" object, even when they know better. This "slump" as with all slumps, is temporary. Americans, myself included, will come back to buy the product with the bells and whistles."

Well, YOU my friend are exactly the kind of consumer (notice I didn't say customer)that corporations want. You don't question the product, you just go with whatever is more shiny.

Fortunately for the economy, businesses don't base their decisions on what solution is more shiny. They have cold hard numbers in front of them and they pick whatever gives them the most benefit at the cheapest price. So sorry, but what may work on sheep like you will not necessarily work on a competent business.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[dogfart]

In other words, welcome to the Buggy Whip Manufacturers Guild

Or, welcome to the Chrome Tailfins Automotive Accessories Guild. Buggy whips were once useful. Chrome tailfins were always mere ornamentation.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Anonymous Coward]

This is also why 60% of Americans are obese.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Sanction]

By your definition, though, maybe 2% of businesses qualify as competent then. I've been involved in the purchasing process, and vendor golfing relationships, vendor goodies, and flashy slideshows typically carry much more weight than the numbers.

Re:Gosh, utility over cutting edge

[Mork29]

It would cost buisinesses billions of dollars to retool machines for the metric system and covert everything over. That's not a good thing to do when your pulling a nation out of a recession. I don't see why we don't just mandate everybody use our system of measurement, I mean... we can force people to do that... right?

open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, but if the only thing you have going for you is that you are cheap, then you are doomed to failure.

OK, go ahead and mod me down now because I expressed an unpopular opinion in the sheep-think Slashdot message board....

Re:open source

[Anonymous Coward]

I always go for the lowest bid. The trick is defining your bid requirements in concise, yet complete detail. Free licensing as requirements also may give long term freedom.

Cheap, yes! A 10% financial advantage not only adds up over your peers, it adds up in the long run.

Re:open source

[Anonymous Coward]

don't forget, it also 'goes to the bottom line.'

Re:Open source

[loucura!]

So, then you're saying that there are <a href="http://www.litestep.net/">standards</a&gt ; <a href="http://207.134.67.174/OpenVision2/index.html ">in the</a> <a href="http://www.metaphorcity.com/evwm/">microsoft </a> <a href="http://www.microsoft.com">world?</a>

Usin g different programs to perform the same task is not a lack of standardisation. Every open-source window manager runs on X, X is the standard, the window-managers are the programs that make use of the standard.

You know, like how XHTML is the standard, and web-browsers use it. My using MozillaFirebird doesn't hurt your using InternetExplorer. Take your Troll FUD elsewhere.

Yes, IHBT

Re:Open source

[MrWa]

No, I'm saying that those people making the decision (i.e. not you or me) see those programs and companies (Microsoft, SAP, Oracle, IBM, etc.) as the standards - so they stick with those because the ROI can more easily be approximated. In the tight economy and because of the burnout from the late 90's, IT department heads can not risk going with an unproven program or company. The fragmentation that can too easily occur on the open source side of things makes it even more difficult to choose what to go with - thus the big name "standards" are chosen.

It isn't FUD because it is true. What open source advocates call "choice", those on the outside looking in will call confusion. How is an IT department head supposed to make a choice for a major investment in IT? Do you go with Microsoft who, no matter how much you hate them, you know will be around in five years and can somewhat reliably predict ROI, or do you go with X, who just put together a good, solid, working competitive product based on opensource, but may close shop next year?

Companies don't want to - and won't - support their own software if they can help it. That is what the talk about "IT being an investment" and "IT doesn't matter" is all about - it isn't FUD, it is what company executive (read: those that make the rules in companies that actually have money to invest) are thinking.

Re:open source

[Marc2k]

I was going to start my own thread, but hey, everybody knows this late in the thread the only way to karma whore is to post in an another large thread.

Anyway, the thing that really gets my goat about people like the guy who wrote this up is his blatant disregard for the term "open source". He states "This is not necessarily awful, however, for those who hope businesses will start looking toward open source options as the cost effective alternatives..."

That's well and great, but what in his mind dictates that open source options are synonymous with free as in beer? What makes him think that just because I sympathize with OS, I can't still make a dollar. AFAIK (I'm surmising this from what I've read of the GPL, and of Stallman's biography, Free As In Freedom), the GPL lets me charge whatever exorbitant rate I so chose for my binaries and support, so long as I include some obligatory license information, and my source. Sure that may not always be saleable, but you shouldn't preclude that every open source project (especially the ones used in a business setting) should be free as in beer.

Re:open source

[NDPTAL85]

With OPEN SOURCE you lack pricing power. Without it it doens't matter if you feel you should be able tyo charge or not because you can't.

No one will buy.

News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

The party is over. What we now consider "doldrums" are here to stay. It's the new normal. Do you ever think businesses will return to extravagant spending?

Even when the economy heats up again (let it come soon!), people will point to the late 90s dot coms as the prime example of why they should not spend money on equipment that provides no immediate ROI.

Re:News Flash

[miu]

Do you ever think businesses will return to extravagant spending?

Sure, it may be another generation, but a new "next big thing" will come along and wild optimism will once again be in vogue.

Re:News Flash

[Tablizer]

Even when the economy heats up again (let it come soon!), people will point to the late 90s dot coms as the prime example of why they should not spend money on equipment that provides no immediate ROI.

Say it using an ex-pets.com sock puppet for that extra special punch.

Re:News Flash

[Jeff DeMaagd]

I agree. The "tech boom" of the 1990's was a pretty sad piece of history, but thankfully it didn't create another Great Depression.

It didn't help that Wall Street took these con jobs "hook, line and sinker". Everyone got too greedy, and there was too much pressure that what little resemblence of ethics that people had collapsed.

Re:News Flash

[beta21]

Its not ROI that the dot coms burned ppl on. It was badly informed not well researched investments.

Pfizer spends hudge amounts of money on equipment that will not have an immediate ROI. I'm sure Viagra took a while to develop and quite a bit of money.

Its just that stupid ppl were oohhhed and aaahhhed into buying absoulate crap that did not and would not fit into their business model.

Rather than avoid infrastructure/software upgrades make an informed decision..rather than a blanket statement

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

I would not blame it all on Wall Street. People did get a little greedy, but that took a lot more than Wall Street. Wall Street was just a means for people to act out their greed (case in point: Redhat).

In my opinion, the success of the dot coms was hinged on the belief that productivity would skyrocket as a result of their wares. We collectively bet wrong (generally speaking - there are a few exceptions).

However, perhaps the effects we are feeling now could have been significantly reduced by more prudently spending money at the time?

But I'm only an armchair economist. Time to get back to my computer work :-)

Re:News Flash

[deadsaijinx*]

What we now consider "doldrums" are here to stay

Not to be a Nazi or anything, but it's that kinda "here to stay attitude" that led to the crash. I beleive the Simpsons put it best.
"But it's a golden age for the repo industry. One that will NEVER end."

Re:News Flash

[EmbeddedJanitor]

Yup, it only looks like doldrums because it comes after the dotcom bubble where spending was irrational.

Re:News Flash

[stinky wizzleteats]

Do you ever think businesses will return to extravagant spending?

Well, I've been in the IT industry for a while now, and I certainly hope not. What made the 90's bad was not the technological advancement and optimism, it was the avarice, the exploitation of the ignorant, and the mercenarism. People bought solutions because it sounded good while bragging on the golf course, or because their absurdly overpaid consultant recommended it, or because their ridiculous sustained growth pressured sales reps forced it down their throats. People and indeed very large companies made a lot of money with no meaningful work ethic nor valuable good or service to provide the customer. There were a lot of jackass cert mercenaries job hopping in the 90's, making 6 figures a year, who soundly deserved to get their asses fired, and I for one, was grateful to see them go. (Many good people lost their jobs for no reason, however. Such is the price of the elasticism of boom and bust.) And I don't think we even need to make the obvious corporate parallel to my individual example.

I am proud that IT consumers are figuring out they don't have to pay Microsoft every two years for the honor of using their crap. I am proud that technological efforts are directed toward useful result instead of name recognition or bragging rights. I am proud that the IT megacorp and consultant establishment is being questioned, and that in house IT specialists are being listened to (they are!).

I care about what I do, and I care about my customers. I find in these times that those qualities are in very high demand. From where I am sitting, the industry has never been better.

Re:News Flash

[darkov]

I agree. The "tech boom" of the 1990's was a pretty sad piece of history, but thankfully it didn't create another Great Depression.

Don't speak too soon. Debt is at record levels (not seen since the depression) and people are making noises about deflation (the big killer in the great depression). Japan's had it for a decade, Germany looks like it might slip into it and rates of inflation are falling in the US. Greenspan had made deflation "enemy number one" but 13 rate cuts and negative real interest rates haven't stimulated the economy. We've had a 3 year bear market and we're not out of the woods yet.

My advice: if US property prices collapse, which is not too likely, but if they do: run for the hills.

Re:News Flash

[aschlemm]

It's really sad how quickly people forget why some .coms went out of business. It was amazing to see the sort of waste that went on at some of the .coms. They spent their money on expensive office furnature, toys, and some even chartered airplanes and sent their best people off to Hawaii at the company's expense.

Some of the .coms might have actually had a good working model but they burned through their VC money and so they weren't around long enough to see if their model actually worked.

I talked to a guy I know in Seattle and during the high times the company he was working for was giving BMWs away as signing bounuses. 6 months later they're axing people from their ranks right and left...

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Pfizer spends hudge amounts of money on equipment that will not have an immediate ROI. I'm sure Viagra took a while to develop and quite a bit of money.

Chances are, it's not only the profit executives and stock holders of Pfizer that got enlarged. ;)

Re:News Flash

[sjames]

That's much closer to the heart of things.

The real problem was that nearly any idiot who could iron a shirt (sometimes) and say dot com could get a multi million dollar deal with the devel and feel rich (on paper).

So we have people with shakey (at best) business ideas and little business sense who suddenly have millions of dollars to spend on an idea that in a rational world would have been in the garage stage.

From that, we got $1000 office chairs for everyone, huge network and server infrastructure to handle 10 hits a day, and any idiot who could memorize and forget their way through an MCSE (or similar) hired for 2-3 times what they were worth. The dot coms often had more servers and employees than customers.

It turns out that you can't take a business from clever idea to billion dollar multinational overnight by throwing money at it. Customer base only grows so fast, and large businesses burn money far faster than a small one. Blowing a few million on a single Superbowl commercial won't significantly change that. The deep dark secret of the advertising world is that without an established reputation, hype can only cause a short lived bubble and often leaves behind scorched earth. Big companies that use hype (Such as members of *AA) generally do so with a series of throw away projects, several at a time, with the full expectation that it will be forgotten in a year or two (and they'll be hyping the next throwaway).

The small business (partnership or sole proprietor) is a necessary stage where an idea is refined and sanity checked. The result of that will be one of three things. The realization that the idea isn't going to fly in practice, a sane small business ready to use an investment to become a medium sized business, or an organically grown medium sized business.

The bubble popping has had two effects. First, a serious falloff in tech sales. Overall demand fell to more 'normal' levels, but selloffs of practically new hardware from the dot bombs reduced new sales to much lower levels. The other is that demand for products designed to be 'instant billion dollar multinational in a box' rather than a logical upgrade to existing infrastructure for growth has gone to nil and won't be back.

Re:News Flash

[BreadMan]

The Great Depression, IMHO, was due more to liquidity problems; delfation was a symptom, not a cause.

Banking was a very different business. Loans could not be sold in a secondary market like they can be today, so you have situations where the bank had callable loan from depositors backed by a mix of non-callable mortages and callable margin and personal loans. When depositors started asking for thier money, the banks called the loans they could or sold stock the held to get the extra cash. Hoover's Federal Reserve could have helped by pumping $$$ into the system.

Plus, buying stock on margin was not regulated, so a lot of deposits were lost when the market went south. Paired with non-so-good regulation and a new central bank (recall, the Fed was about 20 years old) and you have trouble in River City.

Re:News Flash

[pmz]

Debt is at record levels (not seen since the depression)...

I would bet (figuratively, don't ask for money!) that, depresson or no depression, there will eventually be massive regulation of credit cards and small-time loans. There are enormous numbers of people who naively live beyond their means by using several credit cards and "no payments till 2020" financing to create a mythical lifestyle of entertainment centers and used luxury cars. If there is another "great depression", then the real losers will probably be the poor, who will literally have everything they own repossessed by banks.

Re:News Flash

[pmz]

People bought solutions because it sounded good while bragging on the golf course...

I hope one thing to die along with the extravagant spending will be the non-English marketing gibberish spouted by the ignorant and insecure people speaking it. "This distributed enterprise web-enabled e-commerce solution will improve your corporate bottom line through leveraging technological investment (in my bank account) and dramatically improves (my bank account) the customer experience blah blah blah..."

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

WHy do you think that? There's nothing to back up that view at all. There is plenty to back up the view that business has always been cyclical with highs and lows. We just happen to be in a low right now.

Re:News Flash

[stinky wizzleteats]

I'm sure Viagra took a while to develop and quite a bit of money.

Well, no, it was a complete accident. The actual story is that Pfizer was working on the drug for use in dealing with certain heart conditions, and that the sexual effects were accidental. I tried to find you a link on this, but any google including the word Viagra is a hopeless venture if you are not looking for marketing information.

Which leads us back to the recession. People were dumping money in dot coms right and left in the hopes of hitting the next Yahoo. It was a gambling mentality, and while it's easy to find the losers to have made stupid decisions, it really didn't look that way at the time. The thing that was wrong was the level of deception that was (and still is) taking place, both in terms of investing and purchasing decisions.

Re:News Flash

[davinc]

I was thinking the same thing when i saw that. We would be well into a great depression right now if the FED had chosen to increase interest rates rather than slash them. We are basically holding off some ugly shit by inflating our money supply unnaturally, which has been the death of every fiat money. This might not be the end of the fiat dollar, but it certainly is going to be a lesson in why you don't print money faster than the economy is growing.

We've seen the great depression, thats history. Get ready for the great hyperinflation if things don't "correct" how the FED is praying they will.

Re:News Flash

[davinc]

Business and the FED haven't changed that much. Everyone has said that "if they just had lowered interest rates, everything would have been fine" when they talk about the great depression. I disagree. Everything would have been different, not fine.

The business cycle as it is called, is really a debt buildup and correction cycle that comes as a result of fractional banking. Banks issue more paper wealth than there is actual asset wealth. The longer you do that, the more people become paper millionares without real assets.

Like playing musical chairs though, at some point the music stops and reality sets in for all of the paper wealthy... they only have claim to wealth if they convert the paper to assets before everyone else. This can come in the form of a major market crash, failed banks, deflation of prices, seizing of gold by the government... etc etc. At some point, a correction occurs where the paper millionares all fight to become asset millionares, and those who don't sit down first, find themselves with nothing (or at least a LOT less than they thought they had).

The market crash of 2000 was the beginning of the correction process, but it has been halted by reinflating the economy into a new bubble. This isnt a cure, its a delay. The problem is, the longer you delay the correction, the worse the pain gets. The extended bubble for example has created an environment were manufacturing has left the country, and the US has become home of many irrational businesses. If you remember the year 1999, it felt like half the country was working on some kind of "moving your business to the web" project. The world didnt need 5,000,000 shopping portals, but because of the nature of our money system, it became a path to becoming a paper millionare. This is known as misallocation i think.

Many people, like my mother and grandmother were sucked into the market, mostly by greed. Now, with the extended bubble, people are getting forced into the still overpriced market out of need. Money markets and other "safe" investments such as bonds are so popular now, and the FED pressure on rates is such, that you can no longer safely protect your money from inflation. If you keep it in cash or safe interest bearing accounts, you will be losing 3-7% a year to inflation. Possibly worse if the current FED money printing continues and we see 70's style inflation again.

Baby boomers are about to retire as well, and you are going to see a large portion of the economy needing to convert paper wealth (stocks, bonds, half-payed mortgages) into real spending. Suddenly there will be quite a bit of paper chasing goods, and that will be VERY bad.

I'm not sure what my point is exactly, other than this may not be the great depression, but that doesnt mean it is something better. It is uncharted territory for the US Dollar (which is only about 70 years old in its current form, and only about 30 years that it has been totally fiat). The FED is guessing and they know it. Fiat paper may very well run its course in our lifetime. The worse thing that can happen is a continuation of what is currently happening though. At this rate, the government will control more than 50% of the economy in about a decade, and we will find ourselves slaves to inflation.

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Read some economics texts, or at the
very least Krugman's "Depression Economics".
Your notions are sorely out of date. You and
Herbert Hoover would've been great buddies.

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Make no mistake about it. US property prices (AKA the real estate boom) WILL collapse. Then you can buy your neighbour's mansion for pennies on the dollar, which is what it's worth anyways.

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Good post. I have been thinking about what to do with my money. There's nothing you can safely invest in, or even park your money. If you have the time and skills to keep your finger on the pulse, you can probably jump around every few months, but that's not a real solution.

I mean 'safe' as in protected from inflation and sudden economic moves. Not necessarily making lots, or even any, money.

Like you said, money markets are barely afloat what with the low interest rates and regular service fees. Further rate cuts and other risks make this unsafe. Bonds? Same difference. Stock market's completely out. Maybe buying gold/platinum or something of that nature would work? Real estate seems like a good idea, except many are talking about the impending collapse there, and I agree, real estate prices are high and still rising fast all over. Mostly because of cheap credit, which could become less affordable in short order. Real estate is always good for long term, but only if you buy into it at a reasoable time, not at a boom.

It's a shitty situation any way you look at it.

Re:News Flash

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure, it may be another generation, but a new "next big thing" will come along and wild optimism will once again be in vogue.

Five bucks says it'll involve robots.

Re:News Flash

[mr_e_cat]

The Fed is basically printing money. That is a fact. At some stage this has turn from being a good thing to being a bad thing.

One of the problems with economics is that everyone thinks their pet theory works for every situation. There is a limit to what printing money can achieve when everyone is too highly indebted. Someone has to borrow the money for it to get into circulation. If we are all so heavily in debt already, who is going to borrow it? Even if interest rates are low, you still have to make repayments.

One of the previous posters mentioned that he couldn't find anywhere to put his money. That is a symptom of monetary inflation. The original article was about companies not spending money. In both cases, they can't find anywhere where they can get a return on investment. That says something about the state of economy.

I think davinc (the "survivalist" poster) and Krugman are both oversimplifying. There will be a correction. But it will be unpredictable and different.

My bets: (1) All this money printing will cause a real dollar crisis (I'm not sure what Krugman says will happen if you inflate the money forever...). This will lead to high interest rates, property price collapse etc.

(2) The derivative markets today are the equivalent of the highly leveraged stock market of 1929. There will be a disaster. Probably around the same time as the dollar collapse.

"History Doesn't Repeat Itself, At Best It Rhymes" -- Mark Twain

tariffs wont help

[Anonymous Coward]

This probably wont encourage people to buy more.

We're going all open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

At my company we're going all open-source. We're using OpenLDAP, JBoss, and eventually we'll migrate from Oracle to MySQL.

ac

Re:We're going all open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

"eventually we'll migrate from Oracle to MySQL."

You have my condolences.

Re:We're going all open-source

[GoofyBoy]

eventually we'll migrate from Oracle to MySQL.

I'm not sure if its a "open source = cool/better" but this move sounds more like a "cut the front end costs and put it on unpaid OT on employees".

I don't know what the application is for, but Oracle -> MySQL is a step backwards.

Re:We're going all open-source

[/dev/trash]

Wouldn't Postgres be a better opensource example?

Re:We're going all open-source

[PierceLabs]

Oracle to MySQL? Whomever is your CTO needs to be fired. Yes Open Source is great, yes open source solves some budget issues - but a migration of data from Oracle to Mysql along with the associated training and support (yeah support still ain't free) is likely to cost you more than you're saving.

Re:We're going all open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha, the troll! Migrating from Oracle to MySQL is the newspeak way of saying "Migrating our employees from salary to unemployment office"

Re:We're going all open-source

[G-funk]

I don't know what the application is for, but Oracle -> MySQL is a step backwards

A step? Oracle -> SQL Server 2000 is a step backwards. Oracle -> MySQL is like replacing your Ti80 with an abacus.

Re:We're going all open-source

[lucifuge31337]

A step? Oracle -> SQL Server 2000 is a step backwards. Oracle -> MySQL is like replacing your Ti80 with an abacus.

Remember....many (most) companies who only needed word processing were buying $2500+ machine to put on people's desks not too long ago. Maybe this guys company did the same thing with back ends and are finally coming to terms with that fact (and the fact that they can't just expect their cusomters to shell out for Oracle licenses on top of their software and need to cut costs to lower prices and/or increase margins).

Re:We're going all open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

*cough* bullshit *cough*

Re:We're going all open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

We at SCO thank you for your decision to support derived works of our System V product. See your mail for information on licensing agreements to ensure your usage of our fine products is entirely legal. Act now for the best possible rates!

Re:We're going all open-source

[jericho4.0]

I've seen several companies decide on Oracle when mysql would have served thier needs just fine. Yes Oracle is powerfull, but it's sometimes overkill.

Re:We're going all open-source

[kcbrown]

and eventually we'll migrate from Oracle to MySQL.

If you're going to migrate your database, you may as well go to the system with the most functionality for the same cost. In the database world, that's basically PostgreSQL.

Trust me on this: you do not want to have to change your database engine again. You'll learn just how much trouble it is the first time around (Oracle -> whatever), so I suggest you make sure you don't have to repeat the effort.

It simply doesn't make any sense to select a less capable database engine when the price is the same, unless there's some feature it has that you simply cannot live without and you have to have it right now. If that's not true for you then you'll be much better off going to PostgreSQL.

Re:We're going all open-source

[Alioth]

Have you considered PostgreSQL? You may find it more appropriate if moving from Oracle (unless of course you weren't using features such as enforcement of referential integrity, triggers etc.)

Re:We're going all open-source

[mshiltonj]

Wouldn't Postgres be a better opensource example?

I'm not so sure that's a pat answer anymore. MySQL 4 now has transactions, which eliminates a long term deficiency it once-had.

MySQL also has replication righ out of the box, something PostgreSQL doesn't have.

I'm told that MySQL 5.0 will finally support triggers and stored functions, which I think puts it on a more-or-less even foothold with PostgreSQL. That's just a guess, I could be wrong.

Now, whichever one supports clustering first will be the bomb.

Re:We're going all open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree it's not as powerful. We're waiting for version 4.0 of MySql, since it should be able to do full replication (something we currently use with Oracle). I'll look more into it. We won't jump ship immediately, I'm guessing we're at least a year away from doing so.

ac

Re:We're going all open-source

[pmz]

I don't know what the application is for, but Oracle -> MySQL is a step backwards.

Not necessarily. There are lots of projects that use Oracle by dictatorial decree rather than choice of the engineers. These projects often use 0.01% of Oracle's absolutely tremendous capabilities, which makes the absolutely tremendous Oracle licensing fees appear silly.

For a website that has a database of 50 tables or so that sees relatively few transactions, MySQL or PostgreSQL might be a perfect fit. For a multi-terabyte behemoth with hundreds or thousands of tables, replication, fail-over, distributed transactions, etc., perhaps Oracle fits better.

Regardless, I would at least advocate prototyping with an Open Source database. There's always the chance that it will end up meeting the project's requirements like a glove and, at least, postpone the cost of Oracle as long as possible.

Re:We're going all open-source

[pmz]

but a migration of data from Oracle to Mysql along with the associated training and support (yeah support still ain't free) is likely to cost you more than you're saving.

Ha. Administering MySQL is child's-play relative to Oracle. Just mentioning the word "Oracle" implies a full-time-equivalent adminstrator on staff just to do everyday operations along with dealing with Oracle's support staff. If an established Oracle DBA can't--or won't--figure out MySQL in less than a week, they might be better replaced by someone who can.

Re:We're going all open-source

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who goes from Oracle to MySQL is MENTAL... MySQL is YEARS behind Oracle. That's a sure-fire business killer idea.

I develop on MySQL because it's quick and easy but when I deploy it's on Oracle or SQL Server.

You see, this is the kind of move that is going to kill open source - using it simply because you can. There's a lot of good OSS stuff out there BUT a large percentage isn't enterprise-ready.

Re:We're going all open-source

[ivan256]

Oracle -> MySQL is like replacing your Ti80 with an abacus.

For most deployments, using Oracle is like using your Ti80 for simple arithmetic. Even the abacus is overkill.

That Explains Alot

[dirkdidit]

Well that would explain why at work I get a new 17" iMac instead of one of the new G5's. I knew my boss was cheap and thought I was worthless but I was only asking for a lousy $2,000 computer! It would also explain why I still use the keyboard I spilled soda on over a year ago, even though they supposedly ordered a new one last December.

Re:That Explains Alot

[/dev/trash]

But you still have a job, yes?

Re:That Explains Alot

[Billly Gates]

Do you ...correction.. they need a G5 mac?

Does a G5 bring a bigger return for them in productivity?

If not then your boss is right. Not to sound like a jerk or anything but the idea of a computer is to be a tool.

Unless you run extremely complex photoshop sessions that take several minutes to complete its just not needed. For simple page editing a G4 imac is fine.

Re:That Explains Alot

[deadsaijinx*]

Cheap? He doesn't have to buy you more than is necessary to get the work done. If it's only a lousy $2,000, why don't you pay for the G5 you seem to want so much? Because $2,000 is a lot to spend.

Keyboard got soda spilt on it, okay. Does it still work? You've been using it for 6+ months, so I'm going to say yes. So there is no reason to replace it then. Furthermore, keyboards are pretty cheap, and since you spilt the soda on it, you should pay for it.

And seeing as how you still have a job, you really can't do much complaining.

Re:That Explains Alot

[Anonymous Coward]

I get a new 17" iMac instead of one of the new G5's

I still use the keyboard I spilled soda on

That explains a lot.

Re:That Explains Alot

[Anonymous Coward]

Dear Sir:

Your homepage link doesn't work. Also, you are a fat fucking dildo head. Plz fix, tks.

Sincerely,

The Rest of Us

Re:That Explains Alot

[stephanruby]

Keyboards start at $5 + shipping. Why don't you save up your soda money, find one three times as expensive, and order one yourself?

Seriously, I'm not just simply making fun of you. When I worked as a temp and my employer refused to buy needed peripheral equipment (I don't think your job could be any worse) I ended up bringing some of my own. It made my job easier and it sent a subtle message to my employer.

Re:That Explains Alot

[sahala]

When I worked as a temp and my employer refused to buy needed peripheral equipment (I don't think your job could be any worse) I ended up bringing some of my own. It made my job easier and it sent a subtle message to my employer.

Just out of curiousity, what exact message did your actions convey your employer? I guess it's just that everywhere I've worked employees would bring in their own peripherals (keyboards, mice, USB hubs) simply because it's unlikely that the company would get exactly what their employers need, since they buy in bulk, etc. And I don't mind...I prefer spending an extra $60 or so for input devices than I enjoy using rather than go through corporate purchasing. I don't consider it a bad investment.

Re:That Explains Alot

[stephanruby]

"Just out of curiousity, what exact message did your actions convey your employer? "

That I was an adult serious about my work environment. I know it's silly, but I feel some employers refuse a simple low-cost request just to show you who is boss. It's as if some employers try to recreate a parent-child relationship with their employees. But thankfully, most employers are not like that.

Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

"for those who hope businesses will start looking toward open source options as the cost effective alternatives..."

Why replace MS software when you can just fire me and hire an Indian for $35k/yr?

Oh wait... THEY ALREADY DID THAT

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

How does racist crap like this get modded insightful?

Isn't this sort of thing the American dream in action? All I ever see are Americans bitching about it...

Re:Or Not

[tasidar]

Why replace MS software when you can just fire me and hire an Indian for $35k/yr?
Oh wait... THEY ALREADY DID THAT

Slightly offtopic, but wouldn't we (the people working in the US) benefit from having a weaker dollar? If $1 = 60 yen, then wouldn't we be competive with the rest of the world? (which hopefully will stop all this outsourcing)

Of course, foreign goods would cost more too...

Re:Or Not

[hendridm]

> Why replace MS software when you can just fire me and hire an Indian for $35k/yr?

Why is this racist? Sounds like he's simply stating an observation. Now if he said "those smelly Indians who would back stab you the first chance they got", that would be racist.

Calling that racist is like saying "The majority of inmates in U.S. pisons are African American" is a racist comment (assuming it's true, to which I have no idea and merely used it as an example). Even if it isn't true, I don't consider it racist - just an incorrect assessment or baseless statement.

"Most serial killers are white!" I'M GUESS I'M RACIST!

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Mod parent up please

I'm a canadian.

hmm 35k us x 1.45 = $50750 Cdn. I make more than that, but not much more, and I'm pretty fuckin good. Thank god I'm still in the ballpark though, i can still keep workin for a couple more years yet.

Re:Or Not

[Call Me Black Cloud]

How did your ignorant response get modded insightful? What is racist about the parent post? Nothing.

Here's an explanation of the American Dream from the man who coined the term:

The American Dream is that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone, with opportunity for each according to ability or achievement. It is a difficult dream for the European upper classes to interpret adequately, and too many of us ourselves have grown weary and mistrustful of it. It is not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable, and be recognized by others for what they are, regardless of the fortuitous circumstances of birth or position. - James Truslow Adams

It's called the "American Dream" because it's the dream of a great America. It may be your "World Dream" that opportunities go to the lowest bidder but it's not mine and it's probably not the parent poster's. There's nothing wrong with wanting jobs (and dollars) to stay in this country. I'm all for people gaining their "fullest stature", but not at the expense of others.

Re:Or Not

[Tablizer]

How does racist crap like this get modded insightful?

What if we reworded it:

"Why replace MS software when you can just fire me and hire a Soviet PhD for $35k/yr?"

Isn't this sort of thing the American dream in action?

No, its the Indian or Soviet dream now.

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

How did your ignorant response get modded insightful? What is racist about the parent post? Nothing.

uh, hello, he specifically singled out a one race (indian). If he had said nothing about indian developers then I wouldn't have had a problem with it, EXCEPT IT WOULD HAVE SOUNDED FUCKIN' DUMB THEN: "dur, why hire me when they can hire someone cheaper."

It may be your "World Dream" that opportunities go to the lowest bidder but it's not mine and it's probably not the parent poster's.

Ah, so I don't live in America so screw me? "I'm all for everything being fair for everyone in the world, but only if they live in America?" Is that what you're saying? WTF??

Re:Or Not

[Call Me Black Cloud]

uh, hello, he specifically singled out a one race (indian). If he had said nothing about indian developers then I wouldn't have had a problem with it

I say again...so what? Why is that racist? I'd say that most of the tech jobs lost overseas went to India. It sounds like the guy lost his job to outsourcing to an Indian firm. He was stating facts then. I'd appreciate it if you would look up the definition for "racist" (hyperlinked for your convenience) and then get back to me on how that post fits the definiton. Thanks.

Ah, so I don't live in America so screw me? "I'm all for everything being fair for everyone in the world, but only if they live in America?" Is that what you're saying? WTF??

Nationalism rules! W00t! Given a choice between keeping a job in the US and sending it out of the US...hmmm...I vote for keeping it in the US.

Hey, why not post using your nick next time, eh?

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't this sort of thing the American dream in action? All I ever see are Americans bitching about it...

FUCK YOU. It isn't racism, it's reality.

And how the hell is canning some dude stateside to offshore his job to some Indian "living the American dream?"

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

I find it interesting that everyone just jumped up to defend this racist crap that has nothing to do with the article or topic, yet it's somehow Insightful.

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

uh, hello, he specifically singled out a one race (indian).

Maybe because India is the place that American IT jobs are being offshored to, you brainless fuckwit!

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

hey dudes with lost jobs,

i am sorry you guys have no jobs. and i do feel sorry for ya.

however, if you don't get indians to work for 35k/year, the global market will take work to india where the indian will actually work for 9k/year or less. this is a mere fact of life. and once india gets expensive, software will move to russia, to romania, to polynesia, etc.

there is no reason to get pissed off at indians. something, that we (americans) have created, globalism, is coming to bite us in ass. we wanted new markets for our products -- and now that those counties have developed, they are making the same products at a much cheaper rate.

well, there are only few things that can be done: learn to live at a lower wage. retrain, relearn, adapt: you can't expect to keep a job knowing what you did in the boom days. i swear to god, people would make 75 grand and a million stock options if they knew how to boot up a computer.

those days are over, we have been spoiled. and really, it is not that bad. the weak ones will be weeded off. the strong ones will ultimately survive. i mean it *is* good that we are finally getting rid of the "HTML programmers."

actually, i would be more pissed off at the quota hiring of mexicans, blacks, women, in real tech. jobs because of their race/sex then their skills.

oh yeah, and please, stop your bitching. go to law school, if you like to do that. you'll make good money that way doing what you like to do.

-- white american dude with a job.

Re:Or Not

[lucifuge31337]

How does racist crap like this get modded insightful?

How is that racist?

Oh, I forgot...we're not supposed to recognize people even have ethnic backgrounds anymore.

Re:Or Not

[Lord Kano]

How does racist crap like this get modded insightful?

I don't see how what he said is racist? Tech jobs (and many non-tech jobs) are being exported to Asia, where labor is cheaper.

Echostar communications spend big $$$ to open a call center in the Philippines. I guess that the $9.00/hr that they pay entry level operators was too much for them to shoulder.

But that is not the point, the point is that it is not racism to point out that many companies are looking to Asia for cheap labor.

LK

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

he never said anything about offshoring, just that an indian was hired instead of him.

Re:Or Not

[Anonymous Coward]

How is that racist? He didn't say a damn thing for or against Indians. My god, you Politically Correct Ignorami really piss me off.

Re:Or Not

[orim]

Well, it is for the exec who did the canning, and saved his company lots of money and who gets a nice fat bonus because of it...

All in your frame of reference...

Why do we care if anyone uses open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am an atheist, and I don't feel a need to persuade Christians that they are delusional. If their religion works for them, great. Why do slashdotters all have this urgent need to promote open source? What do we gain?

Re:Why do we care if anyone uses open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

better driver support for our hardware, among other things..

Re:Why do we care if anyone uses open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

Why are you so freaking hostile? I was just curious why you fucking idiots never consider that anything might be better than your precious free software. Now put that pin back in your pants, before you lose it.

Re:Why do we care if anyone uses open source?

[Anonymous Coward]

>What do we gain?

That depends on your definition of 'gain'
(we don't gain anything useful, only a sense of accomplishment at replacing mostly useless and overpriced crap with non-useless and non-overpriced [mostly no-cost] non-crap.)

Replacing windows with non-windows systems turfs mcses and other clueless homos out of a job, which i personally find particularly satisfying. I suppose there are some clueful windows/2k*/asp/vb etc etc types out there, but i've never met any so understandably i'm leaning toward the belief that there are none, or only a statistically insignificant proportion.

Play with fire and get burned.

[Tyler Eaves]

Maybe this is because companys have been burned enough times by "upgrades" that only cause downtime and break other apps?

Re:Play with fire and get burned.

[drinkypoo]

I think it's more like they're not able to afford to get burned. It's like when you're down to ten bucks, you buy the dollar bread, not that oat-nut stuff you like, because it gets the job done; it holds your sandwich together, and it doesn't cost so damn much. This is just what open source needs, another push. Using FOSS in your project means that unless you have to do a lot of adaptation, things get considerably cheaper, and the savings are greater the more you sell. Oh sure, it makes it a little harder to avoid putting source effectively into the public domain as far as you're concerned, though most people have found a way around that by simply not integrating everything into the same kernel. If it costs $50 per unit to license a RTOS and it costs you $0 per unit to ship Linux you can spend $25 per unit on buying enough hardware to use rtlinux instead of VxWorks or WinCE (a more appropriately named product there never has been nor will be) and still sell your product more cheaply to bring in more sales, without losing any money yourself. (I'm not saying that Linux necessarily demands more hardware, though it may, and it does make things a lot easier if you have more hardware capabilities.)

Of course, I'm not saying anything most people didn't already know, but /. is my favorite place to rant.

Re:Play with fire and get burned.

[Billly Gates]

I think its due to y2k more then anything.

This is what really started the .com hype. Since many corporations had to upgrade old code, it made sense to upgrade everything else at the time and integrate them together. Now its done.

If you were a CEO and spent $40 million to upgrade your whole IT department why would you need to upgrade again? Another 20 million? I don't think so. Many of the systems upgraded were over 20 years old. If it took 20 years to get them in it will take 20 years to get them out.

My guess is the 2038 crises might cause another rise but that is just a theory. Corporations are cheap with good reason. It was reckless spending and unaccountable earnings pressure that started the whole DowJones nosedive. They learned their lesson and unless an emergency pops up they are will not upgrade.

Yes upgrades cause problems like you said but they are also expensive even if they do not cause any problems at all.

Re:Play with fire and get burned.

[cbreaker]

I couldn't disagree with you more.

I don't see how you can really think that Y2K "upgrades" sparked the entire .com stuff and subsequently it being "done" popped the .com bubble.

I think the Internet was the big .com hype catalyst, I don't know where you've been man. It was the Internet itself maturing and becoming available to the masses.

All of a sudden the Internet was realized as a viable place to make money, certain Internet technologies and websites were pulling in major cash, and everyone wanted a peice of that cash. Anyone with an idea was granted enourmous sums of cash to put it on the web, and most of them simply didn't make any money. A lot of people lost a lot of money, which was no big surprise. All the investors were hoping that they were funding the next "ebay" and get rich quick. Unfortunately too many of the investors invested in bombs like boo.com and lastminute.com..

Most of the .com bombs were new companies, funded by old ones and really rich people. They didn't have any Y2K problems from the very nature of their existance; they were new.

As far as IT people and programming people, well, since all these companies were paying big bucks for people to perform these jobs, a LOT of people that wouldn't have gotten into the field under "normal" market conditions took some classes and landed jobs paying a ton of money. Now that so many of the jobs are gone, these people aren't just going to say "/shrug. Oh well, back to being an accounts payable clerk." Instead, there's a flood of unemployed technical people that want the big money again. Many of whom aren't very good at it.

So I dunno where you're coming from..

Re:Play with fire and get burned.

[Anonymous Coward]

I think you and billly are both right.

I use to work in the financial industry. I got into programming because I forsaw the demand back in the mid 1990's. Many older mainframe programers I knew who were retiring were learning C++, html, and SQL because they knew a big demand will come from y2k. I figured what the hell and I knew from being in the industry that it would continue to grow. After I finished some programming courses back in 97 a few analyists in the financial industry also predicted its demise after 2000. I continued anyway and got my mcse. The internet just exploded around that time. The analyists who predicted a downfall after 2000 were laughed at and were ordered not to give such dismall news as they wanted more clueless shareholders to buy over valued stocks. This is borderline criminal but the .com bubble was designed on purpose based on greed.

Anyway what started the .com bubble was semi-correct information that IT spending and ecommerce was going to skyrocket. However most .com investors did not relize that almost all of the money projected being spent was originally for y2k compliancy and upgrades and were buying long term integrated solutions in bulk. Not a new economy shift from internet services. Mainly most Ecommerce spending were just replacing mainframe cobal apps and turning them into intranet and internet apps.

Almost all companies upgraded at once because they wanted integration and standardization on one or two platforms. Ecommerce/Internet included. This is what the market data at the time showed.

The stock market started to go down just months before 2000 from fears of problems and then the DOJ case with Microsoft. Of course businesses were done upgrading so IT purchasing stoped and demand for programers was already going downtube. A few months later after the realization that it was over it went down very quickly and started the bust and ever continuing trend of downsizing and cutting spending. I was laid off a few months later and my job was outsourced to India.

My former colleages were right. Businesses are suppose to be rational but you would be supprised how extreme they can get. Its either one way ( spend spend spend) or the other ( cut cut cut ). Just like buying and selling stock.

Re:Play with fire and get burned.

[rikkards]

I think it is a mix of both post Y2K spending as well as the whole .com push. I mean all of a sudden you get these telecom manufacturers who's stock hits $100-300/share levels (i.e Nortel/JDS Uniphase (formerly known as JDS Fitel)) since their profits had gone up due to a mix of major Y2K spending plus a convenient increase in telco infrastructure upgrades. And everyone and their dog hears about people who had made oodles of money from their stock portfolio due to tech.

Plus you have some slick marketing types that pick up on the fact that since the Internet is the future and our compuglobalhypermeganet thingy is going to revolutionize the world, you got this bunch of suckers out there who see the new Porsches and Aeron chairs and get sucked in.

Now it is 2001 and the next thing you know the telco manufacturers are claiming that for some unknown reason the money isn't coming in as before and then they start chopping the workers. Ironically around the same time the .bombs implode thus dropping more demand for infrastructure improvements. People start looking elsewhere to put their stocks frantically. Rinse and repeat. Nice downward spiral of layoffs and "cost cuttings" while upper management still get the nice 1.5 Million bonus by cutting 5000 workers.

This is what I have seen in the last 2 years. I worked at Newbridge doing CAD support and was in the layoffs there. I got a call from a guy who was in the Component Engineer section and he was laid off from Alcatel about a year ago and is still unemployed. I was smart when I got laid off and got into IT and have been fortunate to be working for the government. With him, right now there is no light at the end of the tunnel (cost cutting I here).

Me, I am waiting to see when prices of houses in Ottawa are going to drop. 2-3 years ago you could ask whatever price you wanted and could sell the house within a week if not a day. Now I have seen houses that have been on the market for almost 6 months. Sooner or later, the real estate agents are going to finally stop lying cause they want their percentage to equate a higher dollar amount and admit the market isn't as good as 2 years ago. I heard the total layoffs in Canada in the last couple of years has equaled out to 45,000 and a good portion in Ottawa, some of those people have to have decided to move. I figure about a year and a half from now anyone who bought a house here around now will have lost about $20,000 on it.

Sorry for the long (and rambling) reply.

Re:Play with fire and get burned.

[NDPTAL85]

FYI its not the real estate agents that are the ones lying. They have to advertise the house at the price the seller wants to sell it at. And its hard for some sellers to accept that their homes have either not grown in value or have declined in value.

The right tools

[BWJones]

IT buyers are continuing a trend of cutting costs, favoring utility over cutting-edge effect.

This is the reason we are investing in OS X. In general to be productive, you use the tools that best help you to accomplish the job at hand. Yes, Linux and other open source solutions are often a part of this, but when one desktop system can replace several others including Wintel and traditional UNIX workstations such as SGI and Sun, all while running the same *NIX apps as before right along with productivity applications such as Photoshop and Office, it saves money and increases productivity, making it an easy decision.

Re:The right tools

[Surak]

I'll probably be modded down for this, but let me candid here.

Well, certainly OS X wouldn't work where I'm at, where we deal with high-end CAD/CAM/CAE systems. They just plain don't write this stuff for Macs. And they never will.

The trend now is to Windows and (hopefully with the pending release of Pro/E for Linux) to Linux systems. I think a lot of non-open source, non-in-house developed UNIX applications probably won't ever be ported to Mac OS X because it's not taken seriously by folks who write these kinds of apps as a viable platform.

Don't get me wrong -- it certainly is. OS X is about as nice of a desktop UNIX as you'll be able to find in open or closed source UNIXes. Apple hardware is nice. But the guys who run UNIX at the high-end of the spectrum don't see it as a UNIX, it's a Mac, and it's nice for graphic designers and desktop publishers, and maybe even has some room for people doing surface modeling for design purpose, but it's not a CAD workstation, and it's certainly no server.

Re:The right tools

[dbrutus]

The last time I read that I chased down the companies the guy was touting and out of three firms, two of them were requesting comments on the idea of porting to Mac OS X. Today, you're correct that some serious CAD/CAM applications are not available on Mac, especially 3d apps but don't kid yourself that these companies have an allergy when it comes to the platform. If they can make money they'll port in flash.

Re:The right tools

[krray]

This is exactly why we are doing the same. I did have to replace one IBM Thinkpad (Win2K) that was stolen recently. Putting 512M memory in it and a CD-RW drive along with a hard drive upgrade easily put it in the $2,300 - $2,500 range which was exactly what I paid a couple of years ago for the original.

I now have about a 50/50 mix of OS X Powerbooks (about $2,600 in cost) and some Thinkpads, Dell's, and a few other personally purchased, but company supported laptops (TP's were what we supplied). I always seem to hear from the Windows users all the time with misc problems which usually resolve back to the OS screwing up somewhere again. The Mac users literally never call.

I personally rolled Mac's out first to field guys who never really touched a computer before (no bias to fight). At the same time it was replacing home systems for the top management.

Wait six months and watch the trickle down happen. The CEO, President, VP of Operations, etc -- all had no issue when as systems were depreciated (ANOTHER concept Microsoft seems to not understand :) they are being replaced with Mac's where it makes sense.

Unfortunately I haven't come across the Linux or OS X based CAD application that can be seriously considered against AutoCAD. Ironically it's the engineering department that is drooling the most over the new G5's -- and as it stands right now will be the last to see them.

Personally I go home to Linux in the basement (and BSD and Netware for testing work configs :) with the Mac used as my main desktop/GUI system. Heck, 99% of my Linux/BSD based work can easily be done through the terminal and most of the applications can be compiled/tested directly on OS X as needed.

As soon as the economy allows and/or a server truly dies (3 years left to depreciate :) the next incoming server WILL be a X-Serve as it stands now. Currently I've never allowed/wanted/needed a Windows server with the core network being run on Netware with Linux and BSD being used more heavily recently. I never understood companies that got Windows servers when their Netware was running just fine. Personally I had one Netware 3.12 server that finally died last year sometime after running for over a DECADE non-stop 24/7 with really no issues other than dust.

The only case where I can see using Windows and be more productive than on any other system is with CAD as mentioned. Otherwise it's OS.X hands down for now. I know the only why I'll pry the lowly G4 450Mhz Cube from my brothers hands will be with a G5. I personally started on that Cube and was my first Mac purchase to go after OS.X in the BETA time. Before that (OS 9 and prior) I had absolutely no interest in the Mac.

I was running Linux at home. :)

Re:The right tools

[BWJones]

They just plain don't write this stuff for Macs. And they never will.

Actually, there have been a number of companies bringing their high end specialized *NIX code to the Mac including apps for molecular modeling, bioinformatics, GIS etc....

I think a lot of non-open source, non-in-house developed UNIX applications probably won't ever be ported to Mac OS X because it's not taken seriously by folks who write these kinds of apps as a viable platform.

Funny, I have had just the opposite experience.

But the guys who run UNIX at the high-end of the spectrum don't see it as a UNIX, it's a Mac, and it's nice for graphic designers and desktop publishers, and maybe even has some room for people doing surface modeling for design purpose,

I use OS X at the "high-end" of the spectrum to perform computational molecular phenotyping, manuscript preparation, creation of presentations, porting code, surfing the web, experimenting with performing reconstruction using yes, CAD software etc...etc...etc.... and....

and it's certainly no server.

Hosting several web_sites.

Re:The right tools

[Compuser]

Now I never used OS X or Darwin but it was my
impression that they had some sort of Linux
compat mode (Fink ?). So if people port to Linux
it will likely also run on Macs at essentially
native speeds, esp. if these companies can be
persuaded to compile for PPC Linux flavors.
Do you think these companies will refuse a market
if all it takes to get there is a compile
switch or two?

Re:The right tools

[Anonymous Coward]

...and it's certainly no server.

Um...No...Mac OS X Server is a server.

Re:The right tools

[deadsaijinx*]

several in a world of hundreds of millions isn't much at all. Most serious admins run *nix or windows

Re:The right tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Personally I go home to Linux in the basement

Mwahahaha! Parent's basement, of course. Ask Mummy where the apostrophes should go before posting again.

Hint: not in "G5's", not in "Dell's", not in "TP's", not in "Mac's".

Re:The right tools

[burdicda]

Have you contacted the company that owns
Microstation or looked at Varicad
I would like to know if you ever find an autocad
sub for Linux

We have GIS folks here running Linux versions of
Microstation that laugh their asses off at how
much better it is than autocad...as they tell it!

Hey let me know tnx

Re:The right tools

[kuhneng]

There's no special "compatibility" mode that I know of, except for the fact that it's a UNIX, and therefore very similar to Linux. Many apps can be ported with a simple compile (most of the GNU stuff just works). Oracle ported their entire database (although it's still considered beta) with minimal effort. In a commercial setting though, testing, documentation, and support will always cost real money.

Re:The right tools

[droleary]

Most serious admins run *nix or windows

No serious admins run Windows, and all serious admins know that Mac OS X is *nix.

Re:The right tools

[Compuser]

Yeah, ok Fink is not to Linux on OS X what Wine
is to Windows on Linux. But FreeBSD has Linux
compat layer, doesn't this exist for OS X?

Re:The right tools

[Perdo]

You are a Mac Zealot troll.

You just can't say enough about your platform of choice.

You have to put your little two cents into every article that is even vaguely a place where you can tout your platform.

Consider: Linux on AMD.

$500 systems instead of $3000, Office compatibility for $0 instead of $325, Photoshop work-a-like Gimp $0 instead of $600.

8 PCs instead of 1 Mac.

Yes, one desktop better replace several others, eight of them to be precise.

I admit the gimp comparison is a bit thin, so leave the marketing and design departments on macs but do not even think of doleing them out to the rank and file.

Initial costs get ugly fast otherwise. 100 employees is a $300,000 investment for the mac platform.

Perhaps 15 employees absolutely must have macs. That's $45,000 for those 15 employees plus another $42,500 for every one else's (the other 85 people) computers.

A smart business gets away for one third the cost of an all mac office, while the employees that absolutly must have macs, get them.

Do you see how asinine your comment is, placed in that light?

Especially when you say it's such an "easy decision".

Scaled over a large corporation, the costs of "swiching" could easily amount to tens of millions of dollars more than a propper mixed platform solution.

I can just see the CTO now, trying to explain why IT spending trippled.

I would rather be the CTO that cut IT in half by getting away from Microsoft, while still providing a complete and reliable mixed package.

Re:The right tools

[appleLaserWriter]

I think a lot of non-open source, non-in-house developed UNIX applications probably won't ever be ported to Mac OS X because it's not taken seriously by folks who write these kinds of apps as a viable platform.

Funny, that is what everyone was saying about Linux six years ago.

I bought my first mac, a TiBook, about six months ago for a WiFi job. I'm now working at a telecom shop that is making the transition from a wholesale (word of mouth sales) to semi-retail business model (lots of marketing). I'm finding that my little grey unix box is awesome for creating marketing design documents, due to its native support of PDF documents and high acceptance within the publishing industry.

Re:The right tools

[God! Awful 2]

I'll probably be modded down for this, but let me candid here.

Funny how anyone who says this never seems to say anything the least bit contraversial. My impression is that people say this when they are looking to get modded up. Happy karma whoring to you.

-a

Re:The right tools

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh shut up you fucking wanker! Stick your shit apple up your fat ass.

Re:The right tools

[dspisak]

Just because the majority of people don't use it does not mean it is not the right tool!

Most serious admins run OS/390 :)

I consider myself a pretty technically compentent sysadmin, however I will always try to never have to run a Windows server when I can do the same thing on a Linux box or on OS X or Solaris.

I've never used AIX or HP-UX and would love to learn it, but I've never worked anywhere that had it in operation. There seems to be people looking for folks with experience in these OS'es and hardware platforms but I'll be damned if I ever run into them as most IT shops I've worked at only ever have x86 Windows crap and/or/xor Linux and Solaris. I'm sure that my skills under Linux/Sloaris would probably translate to HP-UX and AIX to some degree (see the Rosetta Stone for UNIXes) but its hard to learn a platform when you never can get your hands on it and its a high-end niche.

Then again I see plenty of job postings for AS/400 folks and I think to myself "Yet another platform I will never get to work on".

The problem with IT these days is you run into positions where basically management took the positions of three people and crammed them into one at 1/3rd the pay. Then on top of that they want people to be subject matter experts on various technologies with more years of experience then some technologies have even existed!

Of course I am somewhat biased here as I am currently out of work thanks to a recent layoff (thanks Cox Business Services!) and the market here in Southern California seems dismal at best. So time to go back to college and finish up the degree (yeah, I was stupid) in CS and perhaps get a minor in chemistry or biology and perhaps parlay that into a bioinformatics career, who knows? Perhaps with the 2 years it will take and a little luck the economy will get better?

Re:The right tools

[Surak]

The Linux compatibility layer might be fine, but you don't have the source. If you have an x86 Linux application (what the companies are porting to), it's NOT going to run OS X (which runs on the Motorola/IBM PowerPC CPU) unless the companies themselves compile it on a PowerPC platform.

Even then, the way things are coded for added precision (as a another poster points out), it's not as simple as a recompile.

Re:The right tools

[Surak]

And it's not taken seriously by anybody for anything but non-critical servers, or for servers for a Mac-only environment, which you're likely to see only at a publishing house. Even then, a lot of Mac-only places use Unix servers like Sparc Solaris boxes or IBM AIX boxes.

Re:The right tools

[Surak]

Actually, there have been a number of companies bringing their high end specialized *NIX code to the Mac including apps for molecular modeling, bioinformatics, GIS etc....

Perhaps in your field. I don't know anything about that particular field. In CAD/CAM/CAE, there are NO companies that have made announcements to port their stuff to OS X. Not Dassaulte Systemes (CATIA), not EDS (Unigraphics NX and I-DEAS), and not PTC (Pro/E). We run all of these.

I use OS X at the "high-end" of the spectrum to perform computational molecular phenotyping, manuscript preparation, creation of presentations, porting code, surfing the web, experimenting with performing reconstruction using yes, CAD software etc...etc...etc.... and....

Not any of the packages I've listed above. Again, it may just be different in your field as opposed to my field.

Re:The right tools

[mshiltonj]

when one desktop system can replace several others including Wintel and traditional UNIX workstations such as SGI and Sun, all while running the same *NIX apps as before right along with productivity applications such as Photoshop and Office, it saves money and increases productivity, making it an easy decision.

Thank you, Mr. Jobs!

Good points, though. My next system may well be a mac, instead of Lintel. Upgrade time loops nigh.

Re:The right tools

[Anonymous Coward]

What's "asinine" is that all of your "$0" solutions run on OSX just as well as they run on Linux. You think Gimp is a "Linux" app? It's not. Yet, those of us who don't have to run that crap don't -- $300 is fucking cheap for an office app that's not a hemorrhoid to use.

And $500 won't buy you anywhere near the quality of a production machine with a warranty -- Wintel or Mac.

Re:The right tools

[Junta]

As far as I know, OSX does not have that anywhere in there, and it would do them absolutely no good whatsoever. The point is to run binaries made for linux under FreeBSD by providing compatible kernel calls, but not emulating anything like the instruction set. If OSX had that feature, they could happily run LinuxPPC apps, and that is it. The interest and native commercial app support for Linux on PPC is far far more insignificant than OSX. For all the claims that OSX is not taken seriously,Linux PPC is not even a dot on the radar even for companies releasing products on Linux in x86 world.

Re:The right tools

[Fulcrum of Evil]

No serious admins run Windows

Serious admins run what they're paid to run. They may have some say in what that is, and they certainly take all possible precautions to make their systems run well, but they're still a lot of admins running windows, like it or not.

Re:The right tools

[pmz]

Well, certainly OS X wouldn't work where I'm at, where we deal with high-end CAD/CAM/CAE systems. They just plain don't write this stuff for Macs. And they never will.

I woudn't make this conclusion too soon. It is easier than ever before to port from UNIX to Mac OS, and I wouldn't be suprised if Apple's market share is compelling to CAD companies. Imagine, a highly-usable and well-known desktop computer that isn't garbage like that other well-known and useable desktop.

The trend now is to Windows...

This has always struck me as deeply sad. There are now many decent CAD applications totally and irrevocably stuck in the Windows mud-pit. Porting them to Mac OS, Linux, or anything that isn't non-operably joined to Microsoft is not feasible. Simply, if Microsoft sinks like a rock, a lot of companies will realize that they are tethered to that rock. Very sad.

...and (hopefully with the pending release of Pro/E for Linux) to Linux systems.

I think this is very encouraging. Pro/E has been coming down in cost quickly enough that the hardware costs are becoming larger parts of the equation. A dual Opteron system, a top-end graphics card (not a gamer's card but one of those $1,000+ ones), and a Linux distribution running Pro/E is very compelling relative to a Sun, IBM, SGI, or HP workstation.

Re:The right tools

[BWJones]

You are a Mac Zealot troll.

I will be an advocate for those tools that I find to be the best with which to accomplish my work. Apple has historically provided the most innovative products in the PC industry and I have been able to take advantage of those innovations in my work. That's all.

You just can't say enough about your platform of choice.

Advocacy is a way to ensure that tools of choice remain and the companies that produce those tools can compete in the face of significant competition from larger companies with more market share.

Consider: Linux on AMD

I absolutely have considered and used a couple of Linux distros. However, my research typically consists of about a week at the bench in the "wet-lab" and three weeks behind a computer screen for about 14-15 hours/day analyzing data and writing. This time cannot be spent configuring drivers or screwing around getting things to work. The plug and play nature of the Macintosh ensures that this is a tool that simply works when I ask it to. Furthermore, the text handling of OS X makes hours in front of the display much easier on the eyes.

As far as your price comparison, a $500 Linux system does not remotely equate to a $3000 loaded dual CPU OS X system. Actually take the time to look at what you are getting with each of those systems and you will see what I mean. Superdrive, SATA drives, completely parallel bus architectures for memory, storage, CPU, and IO. Firewire 400 and 800, USB 2.0, expandable to 8GB of RAM etc...etc...etc... When I config a Linux workstation remotely comparable, I am within a couple hundred $$'s which is easily eaten up by the time required to support the Linux system vs the OS X box.

At the low end, when I configure a Linux system comparable to a $1100 iMac, I come up with around an $800 system without the software bundle or OS X which is easily worth the money, especially in terms of support costs.

I am not saying that Linux boxes have no place. Quite the contrary. I absolutely believe that there is a right place for them for many from the rank and file to the dedicated workstations, but in terms of a desktop system that can do it all, there is no substitute for an OS X based system. Try it with an open mind and you will understand.

Re:The right tools

[Stu Charlton]

But the guys who run UNIX at the high-end of the spectrum don't see it as a UNIX, it's a Mac, and it's nice for graphic designers and desktop publishers, and maybe even has some room for people doing surface modeling for design purpose, but it's not a CAD workstation, and it's certainly no server.

Your point is taken, and accurate, but I want to re-iterate it in more simple terms: there is a perception in certain industries that the Mac is not a high-powered workstation and is not a server.

Perceptions are not facts, they're opinions, they're views of the world, so when you say this:

They just plain don't write this stuff for Macs. And they never will.

It strikes me as odd that you'd think this, considering the sheer number of mind-baffling trends we've seen. I'm going to list a bunch of very plausible quotes that I've heard circa 1998 - 1999. They're not true now.

"Embedded systems developers don't write stuff in Java. And they never will"

- Java is now the biggest platform for mobile phone development
- The NASA JPL is using in their future Mars missions.

"Linux will never be considered a serious server OS. The big database vendors will never port their products to it."

- Can you name a big database vendor without a Linux port?
- Or that Oracle's main marketing push for the past 18 months has been "Unbreakable Linux"?

So, yeah, I take your point that the major CAD vendors don't write stuff for Mac OS X due to perception issues. But do you honestly believe the platform is not capable of running such applications, especially with the new G5, and with X11 being embedded inside of it in 10.3?

Anyway, my point is mainly that strange things happen out there, and it's the companies that watch for the unexpected successes & failures that make great gains.

Re:The right tools

[Stu Charlton]

sorry for the missing anchor on that link... whoopsie.

Re:The right tools

[Surak]

This has always struck me as deeply sad. There are now many decent CAD applications totally and irrevocably stuck in the Windows mud-pit. Porting them to Mac OS, Linux, or anything that isn't non-operably joined to Microsoft is not feasible. Simply, if Microsoft sinks like a rock, a lot of companies will realize that they are tethered to that rock. Very sad.

Well, Dassaulte Systemes and EDS still develop their products on UNIX. Although, I've noticed that, sadly, CATIA v5 (on Solaris at least), is *backported* from Windows. There are even - ick - Windows DLL files included in the mix with Microsoft copyright notices all over them. *sigh*

At least Unigraphics is still a native *nix application.

Re:The right tools

[rikkards]

In this era of costcutting, the diva attitude of "I would never touch a MS product" is a stupid attitude. I was interviewed at a high tech outfit that ended up being they were looking for a replacement for their admin since he wouldn't "dirty his hands" on their Exchange server nor support any of their Windows boxes. There were running Cadence (I think or it may have been Mentor Graphics I can't remember now) on Windows for most of their designing.

Re:The right tools

[droleary]

In this era of costcutting, the diva attitude of "I would never touch a MS product" is a stupid attitude.

That makes zero sense. Firstly, I avoid Windows for both technical and business reasons, not some perceived "diva" whim. And to argue that cost cutting implies a company should run Windows is outlandish. If I were ever in a meeting where the CTO said something like "We'll discuss cost cutting measures after I write out this check to Microsoft for $300,000" I would fire that moron if I could and quit if I couldn't. You sound like you've only worked for poorly run companies.

Re:The right tools

[rikkards]

I never said that a company should run Windows to cut costs per se. I meant that nowadays with all the layoffs, companies can find any trained ape who will work for peanuts and will say yessir, be unemployed for a year and you will almost do anything. I have gone through 2 layoffs within the last 3 years. The first time was almost a year (went back to school to bone up) and the second was about 6 months. After the second I said fuck it to the high tech and decided to work for the government (not a public servant but contracting which pays buttloads more without the job security but I have a good contract that shouldn't die out any time soon (if ever)). It's not bleeding edge technology but there is some interesting stuff there as well.

In this economical market you don't pick the companies you work for. Sounds like you have been lucky to be able to make the choice and I hope everybody can.

I didn't end up working for the company that wanted to axe their unix guru but rather than putting out bucketloads of money for Sun boxes for their developers, they figured it was cheaper to buy Win2k workstations, it was also a startup who are still around but they had to be really careful on spending money as Venture Capital was starting to get scarce. Unfortunately there wasn't any CAD software at the time developed for linux that was up to par as the Windows stuff otherwise I am sure they would have gone that way. What wasn't available for Windows they would put out the money and get the real iron for it.

Problem is that you can quit the job if you don't like what is happening but like I said the market is pretty dry and you better make sure that you have something else lined up or a decent nest egg to fall back on.

I know someone who did jump jobs and less then 2 months later the axe fell and he was out on his ass. He tried to get his old job back but by that time they had already hired someone new and if they turfed the new guy, HR said no new hirings. That was 7 months ago. Guess what he is doing now? (hint: nothing) It isn't the workers market anymore (not going to be for a while anyways) where you could demand a huge pay due to lack of workforce.

Plus I wasn't saying everyone has a diva whim, it is the ones who already have windows machines but refuse to touch them because it is beneath them so they need to hire someone else to do it were the ones I was talking about.

Re:The right tools

[droleary]

I meant that nowadays with all the layoffs, companies can find any trained ape who will work for peanuts and will say yessir, be unemployed for a year and you will almost do anything.

If you had that attitude and worked for me, I'd summarily fire you. The only corporate structures that likes yes-men are ones doomed to failure. You sacrifice your dignity and professionalism when you refuse to do your job for the sake of your "don't rock the boat" continued employment by the company (for the next 6 months or however long it takes for the bad management to drive it under, taking your precious job with it).

In this economical market you don't pick the companies you work for.

In every market you decide your future, and in this market is it especially important not to get involved (or prolong involvement) with companies that are on the wrong path.

Unfortunately there wasn't any CAD software at the time developed for linux that was up to par as the Windows stuff otherwise I am sure they would have gone that way.

This is the only thing you said that makes sense. I never tried to imply that a company should ban Windows, but it is too often the case that a clueless IT worker with way too much power mandates that a company become Windows-only. Windows has become an assumption in companies, and that means that you have no competetive advantage if you use Windows everywhere, which is deadly in today's business environment.

Problem is that you can quit the job if you don't like what is happening but like I said the market is pretty dry and you better make sure that you have something else lined up or a decent nest egg to fall back on.

The market isn't dry for people with actual skills but, no, you can't get a job just for being an otherwise clueless cube-dweller that can slap together matching HTML tags; that ship has sailed. Here's a clue for anyone who doesn't have a "nest egg": for every two years you work you should count on supporting yourself for a year without income. If you're living paycheck to paycheck and reach 65 without any savings, you're probably fucked. But if you're working soul-crushing jobs for 40 years just so you can scrape together rent, you're probably fucked already.

Re:The right tools

[NDPTAL85]

You have to weigh the cost of the software against the cost of the admins you'll need to hire to run it.

Linux = cheap to free software and expensive admins
Windows = Expensive software and cheap admins.

Its up to you.

Re:The right tools

[Anonymous Coward]

you can't get a job just for being an otherwise clueless cube-dweller that can slap together matching HTML tags

Kind of like your page

Re:The right tools

[droleary]

Linux = cheap to free software and expensive admins
Windows = Expensive software and cheap admins.

You've clearly never been in the position of hiring an IT staff.

Re:The right tools

[droleary]

Oooo, I suppose you thought that was clever. Guess what? I've got better things to do with my time than go design-happy on my web page. How much of a self-important egotist do you have to be to think your life simply *must* be up on a pretty web page (or blog) for the world to see? If you had some balls you would have at least made specific comments about the *corporate* web site. But to heave a bland, generic insult at a page I put up as a lark over 5 years ago and haven't really touched since? That's pathetic. Good thing you posted as an AC.

Re:The right tools

[Anonymous Coward]

if anyone wanted to use those tools on the Mac, they'd be there. apparently the important CAD tools are being ported.

maybe your software is just out of date.

Re:The right tools

[Anonymous Coward]

looking at your previous posts in your history, you have some definite subtle anger issues. Almost seems like your baseline emotional level is grumpy. Looking at your *corporate* web site only one word comes to mind. Amateurish.

Re:cool!

[bad_fx]

Would be nice but I very much doubt it. This sort of attitude only hurts the more specialised, cutting edge companies. The already established, "reliable" places like MS will only gain from this, I'd guess, as people become less and less likely to "take a chance" on less well known products. (been like that for a while though hasn't it?)

Good for small business too!

[sammyo]

Well for small companys that provide quality, truely inovative products that solve REAL problems. The CA's and Peoplesofts that ship a product that require 2-3 years of independant consultants to get 'right' will be ancient history.

Not good for "bazzar-style" open source

[GoofyBoy]

From the article;

"Standardization is the order of the day,...""

And then they go on about how big monolithic companies like MS will win.

Its not that they don't want to pay for software, its that they have to show and justify results quickly. MS has more slick ads/sales people to push their products to managers than open source.

Microsoft CEO sold 2.3 biliion in shares last June

[Anonymous Coward]

The CEO of Microsoft just sold 2.3 billion
dollars worth of shares last month.
cached story here.

OPEN SOURCE DOESNT PAY THE BILLS FOOL

[Anonymous Coward]

So in summary companies are not investing in new software because money is tight. This means less need for IT workers. But we should be happy because all of the open source programmers who live in moms basement will get a sense of accomplishment.

Re:OPEN SOURCE DOESNT PAY THE BILLS FOOL

[dbrutus]

Any strategy of engaging in a conspiracy of avoiding the low cost alternative is doomed to failure. Some scrappy competitor will always break ranks and gain marketshare because of it and then all hell breaks loose.

On the bright side, with the economy improving new companies will be formed and they'll be hiring.

Re:OPEN SOURCE DOESNT PAY THE BILLS FOOL

[visualight]

except for diamonds and oil

Re:OPEN SOURCE DOESNT PAY THE BILLS FOOL

[dbrutus]

In fact, US doctors are facing competition in some sectors from foreign doctors. Telemedicine gets x-rays read just as fast and as accurately in India as they get done at the local hospital.

The US gives out a lot of J-1 visas to medical residents from all over the world, trains them, licenses them for work in the US, and then forces them to go home. I know some of these people personally and they're good docs.

Certain parts of many jobs will always need to be done locally but many things don't have to be locally done and people who compete in those areas are finding that foreign competition is growing as we get more interconnected.

Open source

[MrWa]

The article is about IT becoming a part of businesses that must justify new expenses in terms of ROI. This goes along with the previous mentioned articles on /. about IT being an investment.

One could make the leap to believe that this means companies will embrace free, open source! software. Maybe. Or one could look deeper and see that companies are looking to standardize - something that open source software doesn't seem to doing.

There may be places in businesses that open source software will be able to make good progress in - I hope so - but it reads like IT managers are looking to the old standards (IBM, Microsoft, SAP, etc.) for the near-term fixes that they need and any new, whizbang ideas (e.g. wi-fi) will be met with strong resistance...

Optimisitic?

[calebb]

"We have a common strategy. It's common, bulletproof infrastructure with standardized PCs, standardized networks and (security), standardized servers,"

Isn't that what all IT coordinators desire? I think that this is another way of saying they are looking for a longer useful service life on computer systems (due to the slower economy & lack of necessity); Technology (processor, motherboard IO chipsets, storage, etc) is still changing just as quickly as it was in the 90's when we saw the change from MFM -> IDE -> EIDE drives, 8 bit -> 16 bit -> 32 bit buses, 12MHz ram -> 266MHz ram, etc ...
however... I believe that if you take a last-generation system - a P4-1.5GHz for example - It is powerful enough to have a much longer useful service life than a 386sx-16MHz did back in the early 90's;
i.e., in 2003, $50,000 will purchase many more last-generation PC's than it did in 1992 & they will remain useful equipment for a longer period of time due to the current level of technology.

Then again, I could be living in a dreamworld & P4's could be obsolete to the point of uselessness in 3 years...

Re:Optimisitic?

[drinkypoo]

P4 is still current-generation for a desktop system regardless of clock rate. I think you meant P3. P3 is still quite capable of getting most work done. You don't need a high-power system if you're just doing office documents and web development.

However, take a look at intel's timeline. The 386 came out in 1985. Arguably, it's the Pentium that finally put it to death - It didn't come out until 1993. The Pentium itself, and by this I mean the P54C, not the P55C (Pentium MMX) is still doing good work for quite a few people - people who are using Windows 98 of course, or Linux, but I'm concentrating on the mainstream. However, you could say that it was put to death in business by the Pentium III - in 1999. So the 386 had an eight year lifespan, and Pentium lasted only six.

It looks to me like technology lifespans are actually shrinking. Of course, operating systems ARE changing more slowly, but applications are still growing rapidly. For instance, you could do meaningful work with Lightwave 3D's older versions on an Amiga with a 386 at 25MHz, but just running the GUI is something of a slowdown on (say) an Athlon 700 with a GF2MX card, let alone getting to the rendering part. Of course, it does a whole lot more now, which is my whole point. Windows XP might not be dramatically different or more CPU hungry than Windows NT 3.51 (try turning off a bunch of the new crap in XP, you'll see what I mean - mind you I leave all that crap turned on) but Office XP is insanely more resource-hungry than Office 97, let alone Microsoft Works 1.0 :)

So if the current pattern is fit, the current generation of processors will be obsoleted within just a few years. But, we'll see what happens. There's always hope that we'll see a renaissance of optimization.

Re:Optimisitic?

[mr_e_cat]

What about the fact that all microsoft operating systems slow down over time.

"I've always found paranoia to be a perfectly defensible position"

TRoLLS uNiTe! ac4e60ea6e45a09da42c7e8fb15ce613

[Anonymous Coward]

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[Anonymous Coward]

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[Anonymous Coward]

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[Anonymous Coward]

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Scientology Scientology Scientology Scientology Scientology

CRaPFLooD

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TRoLLS uNiTe! 5a79176dda419fe72a22de2d189d9036

[Anonymous Coward]

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TRoLLS uNiTe! 5f6559288945e54cf41e7e51b2299b14

[Anonymous Coward]

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TRoLLS uNiTe! 81fe597d3a12c64fb9370a2e37e09dcb

[Anonymous Coward]

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CRaPFLooD

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TRoLLS uNiTe! e62fa0317a62a127a6d1a22cfc06c87f

[Anonymous Coward]

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CRaPFLooD

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TRoLLS uNiTe! d57c3910d36def0f811078b484fd8530

[Anonymous Coward]

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CRaPFLooD

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TRoLLS uNiTe! 91d979933e4bf31e16823a0c13e037d5

[Anonymous Coward]

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TRoLLS uNiTe! b97a96f1bd2fc0cb1bf8760b55ef2ae2

[Anonymous Coward]

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CRaPFLooD

1370008be5862654de12cc11e3f990b2d0befce3030097d8 e2 0fd057287a1d6a08208b4ae81ca22c2a732d57f4aa5d383cd1 3cea091d84211559098a33a38ce9a14b729c01b19d15fb2629 2a66e5933219ea175a1edc4a1fd458b2bc9d3d06c1f65584e4 e5b7837b36f1de82702133a7db307b25665b390953b8609839 44a0db1d6f9ad9c60c2f65d59a06c1f56e75bd742d3c2a7cea a6143597415ae49551d07bef2839d7b394d6bc6ae13abdc74c 845f4a3cce66826f215511be5c5320e23a3d4e06f2c972b71b 81cb06074916364215f4d7d8386e78fc5ed49a02dd6bef947c 3a966d88a80726a95c2e16e56c3997aa4c9091fc6eb53448e5 aaa01ca211a56d1a0cf21ce7ff9904b5351e202bc427

No, really?

[Synn]

Let's see, late 90's we had the internet bomb where everyone was throwing money at anything with the word "net" in it. You didn't need a sound business plan, just a good domain name to be worth billions.

And to top it all off we had the Y2K craze, where the Y2K bug was basically an excuse to totally upgrade everyone's infrastructure. You had people cashing in on that one big time, you could even buy Y2K steak knives.

So is it any surprise people aren't spending as much IT money today?

It'll bounce back up, computers and software don't last forever, but it'll never be like it was back in the late 90's, which is a good thing IMHO.

Re:No, really?

[LostCluster]

Most computer parts are good for about 5 years tops... if everything was replaced in late 1999, what's gonna happen in 2004?

Re:No, really?

[plierhead]

So is it any surprise people aren't spending as much IT money today?

Look on this as a return to normality. As the article says, it is things like re-engineering the procurement process that bring the real benefits. Trouble is, during the years of hype, there were plenty of snake oil salesmen around saying that if you focused on that boring, hard-to-do stuff, then you'd miss out on the magic benefits from black magic technologies (crazy shit like personalization servers and anything with the word exchange in it spring to mind). Chuck us a coupla mil, install our crazy cool stuff, and you'll be part of the web economy !

Most IT managers were always aware that there were no magic bullets out there and that most new technologies were a bunch of hacked together BS. Its just that now, they've got the upper hand again so they're calling the shots.

Re:No, really?

[Lumpy]

Most computer parts are good for about 5 years tops... if everything was replaced in late 1999, what's gonna happen in 2004?

really? and you got an insightful for that....

Please explain that old IBM big iron in the basement that is over 15 years old and still a core of the business? explain the media servers that are running NT4.0 and NT3.51 that have no replacement plan in place other than, "when it breaks to the point you cant fix it, replace it."

I have several Pentium I 166 NON MMX servers that are much older than 5 years and are doing their job absolutely perfectly, just like the day they came out of the box.

so why do I need to replace them? because someone comes along and makes a dumb statement like yours?

Not... we won't replace the pay-stations, media servers, or other hardware until it stops being useful to our needs... and that has so far been much longer than 5 years.

Re:No, really?

[Fulcrum of Evil]

Most computer parts are good for about 5 years tops

Please explain that old IBM big iron in the basement that is over 15 years old and still a core of the business

Well, I would point out that an IBM mainframe isn't most computer parts. 10 Years between IPL doesn't translate into a 5 year service life.

I have several Pentium I 166 NON MMX servers that are much older than 5 years and are doing their job absolutely perfectly, just like the day they came out of the box.

Good for you. What's your plan for when they break? If it were me, I'd have replaced them already - $2000 every 5 years isn't a whole lot of money to avoid hardware failures from age.

Biggest Crapflood Ever!! d3ce42e434c7ec5146e8d2933

[Anonymous Coward]

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CRaPFLooD

80d6a9c7d3e992028df2c346b80f3f5e5d1ba4e5b65ca9e9 f5 667139785dea5424fb7b7812aa3ba35a8816724e24ac3be896 4b9a2e065b1067f99ff74fcdb449c50abf382228ef317ffe89 2e7c8a91ecb55e77c94fe95a1dcad8727abc531920a4e9dcb5 9de9652095f9ab4e452f4a0e

Biggest Crapflood Ever!! 082491c2c86ed591cece62c9b

[Anonymous Coward]

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8de0c3085da54b8e957220b9c8de8aca8b6d9eca3c1dc333 5b 7ff90614c63f24502875cfe610e2c1769d79cfd9b0190a6806 c6ea50ea2de3df70f5451156cd06c27c5f620909cb0edeeb50 8e6a83bdf087155e5c94541c4a990f4b152763dea500aa1503 c1bbdb597c450f6b0d941fbd3089bf7a81bd130e782910595f d74cdee3f2567e5585a5aba50827c9f3f26c2e

Biggest Crapflood Ever!! 43cc251c33e8376d80f506ae8

[Anonymous Coward]

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CRaPFLooD

d9a3a622c55fe34bd409a2235f9b675b6cd29f23de85b130 91 28ff736c7efbf6258d7a491108e4e48af85b904cef46543f3a e0c863fc93011a8e406ee32d5012ee963aff9023a472ddc838 bdddb099f8e1fc26a3bdfef6640d7113888e0e25d15cc6cf88 52ea8f2aa08d80887296883959a58382d7d556e4857553efb7 6c4bd27d4367714de5c7cc0fb7a12cd76b5a10c2619c30c0a0 085444bbacb07de96d1ead7d34f4c2a54e4ce2b243cbf1e5b8 5d

Biggest Crapflood Ever!! 8ccf849734993abe369360d16

[Anonymous Coward]

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CRaPFLooD

344fbbdb875272b916352c8040207bd6e18a081756e4c0d0 dd 76c53b75e678bc816826c162e44db293e93d2d4c390ae3e19c 514704b21ce61f8b65df529904e2b3c865b84617fa5e555865 ebe0e546120ebacf43a429d8992a0ff3f0d0762189ec88121d f4e8a5ea1665067e0305bcf2cc0b1d854d1043f3281c540743 02d98c89a4350ab4e5006c5981a48672dd1170d244da6f35a9 195bf35fc957adf9b9d1981a3d9d46123dc4231e4cc3a71836 2c2f9cd3c02e4e9940015fe9b9df94c08df9a1c0231e527871 ae2dce9e3d7a0cb65e68079126ac457d6372c6154c9050947f 18e8b6d0675b0115fa7062fec8d3560055a5709f2388ee34e6 a39c4719fccba94d9cfb28a3ee8833688576116f8d19

Cisco and Sun at fault

[FooGoo]

This is all because Cisco and Sun dumped so much cheap equipment on the market during the bubble. With the way the gray market is right now I won't have to buy anything new until 2017. The best thing that could happen would be for them to buy back all the gear they flooded the market with.

Check

[Anonymous Coward]

Okay, now that we have the obligatory "OS X is better" comment out of the way, we can get on with some real conversation...

Do we really need to upgrade?

[lawaetf1]

No, seriously. Gamers aside, the average home or office user can get by just fine with technology from 2+ years ago. I have a p3-800 at work as do my 30 odd users and for email, web browsing, mp3s, terminals, etc it handles the work just fine. Sure a newer system would be nice but its impossible to justify the cost when things purr along smoothly as is.
I think the same applies for servers to a lesser extent. Unless you're anticipating a heavy load chances are good the job will get done fine with a box rustled out of the closet.
Unless the fundamental ways in which we interface with the computer change then the non-power user will have longer and longer periods between upgrades.

Re:Do we really need to upgrade?

[mythosaz]

P3-800 is *vastly* ahead of the corporate curve. Take a look at the P2 systems coming from places like Computer Surplus Outlet. The P2-400 is whats in your hospitals, schools and government offices, because that's whats hitting the refurb sellers now. Dell Optiplexes man...

P3-800? Lucky bastard.

Re:Do we really need to upgrade?

[claud9999]

Even for me, a Celeron 1Ghz Socket370 system with 512MB RAM is sufficient to play most of the games I own and enjoy playing plus it works fine for video editing, MP3 ripping, DVD viewing, and (of course) the web surfing and e-mail reading. I've thought about "moving up", but I like being able to move CPU's/memory around between my three machines. (And upgrading all three is definitely not cost-effective!)

Alas, it's becoming harder and harder to find hardware that was the flavor of last year...vendors (especially retailer outlets) seem to push the latest mobo, chips, memory, etc. (Guess they like their profit margins, I just like my pocketbook more.) Luckily, the Internet saves my day...

(Just bought a Socket370 Shuttle XPC system for my den online, plus a Celeron 1.2Ghz which will likely go in my Linux box (currently running 800Mhz.)

Capitalism

[Anonymous Coward]

If it has the word "technology" than even the definition of capitalism becomes "news?"

The ultimate American dream...

[GoofyBoy]

... is being able to freely bitch about anything.

He didn't say anything degrading or make a sweeping generalizaiton about Indians so I can't see how this is racist.

Re:The ultimate American dream...

[Anonymous Coward]

Aha, so by that logic I should be able to freely bitch about his bitching... so leave me alone! :P

How did they crapflood like that?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dont you have to wait 2 minutes to post? Is this some kind of distributed attack? That would be a great idea... Write a virus that spreads and then attacks slashdot by posting crapfloods. Hmmm I like it!

PHB's to the rescue

[Tablizer]

Never underestimate the power of stupid PHB's to waste money on dumb ideas. They will be back. They are just hiding out with the ex Iraqi Information Minister right now.

In other news...

[FueledByRamen]

The sky is still blue.

Cheap : Managers :: Dumb : End Users

Seriously, though, companies don't have to spend too much on IT stuff nowadays. They only have to go pick up the latest and greatest from some dead .com from eBay. (Witness my purchase of a 36gb 10K RPM FC drive for $30 recently, and my watching a 72gb 10k RPM Ultra/320 SCSI drive, hotswappable (SCA) go for $55)

Re:In other news...

[bad_fx]

Now that there is circular logic if ever I saw it. :) Companies don't have to spend much on IT stuff because it's cheaper. But why is it cheaper? - Maybe because:

a) companies aren't willing to spend much on it anymore... and

b) most of the companies who were willing to pay for it have now gone belly up.

*shrug*

yippeee this means I get to install more linux

[codepunk]

Man I have been loading linux boxes right and left. The longer the economy is in the dumps the easier it is to sell linux solutions.

Re:yippeee this means I get to install more linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Not only that, but youre seeding knowledge: those economically impoverished guys to which you sell linux will really have to learn to work this time. Not only their company shall fare much better, many will leave to create new businesses.

So, the economy will start again renewed.

Good job you have. Kind of a bee, I guess.

good job!

[Anonymous Coward]

As we all know, whenever anyone mentions MySQL, it's imperative that someone say "Why not Postgres?"

I salute you.

Re:good job!

[Phishpin]

Well...why not? Is it becuase no one (read: me) knows how to pronounce it?

Hardware

[somethinghollow]

I think we are getting to a point where hardware is "ahead of it's time." That is, when I was doing design work on Adobe Photoshop 5, I had a 266 MHZ PII and I remember thinking: This is all the computing power I will ever need (which is something I'm sure most of us said, accept Bill Gates, who apparently never that ;). Well, 6 years later, we have 3 GHz processors, and I wonder how long it will take business type applications to tax those processors like Office 2K with Windows XP taxes my old 266. It's the poor performance with later versions of Photoshop, etc, that convinced me to upgrade my system four years ago.

Basically, the buying slump (hardware wise) might be because everyone's hardware does what they want at a good speed with plenty room to spare. If corperations want hardware sales to go up, they'll have to wait for more complex programs (or more wildly inefficient --a.k.a. poorly programmed -- programs) to come out. And Longhorn is right around the corner, coincidentally enough.

Re:Hardware

[ender81b]

Exactly true. A few years ago, around 1999, the upgrade cycle for the university I work for was 3 years. You got a new computer every 3 years, and that last year was a real bitch trying to get along.

This year we switched to a 5 year upgrade cycle on most computers and a 6 year upgrade cycle on "low use" - i.e. secretary computers. It makes sense when you think about it. 5 years ago it was 1998 and the fastest chip out there was a 350mhz (iirc). Today, a 350mhz CPU will do just fine running office 2k, windows 2k, and email/browsing the web. It is even usuable with things like photoshop and dreamweaver (assuming you have about 256mb of ram). THe latest machines we buy are 2.8GHZ and I doubt that in 5 years even they will really need to be replaced.

However, student public computers - bought for and by the students - we keep on a 3 year upgrade cycle if for no other reason than to impress incoming students with all the shiny flat panel monitors and 3GHZ processors with DVD/CDRW drives.In reality, they don't need that but they sure as heck like using them and like to think that their money goes to buying worthwhile equipment.

I kindof like it, it involves a heck of alot less work and saves alot of time and energy in what used to be the annual summer hell months of trying to switch and change over 200 some computers.

Mores law also is affecting buying decisions.

[Billly Gates]

In the late 1980's during the last recession, IT purchasers began to view computers as commidities like today. Some even questioned the increase of productivity of a pc compared to a typewriter. Instead of buying 386 and 486 systems they bought 8086's and 286's with only 1 or 2 megs of ram and cga and even monochrome video cards to save money.

At the same time they scaled down on large machine purchases. This was when SCO was mediocrely hot since a 386 server running Xenix or Openserver was cheaper then a mainframe.

Turns out the systems were not powerfull enough and caused more headaches when software evolved faster then the hardware. OS/2 and WIndows 3.0 came out and brand new things called Unix servers from Sun could provide the performance of a big mainframe for a fraction of the cost. (Back then it was mainframe/VAX or micro ).

Turns out it costs corporate America billions over the next decade to fix the problem.

Analyists today think history is repeating itself and the market will grow again. Ronald Reagan started this massive conservative business climate where tax cuts fueled stock prices and into profits. Same is happening again with an even more conservative president. But I think they are wrong.

The pc revolution is over!

Today a pc based file server running Linux can easily outperform most Sun's for a fraction of the price. A low end pc is just as fast as a high end one for basic office use. SGI is almost dead since a Windows box with a good video card can outperform them.

So unless a new technology on the horizon comes in I say the decline will continue.

What maybe next is bandwith and mobile computing improvements.

The desktop == mainframe. They are no longer where the industry is and the embedded/pda/cell phone is the next IT revolution. They are still evolving and thats where I guess the new market is.

May 1999 RIP. This is a permanent trend unless something pops up that requires new purchases that corporate American or even Joe sixpack can not live without.

Re:Mores law also is affecting buying decisions.

[PierceLabs]

That's one really good thing that came/comes from the AMD Intel price war. They've so marginalized the price of CPUs that PCs have an insane amount of power for a mere pittance of price. Heck I could take a $100 bill and upgrade any of my boxes into the Athlon era (CPU, motherboard, and memory included) - then use that box as a competent server. Its almost scary that for a few thousand bucks you actually COULD build a decent server closet.

Re:Mores law also is affecting buying decisions.

[pi_rules]

The desktop == mainframe. They are no longer where the industry is and the embedded/pda/cell phone is the next IT revolution. They are still evolving and thats where I guess the new market is.

Nah, it's another history-repeats-itself problem. We're going back to the thin-client environment. PC support costs are growing out of control and managing all the problems involved in deploying corporate apps on them are getting higher and higher. We're going to hit another thin-client connects to "mainframe" environment pretty quickly.

Bandwidth across frame relays will become more and more neccessary and client machines will become more disposable. You'll get a base OS with your neccessary applications that are 'stock' on it anything special to that corp will be served up via a web-services type interface on a dumbed down client app or browser. No more pushing upgrades to systems -- you just update the logic at the backend and viola -- new app.

Just like when you'd hook up to the IBM mainframe ala 3270 terminal emulation and enter your work into a COBOL app -- which was before my time. It's rather exciting to me, as I've been thinking thin client apps since I started programming seriously, circa 1998 :).

Re:Mores law also is affecting buying decisions.

[Anonymous Coward]

Today a pc based file server running Linux can easily outperform most Sun's for a fraction of the price

Feel like doing some price comparisons or do you want to continue to talk out of your ass?

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[Nom du Keyboard]

How does racist crap like this get modded insightful?

How does name-calling like that get modded insightful??

Telling the truth is never racist. It is simply the truth. And hiring someone from India for 35K to do the job of an American is one of the reasons citizens here can't find jobs in the tech sector.

This has always been the case

[Vandil X]

There hasn't been a single sys admin (or engineer in the pre-IT era) who didn't get financially clipped at some executive or corporate level.

It's a humbling gesture that keeps sys admins in their place and makes them come up with functional miracles with existing equipment purchases (think of Scotty from Star Trek).

Having been in the IT industry at all levels of the IT ladder, I've had to come up with my own fair share of miracles with existing equipment.

Basically, the rule is: Only buy when it's no longer cost-effective to rig something together with existing purchases.

This keeps bottom lines more realistic and prevents rogue sys admins from making their workstation into Pimp.Rig with company cash that could have been spent better elsewhere.

It's frustrating as hell, especially when no personal gain is intended, but such belt-tightening keeps companies afloat these days.

Re:This has always been the case

[stwrtpj]

It's a humbling gesture that keeps sys admins in their place and makes them come up with functional miracles with existing equipment purchases (think of Scotty from Star Trek).

So you're implying that Scotty accomplished his miracles with the warp engines simply to avoid downsizing by Starfleet.

Re:This has always been the case

[ergo98]

Only buy when it's no longer cost-effective to rig something together with existing purchases... ...but such belt-tightening keeps companies afloat these days

Therein lies the crunch: Very few people actually do the math. I worked in one organization where we had 3 basically desktop systems in the field running antiquated processors: For months they had several programmers working on optimizing the code to allow it to run effectively on this underpowered hardware. The total cost to replace the hardware with machines 3x as powerful was around $6000 (and was necessary for further expansion plans), while refactoring the code came in at at least $24000. These sorts of idiotic refusals to do the cost analysis are common, and it's how many organizations spend far more by spending less.

As a sidenote, am I the only one that finds the Microsoft commercials running right now to be absolutely hilarious? In one of them you see an IT department apparently learning to dance between Windows 2003 makes life so much easier and "saves money". What they apparently fail to see is that the cost savings in manpower savings, and they're lambadaing themselves some pink slips. I'm all for efficiency, but that commercial just amazed me in the paradox of the message.

Re:This has always been the case

[Jardine]

It's a humbling gesture that keeps sys admins in their place and makes them come up with functional miracles with existing equipment purchases (think of Scotty from Star Trek).

Ah, but Scotty always gave an exagerrated time estimate as to how long his repairs would take. The people who approve buying decisions are assuming that the equipment asked for is overkill for the task and that you're just putting it in there so they can reject it but give you something with half the power.

This happened in conversations between Kirk and Scotty all the time.

Scotty: The warp engines are down, it's going to take at least 2 hours to fix them.

Kirk: You have 30 minutes.

Scotty: I'll do my best captain (He'll then get them fixed in just over 30 minutes)

Re:This has always been the case

[ctve]

The number of times I've seen companies spend weeks rewriting software instead of just buying a faster PC amazes me. And the software then becomes more complex to deal with efficiency tweaks, and this can then further impact on the cost of every additional software change.

Personally, I only make software as efficient as it needs to be. I concentrate on making software easy to maintain and test instead.

Re:This has always been the case

[Eminor]

I have been finding the latest Microsoft ad campain funny. "This busy butterfly will keep you protected."..."Our email filters are built from advanced Microsoft Software".

Re:This has always been the case

[Hittite Creosote]

So you're implying that Scotty accomplished his miracles with the warp engines simply to avoid downsizing by Starfleet.

Well of course. That and having to work with a minimal number of assistants. Starfleet were big on downsizing, even if they disguised it rather better than we did.
20th Century - "You've been downsized. Here's a box, fill it with your stuff and leave"
Star Trek - "We're transferring you to security. Here's your red jersey, put it on and beam down to the planet with the captain"

Re:This has always been the case

[Anonymous Coward]

What I think is amazing is the "do more with less slogan", surley newer software like windows server 2003 needs more not less just to do the same.

Re:This has always been the case

[Lumpy]

you dont understand corperate economics.

The programmers are already employed. they cost nothing as their salary is already part of the operating expenses...

The $6000.00 expendature is a direct hit on cash flow and the operating budget. it makes the managers and other look bad to spend that $6000.00 while using existing personell to save $6000.00 makes them look like heros.

the real fact of the money spent is not an issue with management. In fact they will poo-poo you if you bring it up.

Right now they are not thinking ahead by 24 months they are looking at the next 6 months. and it's the wierd corperate accounting and money-thinking that has really always been there, but it's simply being amplified because of today's climate.

Example: Spend $7000.00 to replace that color laser printer that is giving sales a bit of trouble because of paper-jams.... but tell engineering that they cannot buy color ink for their large format printer that they use to print out the engineering drawings for field personell... only use black and white. or better yet, can you print that on a regular laser printer?

What can be done to make them look good to the higher-up's? save money, keeps sales people happier so they bring in more cash? make it look like we saved $6000.00?

Until you are allowed in their bizzaro world of moving money around.... (Like a forced, paid 1 week vacation at the end of the year for all employees to make the books look really good as you have no money going out of payroll column but out of a vacation pay column... same $$$ spent, but it makes the books look really good. and no we dont close up all buildings, we still keep minimal operation to look like we are open to the customers.)

Re:This has always been the case

[BigGerman]

Right you are.
In addition, consider tax reasons: contract labor is basically cos-of-doing business so it can be written off immediately. Hardware purchase must be amortized over several years.
Do not look for common sense in IT or software development: I once worked for firm who forced all the key players to take vacation in December regardless of major deadline looming. Remaining skeleton crew blew the deadline and lost millions in business.

Re:This has always been the case

[pmz]

The programmers are already employed. they cost nothing as their salary is already part of the operating expenses...

I agree with what you said and wonder if modern accounting methods are simply broken with respect to technology. It shouldn't be against management's interests to invest in infrastructure, because it definitely would be a win for the corporate bottom-line. Pissing away tens of thousands of dollars on labor is simply the company shooting itself in the foot (imagine how many widgets or doodads they have to sell to make up for this blatant inefficiency).

One other part of the problem seems to be that it is much easier, bureaucratically speaking, to reassign human resources than go through the paperwork-and-signature nightmare often required for aquiring new hardware. I've seen cases where avoiding the paperwork was a primary motivating factor in technology-related decisions. For example, people already working on a project see getting money for new software as completely implausible, so they use their labor hours to find and use Open Source software that has a business-friendly license. I would bet that Open Source is the unspoken hero of many corporate/government projects.

Re:This has always been the case

[poot_rootbeer]

The total cost to replace the hardware with machines 3x as powerful was around $6000 (and was necessary for further expansion plans), while refactoring the code came in at at least $24000. These sorts of idiotic refusals to do the cost analysis are common...

You just did a cost analysis for them. Did you give a copy of that to the bean-counters at the time? It's possible they were not stubborn, just lazy, and would have fixed the problem once they were made aware of it.

Then again, if you showed them proof that they were wasting money and they STILL failed to do anything about it, well...

Re:This has always been the case

[Anonymous Coward]

The total cost to replace the hardware with machines 3x as powerful was around $6000 (and was necessary for further expansion plans), while refactoring the code came in at at least $24000.

Not to mention they could be up and running on new top of the line hardware inside a week, with fewer bugs too I bet :) 'Optimizing' my ass...

Re:This has always been the case

[Anonymous Coward]

The people who approve buying decisions are assuming that the equipment asked for is overkill for the task and that you're just putting it in there so they can reject it but give you something with half the power.

Yes, but they also know there is a margin of error, and some room for growth.

On a related note, in large companies with budgets, etc, ALWAYS ask for the sky. It's part of CYA. For example:

ME: Hey, Project Manager, I need a redundant/failover configuration. Double my hardware.
PM: Uh, no, skip that part.
ME: OK! Can you put that in an email and CC my boss? (big, shit eating grin on my face)

Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[Anonymous Coward]

The article dovetails nicely with Nicholas Carr's Harvard Business Review article IT Doesn't Matter in which Carr states that:

• IT is now infrastructure technology and a commodity item,
  
• the cost of failing to maintain the IT infrastructure is extremely high (i.e., IT is a basic requirement of doing business; losing your IT infrastructure for even an hour may be very costly),
  
• most companies in any given industry have the same IT, and thus
  
• IT no longer confers any strategic advantage.
  

Carr claims that for the above reasons:

• IT should "be boring",
  
• CIOs should *avoid* adopting the latest technology, since statistics show that early adoption confers no advantages,
  
• CIOs should concentrate on minimizing risks instead.
  

Re:Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[smallpaul]

IT is now infrastructure technology and a commodity item

What does that mean? It makes no sense. To start with, you are already stretching the meaning of commodity if you say "Intel-based PCs are a commodity". You certainly can't buy and sell them on an exchange. It certainly isn't the case that you can buy them without regard to the manufacturer (as you can, say, pork bellies). But you can understand how to stretch the meaning to make it reasonable: a desktop computer from IBM is roughly equivalent to one from Dell. You get ltitle business advantage buying one rather than the other.

But how the hell can you apply that logic to the whole IT field? Let's say a new vendor creates a software product for bioinformatics. It allows the visualization of something that was previously hard to understand. Nobody else has software like this and the algorithms and user interface are patented (boo! hiss!). How the heck can you argue that that software is "commodity?" It is one-of-a-kind (as most category-creating software is). It makes no sense to lump in this innovative, one-of-a-kind program with 3COM Ethernet cards and Logitech mice, call the whole category "IT" and say that it is a "commodity."

I'm annoyed that this poor thinking got so much press around the industry. It's as silly as the IT changes everything hype we heard during the 90s.

Re:Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[xeo_at_thermopylae]

Many IT products (e.g., PCs, databases, web servers, CRM systems, etc.) are now commodity items. Any company can purchase these such products. For this reason such software no longer provides any strategic advantage. In fact not having such software, even momentarily (your web farm goes down) is a risk that must be well managed.

Specialized software for a given industry segment is available to any company in that industry segment because the vendor seeks to maximize his sales. So even specialized software within an industry confers no strategic advantage.

specialized software developed in-house provides little or no strategic advantage because:

• companies that create innovative software pay unduly for it's development. They get an early version with many bugs. An old saying: "You can always tell the pioneers, they're the ones with arrows in their backs." In your example, the cost of developing, patenting and defending innovative software and any interfaces are just the sort of "arrows" that a pioneer might suffer.
  
• companies that wait and adopt innovative software at a later date buy it at reduced cost and with fewer bugs. Costs are lower and adoption is easier.
  

In Why IT Doesn't Matter AnymoreCarr states that

"The smartest users of technology--here again, Dell and Wal-Mart stand out--stay well back from the cutting edge, waiting to make purchases until standards and best practices solidify. They let their impatient competitors shoulder the high costs of experimentation, and then they sweep past them, spending less and getting more."

Although I do not like what Carr says, I believe he is correct, that he has his hand on the pulse of IT, and that his articles will further strengthen what is already a trend in IT. For example see Does an organization have anything to gain from .Net? (published prior to Carr's work) wherein Carmine Mangione analyzes the strategic advantages and risks of moving to Microsoft's .NET platform. This and many other articles about IT's shift to a focus on risk-managment seems to indicate that Carr is correct.

Re:Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[NDPTAL85]

You are being FAR too pedantic. Ever hear of eBay? Its a huge exchange, just not one in the conventional sense. As for services, well when your job can be exported in the blink of an eye then yes its a commodity as well.

ALL of IT is becoming a commodity. Like it or not thats what it is.

Re:Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[smallpaul]

You are being FAR too pedantic. Ever hear of eBay? Its a huge exchange, just not one in the conventional sense. As for services, well when your job can be exported in the blink of an eye then yes its a commodity as well.

Right. So everything is a commodity. That makes discussion of the real economics of the situation much simpler. Thanks for the clarification Nicholas Carr and NDPTAL85.

Re:Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[NDPTAL85]

Almost everything. Things that necessitate being local are not commodities. Other than that, if the means of production, design and advertising can be outsourced.....then its a commodity.

Re:Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[smallpaul]

Basically you are redefining commodity. But okay. Whatever.

Re:Fits what Nicholas G. Carr predicts in HBR

[smallpaul]

By the way, according to this definition, high tech was ALWAYS a commodity. I've never "bought locally". Only the retailer is local. The hardware and software comes from around the world. Here's the definition of commodity I'm familiar with: http://www.investorwords.com/cgi-bin/getword.cgi?9 75

Re:I hear ya brother

[Anonymous Coward]

I feel your pain. We need to nuke India NOW.

Why bother? Pakistan is happy to do it for us.

For what it is worth

[L10N]

Three years ago I routinely purchased computers, parts, expansions, software, and so on. Though I still by software and maintenance supplies this is the longest I have gone without purchasing a new cpu, more, better vid card, or new computer. I have no plans to do so in the near future. I am currently hunkering down and getting the best out of what I got right now. This is speaking as a consumer. I believe other consumers, and perhaps businesses are in a similar mode right now.

Re:For what it is worth

[rjamestaylor]

Yep. We're successfully using ~450 MHz Dell Diminsions on our desktops, most running Win98. Some more important machines are running Windows 2000 Pro. No need to upgrade just to use office automation software.

Right now I'm using a Toshiba 2805 202s laptop that I bought new in Feb 2001. Runs beautifully (except the battery which now lasts only 20 mins on a "full charge"). This is a 650 MHz computer with 320MB RAM (maxed out). I've developed a multi-million dollar application (for my employer) using this computer and haven't really needed to upgrade yet.

I have been buying some Toshiba Magnia SG20's and SG30's. These are Linux appliance/hot spot servers really good for small networks and clustering. Of course, I'm buying them new for about $230 each. Hardly a dent in the budget. Slap an Orinoco Gold or Silver card in the unit and you'll get a solid Wi-Fi AP/Bridge that won't drop ssh sessions like a DLINK or Linksys AP/Broadband router is wont to do.

The last big purchase I made was for eEnterprise 7.0 (GreatPlains Accounting, owned by Microsoft). Bought a Compaq ML350 G2 (Dual Processor) to run the application, SQL Server 2000 and to act as a file server for a 20-person office network.

I keep getting calls from hardware vendors, but I don't need anything. If I do, it won't be a big machine; just an application server (canabalizing older PCs) or a new desktop PC ($300-$500). I'd hate to be in the PC hardware business these days.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[beta21]

Lets not forget the South East Asian countries who stole all the textile production (where are those complaing dress makers BTW)

Or the Japanese for making cheaper cars.

Stop complaining and either become that much more compeetitve/invaluable or learn another field.

jobs

[rabbits77]

This is not necessarily awful, however, for those who hope businesses will start looking toward open source options as the cost effective alternatives..."
Those looking for jobs, however, will continue to deem the situation to be awful.......

Re:jobs

[Anonymous Coward]

Go fuck yourself and die cunt.

New G5 systems might help speed ports

[SuperKendall]

You might well see a number of high-end apps like the ones you are talking about ported with the introduction of the new G5 systems. There already is interest, and if enough customers request they will port, or if the platform can provide a lot of bang for the buck it's also a great reason to port.

I happen to like the slump...

[evilviper]

Despite what everyone else is saying, I happen to like the slump... Computers are now cheaper than they've ever been. Walmart's $200 computer's look like overpriced cheap crap compared to what you can buy elsewhere.

Re:I happen to like the slump...

[Billly Gates]

Agreed but since I now making 12k a year instead of 45k a year, those nice 2k machines that I would of bought in 2000 are actually cheaper for me then a new $699 Emachines now.

Yes price goes down but so does money.

Re:I happen to like the slump...

[Anonymous Coward]

It's not the slump that has brought about $200 dollar computers. The reason for the price drop is due to the integration of computers into society. The more a technology becomes integrated, the cheaper the technology gets.

Re:I happen to like the slump...

[evilviper]

Well, if you had, instead, saved that $2000 (like some of us have), you would be in a very good situation... In fact, thinking that you should spend more when you have more is the opposite of what you should be doing.

Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[TallEmu]

OK, so take the challenge. Which Open Source applications (client and server) can *really* be used in place of other expensive solutions.

Remember, companies like their Outlook for Calendar, contacts and email - hooked up to an expensive Exchange box running on Win2k.

Then we need a web server, say, Apache, but unfortunately the existing content may be written in ASP or Cold Fusion.

Of course, this is probably all connected up to SQL Server or MSDE.

What about backup utilities (remember boys and girls, there's still Windows on the desktop) and we need Antivirus too.

Now, suppose that I am the manager of a company and I want to do all that, to SAVE me money, but I want everything I had before. Unreasonable? Nope, I am a typical customer.

Question is, can it be done??

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[Anonymous Coward]

Of course, your comparison isn't based on a level standard. Suppose an OSS shop was trying to switch to Microsoft products.

The users like their pine for e-mail, so they have to have an identical client for Exchange.

Now we need a web server, say, IIS, but unfortunately the existing content is written in C and full of platform-specific code.

Of course, this is probably all connected to MySQL or Postgres - the Windows versions are hardly production quality.

What about backup utilities (there's still Unix on the desktop, here) and antivirus?

See? You want not only the same functionality that MS provides, you want it to be drop-in compatible with your existing MS stuff. MS doesn't provide that same functionality in reverse, and never will. You can't say "OSS is worse than MS, because it doesn't provide something MS doesn't either."

You don't want to switch to OSS, you want to keep your existing software and not pay for it. Sorry, but people aren't going to bust their ass solely for your benefit. Either pay for someone to do the transition (it's a simple management decision - do OSS's long-term savings outweigh the short-term costs?) or wait for someone to have the same needs as you and pay for the fix themselves. There's free software, but there's no free lunch.

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[Anonymous Coward]

No one cares about viruses, MS users just deal with it. A proper setup can elimanate almost all of them anyway. As for the website...it is a website for pete's sake. Architectures change quickly on web sites, unless you never update them. So stick with MS, I would in a second if I was in your hypothetical situation. Linux offers very little incentive to move to it when you have a working network.

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[Some Dumbass...]

Now, suppose that I am the manager of a company and I want to do all that, to SAVE me money, but I want everything I had before. Unreasonable? Nope, I am a typical customer.

Question is, can it be done??

I don't know enough about enterprise-level applications to properly answer your challenge, but I would like to make one point. There are two possible ways to interpret your challenge: as a Forced upgrade or as a Non-Forced upgrade.

Consider a Non-Forced upgrade. Unless you're willing to accept significant downtime, any kind of software switch will involve a hardware switch as well. As the article suggests, few companies are willing to spend that kind of money anymore. "Minimize risk", "If it ain't broke, don't fix it", and so on. Add the cost of new hardware to the cost of the time spent switching, and I bet it would be near-impossible to save money. That's a very hard challenge. Note that it's just as hard for closed-source products as for open ones, though!

On the other hand, what if you were Forced to change hardware? What if you actually need to upgrade, due to capacity issues, support issues (you're using NT4...), dead or truly obsolete hardware, or the like. Let's add up the cost of W2K Server, Exchange, IIS, AntiVirus, etc. and compare _that_ to the Open Source solution. This is a much easier challenge. If the software exists, I bet that this one can be achieved.

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[TallEmu]

I think you're right. I have a customer running NT4 and Exchange 5.x. We've just produced some software for them that uses the Firebird database, and when we looked at the server to install the database engine on we saw that it was old, poorly maintained, running out of disk space and plugged into the internet (running an MS firewalling product of some kind).

Now, in this case we can put in a nice Linux firewall (or appliance) for a very low cost. Since we are using Firebird, we have the *option* of using Linux as the OS as FB is cross platform. But, I would still need to replace their Exchange Server, Anitivirus software and several off the shelf business apps( which are the biggest challenge of all)

The thought of replacing Windows desktops with Linux is a fantasy. But,we can continue the creep with servers.

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[Some Dumbass...]

Now, in this case we can put in a nice Linux firewall (or appliance) for a very low cost. Since we are using Firebird, we have the *option* of using Linux as the OS as FB is cross platform. But, I would still need to replace their Exchange Server, Anitivirus software and several off the shelf business apps( which are the biggest challenge of all)

The thought of replacing Windows desktops with Linux is a fantasy. But,we can continue the creep with servers.

Replacing servers is generally easier since fewer machines need to be replaced, because fewer applications need to be replaced, and because fewer people use them directly (e.g. less retraining needed), and because the interactions which users have with servers tend to be simpler. Also, Linux really does have clear advantages on the server (e.g. lesser hardware requirements, wider variety of software, better security), whereas on the desktop there aren't so many clear advantages (stability used to be one, but newer commercial OSes are pretty good about that).

Migrating people to desktop Linux is a major pain, sure. I have worked on a job where Linux was the standard desktop, though a couple of Windows machines were available, and many people ended up trying their hardest to use the Windows machines whenever possible. Anything new is a hard sell, since people are used to having things a specific way (likewise, the lone Mac fan on that particular job insisted on using the office's lone Mac, which worked out well :).

What it boils down to is this: you must get software which meets your needs. Costs are an important but secondary consideration. Retraining falls under costs. For example, if you absolutely need all of the functionality of MS Office, then suggesting OpenOffice (or anything else, commercial or otherwise) is a mistake. If, on the other hand, you only need functionality comparable to OpenOffice, then paying hundreds of dollars a seat (theoretically :) for MS Office is a mistake, especially since the retraining is pretty minimal for a word-processor. Follow that line of reasoning and mix and match OSS and Commercial software as appropriate to your needs. Instead of thinking in terms of replacing every commercial program with OSS, think in terms of looking for alternatives to the obvious commercial solution which may be advantageous for other reasons (e.g. cheaper, more secure, been around longer). That's my advice.

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[NDPTAL85]

I think its really rude to force your office to use Linux desktops when they so obviously don't want to use them. Using computers isn't easy for most people. You seriously screw with their productivity when you force them to use KDE or OpenOffice or whatever. What if they have a home computer thats running Windows and MS Office? All of a sudden they come into work and now sharing files is no longer a non-event.

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[Some Dumbass...]

I think its really rude to force your office to use Linux desktops when they so obviously don't want to use them. Using computers isn't easy for most people. You seriously screw with their productivity when you force them to use KDE or OpenOffice or whatever. What if they have a home computer thats running Windows and MS Office? All of a sudden they come into work and now sharing files is no longer a non-event.

What makes you think I forced anyone to change? I just worked there.

Besides, computer skills were part of the job description -- the "office" in question was a research lab. Most of our data analysis software ran on Linux! Using the same Linux systems for other things (e-mail, word processing) just made sense.

See, sometimes when you start a new job, you have to learn new skills. If you can't manage to learn those skills in a reasonable time, you should quit (or be fired!), or come up with a good alternative solution. Anyone who wasn't capable of working with the equipment in the lab, including the computers, shouldn't have been working there. Unfortunately, some people never did get used to the Linux systems. Their problem, not mine.

As for you NDPTAL85, next time you complain, get the whole story first! You had no clue what kind of office I was talking about or what kind of position I held in that office, yet you made up a scenario and complained about my behavior in that made-up scenario. That's just dumb. So don't do it again.

Re:Howto: Replace Commercial with Open source

[NDPTAL85]

I wasn't talking about "you" specifically but in the objective sense and don't you dare tell me not to do anything again! Even if its dumb! I'll do whatever I damn well please!

Rumors

[Billly Gates]

Catia and pro-engineer may be doing a MacOSX port to panter next year.

This info was from an Apple employee who posted here so take it with a grain of salt.

The problem for the companies that make the products is ..
a.)No X support.
Apple talked to the Unix vendors and already has a beta version of X tuned just for the mac. It will be included by default to panther.

b.)64-bit support.
Most mathmatical packages have hard coded long long int in c/c++ for to handle large numbers and to obtain better decimal place precision. Most Linux/Windows ports are for AMD64 or Itanium. I think their is a 32-bit version of pro-engineer so I am not to sure. Panther and the new G5's solve this.

c.) Performance
The G4 sucks and no respectable engineering department would buy them when risc or lintel based solution would be faster and cheaper. Again the G5 solves this problem.

D.)Market support
The money is in Linux and Windows NOT APPLE. With IT not upgrading, what is the chance they will buy macs? What about training? Engineers mostly know Windows and some Unix. How do you know that customers might have a Windows only policy or a Unix/Windows policy when purchasing equipment. Apple may need to fund the porting so who knows. This may be the only problem that Apple may have to pay out of its own pocket. MS had to do this when NT was new.

Re:Rumors

[Surak]

Catia and pro-engineer may be doing a MacOSX port to panter next year.

This info was from an Apple employee who posted here so take it with a grain of salt.

The problem for the companies that make the products is ..
a.)No X support.
Apple talked to the Unix vendors and already has a beta version of X tuned just for the mac. It will be included by default to panther.

b.)64-bit support.
Most mathmatical packages have hard coded long long int in c/c++ for to handle large numbers and to obtain better decimal place precision. Most Linux/Windows ports are for AMD64 or Itanium. I think their is a 32-bit version of pro-engineer so I am not to sure. Panther and the new G5's solve this.


But CATIA already runs on the PowerPC platform. If you look at this page, you'll see that it runs on AIX on what I believe are the chips that Macs run on (PowerPC 604, Power2, Power3 and Power4) aren't they? We have an RS/6000 with a 64-bit Power4 processor running CATIA on AIX now.

I imagine if Dassaulte and/or IBM *wanted* to port to OS X it wouldn't be hard. Unless I'm missing something with the PowerPC platform?

Re:Rumors

[Billly Gates]

The powerx series has additional instructions that are not in the general powerpc series. I have no idea if IBM included them in the G5. My guess is no to save space and manufactoring costs.

Also X was the limiting factor. All the cad programs use it. Unless a stable version of X is around, it will not be ported.

Re:Rumors

[Surak]

Oh yeah, X is the big thing for sure... the thing I find interesting about the processor thing is that if you boot an RS/6000 AIX box and look at the bottom of the initial splash screen, you'll see an Apple copyright notice. This leads me to believe that in some ways, an RS/6000 is not unlike a Macintosh. And don't forget that I mentioned that the it will run on a PowerPC 604e, which *is* a processor used in Macs, and newer Macs (G3s, G4s and G5s) are/will be backward-compatible.

I guess my main point is that if you have a stable X11, and you have OpenGL (this is important as well), compling for Mac OS X in theory shouldn't be difficult at all. Yet, despite the announcment of Panther having X support, we have yet to see a single CAD/CAM/CAE vendor step up and say "Yeah! Finally! We can do an OS X port so we will!"

Which makes me wonder -- how much are Dassaulte Systemes, EDS, and PTC in Microsoft's and/or Intel's back pocket?

Re:Rumors

[Anonymous Coward]

G4 is RISC doofus. know your stuff BEFORE posting please.

Economics 101: scarcity of resources

[waspleg]

no one can have something without taking it away from someone else first

need proof? ask your gov't they're the best working example

they hold a gun to your head for welfare for medicaid for tax breaks for the already stinking rich etc etc

there is no free lunch
even linux isn't free, the people who write it are giving up the time and effort they put into the code which they could have put into something else (this is called the opportunity cost)

did you even read the quote which you posted? here let me highlight something for you

"...that dream of a land in which life should be better and richer and fuller for everyone...not a dream of motor cars and high wages merely, but a dream of social order in which each man and each woman shall be able to attain to the fullest stature of which they are innately capable..."

now you say that people should be able to attain their fullest stature "but not at the expense of others"

how do you think America go to be where it is today? where do you suppose all of the things that allow for our quality of life comes from? that's right they come from other countries, so while you enjoy hte availability (not that you necessarily have the means to buy them) of everything from cheap clothes to cheap food to cheap toys remember that almost all of that comes from countries where the people who make them are living well below your standard...

everything costs something at the expense of others, it's a fact of our existence, if i eat an apple you can't eat it too (unless you're into some weird scat practices i won't go into)

and that line about attaining the fullest stature of which they're innately capable? nice and communist (from each each according to ability to each according to need, sound familiar?)

Re:Economics 101: scarcity of resources

[beakburke]

Your explaination of opportunity cost is ok, but your assumption that it is not possible for someone to gain without diminishing the well being of someone else is not corect. You assume no increases in productivity (no economic growth, new technology etc), which is what primarily drives higher wages, not the "exploitation" of the poor. The simple fact is that poor countries, for a multitute of different reasons, have, on average, less productive workers (usually because they have lower "capital", in the broad sense of the word). Not 50 years ago, Japan was considered "3rd world". Now look at it, and S Korea is in the middle of the same sort of transition. Would you not say that humanity, on the whole, is much better off than it was 200 years ago?

Re:Economics 101: scarcity of resources

[Call Me Black Cloud]

did you even read the quote which you posted?

Yes. The "dream of a social order" is not that of a world social order but an American social order. Hey, I'm a nationalist. If someone outside the US wants to "attain their fullest stature" more power to them, but if that opportunity costs someone in the US, e.g. through the loss of a job, then I'm not for it. Mind you, this is a gross oversimplification of the whole situation and is not some hard and fast rule.

I appreciate the time you put into your thoughtful response. This is a subject we could spend hours discussing in person and still end up where we were at the beginning. I will say that yes, I know where the inexpensive stuff comes from (and I do try to buy US made stuff where I can) and the American Dream quote says nothing about who gets what ("to each according to need"), but nice parting troll shot anyway.

Re:Economics 101: scarcity of resources

[waspleg]

the quote gives the implication that to get the motor cars and whatnot one must 'attain their fullest stature'... maybe when we read between the lines we see something different, it wasn't a troll shot.

i'm an unemployed college drop out in indianapolis, if you have tits, intelligence, w33d or any of the three my email address is real and steak and shake is always open

yea i'm that bored

Bingo!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Somebody give that AC a cigar. The computer industry has finally finished its buyout phase, and is now in a replacement (i.e. mature) phase. Businesses have figured out some time ago that their ancient, sub-1GHz systems are just dandy for nearly all office work, so there's no need to spend scarce money and personnel to do massive upgrades.

As for the contention that this helps OSS, I'm very skeptical. Businesses have been slow to adopt OSS out of fear. They know about the cost savings, but they don't want to gamble their entire infrastructure on an unknown. A lack of a reason to buy new hardware won't change that basic fact.

Re:Bingo!!!

[10am-bedtime]

hate to state the obvious, but using closed software on your servers is indeed gambling everything on the unknown. that the risk was always mitigated by laws permitting liability suits is no comfort when the laws are (this very moment) being changed to unbalance the relationship in favor of the closed software vendors.

you think there is a usloth tax now? just wait until your very tcp stack pinches pennies from your account (in compliance w/ ecommerce regulations), just to gain net.access.

one last note: in a service economy, such as the one found in the U.S., closed software is directly analogous to the broken-window effect. an economy restricted to this only enriches the ruling class (which suits those people fine).

Re:Bingo!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I wish they had mod points for "incoherent babbling". Exactly what are your trying to say?

Re:Bingo!!!

[mysticgoat]

The computer industry has finally finished its buyout phase, and is now in a replacement (i.e. mature) phase.

That's the best summary of what's going on that I've seen on this thread.

As for the contention that this helps OSS, I'm very skeptical. Businesses have been slow to adopt OSS out of fear. They know about the cost savings, but they don't want to gamble their entire infrastructure on an unknown. A lack of a reason to buy new hardware won't change that basic fact.

I don't think you are right on this, though. Businesses are likely to to begin adopting OS initiatives like Linux and OOo when they see that these allow them to get more functionality out of their old equipment. For example, migrating select executive secretaries to OOo would enable those persons to accept and generate documents in MSOffice2000 formats while continuing to use the existing hardware and with little additional training.

In hard times such as these, that kind of approach is seen as an economy measure. And that shift in viewpoint changes the whole risk management picture. It becomes a matter of planning for gradual changes, rather like a gradual migration of copying machine service contracts from one vendor to another whose got a better deal. You introduce a few copies of OOo v1.1 (expect its release in August) in Purchasing, and you track the maintenance and support costs, and you develop a body of data that will allow you to compare TOC of this approach to the costs of a Windows upgrade of all your 486 NT machines that are running MSOffice97.

Oh, here's OpenOffice.org (Yeah, they've named themselves after their web address).

Clueless...

[SmurfButcher Bob]

Slump? Or finally figuring out that we do not, and never have needed to "upgrade" every 5 weeks...

Re:Clueless...

[fatboyslack]

Personally, I think its because todays computers are fast enough for most office applications required, however up until even a few years ago in the sub-500MHz speed range computers would struggle with many day to day tasks (especially as the majority of computer used MS... and still do) My old PII-266 would struggle running more than one decent app at a time and squeal at four. Now I can listen to music, surf the net, have a document/email I'm playing with etc. with no drop in performance. I'll try to make myself clearer.
So my theory is that the majority of computer uses are only just beginning to get computers that are fast enought that upgrading would give no discernable difference... therefore no need for upgrade therefore slump. (therefore bargain computer for gamers!). Also, while gamers never have fast enough machines, and do drive development, they are in reality only a small section of the market.
Oh, the name SmurfButcher = Funny +3 in my book.

How Odd

[WindBourne]

I work for a company that uses linux its core and will be contributing back. We are making money and I am paying bills.

Re:How Odd

[Anonymous Coward]

Bwahahahahahahahahaha...the myth of open source. Any competitive business that contributed back the center of their business is either managed by totally naive and incompetent fools, or liars: Most companies that spout about "contributing back" do no such thing: IBM has a multi billion dollar Linux budget -> For marketing. They're laughing their asses off selling high margin hardware with sweatshop software provided for free by a bunch of misguided fools. More power to em.

Re:How Odd

[Anonymous Coward]

You should see Red Hat "enterprise" Linux's profit margins. ;-) Selling free software for thousands of dollars. Priceless!!! Open source developers are complete idiots to not see this shit happening.

Re:Good news for Linux

[ClosedSource]

"I know it's secure because I can see the code"

If what you mean is that you've studied every line of code in Linux carefully to determine that exploits are not possible and assuming you're qualified to make such a judgement, then you can legitimately say it's secure based on your knowledge.

If what you mean is that you could theoretically determine it was secure because the source code is open, then you're just blowing smoke.

Job doing what?

[Erris]

This is not necessarily awful, however, for those who hope businesses will start looking toward open source options as the cost effective alternatives..."

Those looking for jobs, however, will continue to deem the situation to be awful.......

Sure, if you want to keep on keeping on with the derailed wintel upgrade train, pound sand.

Those providing real upgrades might do better. The typical small office has been needing Unix like services for years. Microsoft's ever more abusive licensing and pricing are putting them out of the market, just when cheaper and better services are available and easy to deploy.

Re:Job doing what?

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I have seen your link one too many times in this thread. How about those "providing real services" do so on a real web site? Seriously, it looks like a hobbiest page. I am not saying you should strive to look like apple.com, but at least put some effort into it.

Stagnant until Carmack pushes the envelope again

[pariahdecss]

Not really large scale IT purchasing related but on a personal note my low end P4 system is simply not stressed by any of the current games or applications that I use. Mr Carmack will probably single handedly determine when my next upgrade will occur in lieu of the release of Doom 3. I think a lot of PC makers and graphics card manufacturers have their fingers crossed that Carmack and Valve will drive PC and hardware sales for the 4th quarter of 2003.

More of the Y2k effect

[ondasmom]

Much of the technology spending that happened in "the spending blow-out of the 1990s" was investment in infrastructure that IT people justified as preventing total collapse from Y2k. That stuff is just starting to wear out now, and it will be replaced gradually, rather than in another spending spree.

Electronics are going commodity

[indros13]

How often do people think "cool" when they buy a toaster or a washer/dryer? Electronics are becoming commodities as they become efficient and cost-effective a few basic tasks that people find entertaining and useful.

As it is so often mentioned on Slashdot, the average American just wants to word process, check email, and surf the web on their computer. Their cellphone can customize rings, play some games, and give them free long distance--fine.

If I can get the former for $700 with a monitor and printer and the latter for $40 a month, I'm pretty satisfied.

These aren't the killer apps you're looking for...move along.

Show them Largo.

[Erris]

Its not that they don't want to pay for software, its that they have to show and justify results quickly. MS has more slick ads/sales people to push their products to managers than open source.

Quick results from the hardware you already own.

I'll do it for you.

Re:Show them Largo.

[GoofyBoy]

Compaire your site with MSs.

Thats exactly why MS will win with managers. And it doesn't matter if you think managers are right or wrong, all that matters is that they will feel safer with MS.

Re:Good news for Linux

[Anonymous Coward]

Nice try, troll.

I read every line of code before I compile it, making many Seth Finklestein exclusive adjustments (subscribe today and save $100 on your first purchase of $10,000 or more!) to it to improve efficiency and assure quality.

Of course, you wouldn't know what "efficiency" and "quality" are, since you use closed-source proprietary crap.

Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[LibertineR]

This is not a fucking troll, so just read it, losers. And everyone who wants to share their recipe for some mashed-together-shit-for-solution, just save it. There is NOTHING out there, that is going to duplicate the combined functionality of Exchange and Outlook within the next 3 or 4 years. I hear nothing but talk, talk, talk about everything in "development", but nothing is coming anytime soon enough to matter.

Will Apache serve up my OWA of Exchange? Fuck no. Will it distribute MS Project files? Dont even try it. No watch as all the geniuses come to defend all the shit that is "coming" and has been so for years now.

OSS has one thing and one thing ONLY going for it; COST. Functionality on a par with Microsoft is NOT going to happen in this decade. You can talk about security all you want, but Windows shops have accepted the negatives in favor of the positives.

People hear can call Windows users stupid until they are blue in the face. That does not replace putting up or shutting up.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[Billly Gates]

Sounds kind of trollish but you have to look at area's. Of course MS has better integration products. That is their core market which fuels their monopoly.

But last time I checked Linux and FreeBSD were better server os's, Apache blows IIS out of the water, KDE/Gnome are ahead of Windows. Perl/TK/TLC/Python/language of the week beat vbscript out of the water as well.

Your right that Windows has its uses. Ease of use is another benefit of Windows.

Right now OSS leads Microsoft in development and webserving, while MS beats it on the desktop.

Maybe within the next couple of years replacements of MS products will come. Evolution looks pretty cool but it is developed by a corporation so who knows. It seems to heading into an Outlook/MS project replacement. I am thinking of writing an access clone myself that uses an external database as a backend. MS Access is great for building apps. Yes the database is mediocre but I can create cool apps with it. Its an amazing tool.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[TallEmu]

I guess my point is that even if I deploy a "superior" web server, such as Apache, this is ultimately pointless as the client will most likely have invested time and money into Cold Fusion or ASP development. They don't want to throw away their $10,000 web site because Mike tells 'em Apache serves content better.

Similarly, if I have invested in some commercial off the shelf products that use, for example, SQL Server, I cannot throw those away just because Firebird is a free database.

(incidentally, if you want to write your Access clone, consider firebird as the database - open source and cross platform. Develop your product in Delphi/Kylix too and you've have cross platform access.

Have a conversion wizard from the Windows version (to convert access to your product) and you are just *beginning* to have something that could *start* to replace MS on the desktop.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[Billly Gates]

Your the second poster today who mentioned Firebird. I do not know much about it so I will check it out.

Anyway I hate zealots from both camps and prefer moderation myself. Your right with investment. I was refering about new purchasing and not upgrading existing ones.

I guess I should of got that since this whole story is about upgrades and not new purchases.

Where I use to work it was all Linux and some W2k. We used perl for scripting so Linux was chosen because the developers were familiar with it. IIS supports cgi and perl as well but if you have the choice Linux would be better.

If a SQL-Server was thrown in the mix I bet managment would of picked IIS.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[LibertineR]

How does Apache blow IIS out of the water? Features? No. Page serving speed? No. Security, maybe, but not near like before. Have you seen IIS 6.0? Very VERY fast. ASP.NET is fucking awesome, if you have not tried it. Especially ADO.NET. Nothing is as fast or flexible. I admit that standard ASP is beyond sucky. I would not trust Access for anything, but good luck.

Understand; I'm looking at this from the perpective of CIO's. They like features and integration, and can live with marginal security. Anyone who does not believe that would have to explain MS current marketshare in the Server space.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[wplittle]

Your post makes gross generalizations, and your poor use of the language makes it difficult to take you seriously. While some advocate "some mashed-together-shit-for-solution", I hold that most companies aren't interested in such a solution. Good thing that, despite your claims of there being "NOTHING" on the market that can compete with Exchange/Outlook, there are commercial solutions available that can utilize the strengths of the Linux platform. These solutions are Oracle Collaboration Suite, and to a lesser extent, Lotus Domino. Both of these run quite happily on Linux (as well as virtually every other platform). And these solutions aren't "coming" - they are already here. Now, on to your claims that "OSS has one thing and one thing ONLY going for it; COST". I've worked in Windows shops before, and now I work in a Linux shop. Some of our employees come from companies that used Microsoft solutions. And virtually all of them have commented on how much smoother the network seems to run. One was telling me that server outages were a weekly, if not daily, occurrence at the Windows shop. When our network has failed, it was for reasons unrelated to the Linux implementation (i.e. hardware failure, dead ISP connection, etc.) My point is that employees, in my experience, tend to take the positives for granted, but they remember the negatives. So I don't know who in the "Windows shops have accepted the negatives in favor of the postives". Switch from Exchange to Oracle over a weekend, and many of the employees won't even notice the difference. Until they realize that the network is more reliable. The debate shouldn't be free vs. not free. If you can use a free solution, by all means you should You will save your company money. But if you need to buy non-free software to get the features you need, that's OK too. IMO the best networks are the ones that use both free and non-free software together in harmony. Bet you didn't learn that in your MCSE course.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[LibertineR]

"Switch from Exchange to Oracle over a weekend, and many of the employees won't even notice the difference."

I wish you had put that bullshit at the beginning of your posting, so I would not have had to muddle through the rest of it. If you believe that, then you know NOTHING about Exchange, and have no business responding to me. Go away.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[wplittle]

Oh yeah, I guess I don't know anything about Exchange. I should have known that migration from a Microsoft product to something better couldn't go off without a hitch.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[Anonymous Coward]

Seriously, please just shut your holes. I beg of you. "This is not a fucking troll", my red ass.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[Anonymous Coward]

ASP/ADO is horrible. I will never code in ASP again after being forced to use it for like 6 months. It reminded me of those idiotic qbasic programs I used to write when I didnt know how to code. It was so recognizably horrible that the company migrated from MS to J2EE soon thereafter.
Plus the API is buggy. PHP is buggy as well, but at least it has decent syntax that lets me reuse code from my C/Java projects, and the sheer amount of libraries is immense. Plus I never saw any benchmark indicating that ASP was faster than Zend-optimized PHP, quite the opposite actually.
As for Outlook, I use Express to check my mail, but not even every day. Can't understand why people need all the silly calendar features and that sort of crap... I never have trouble remembering my appointments. Heck I dont even know what an OWA is.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[SuiteSisterMary]

Oh yeah, I guess I don't know anything about Exchange. I should have known that migration from a Microsoft product to something better couldn't go off without a hitch.

Maybe it would, but not in this case, where you advocate upgrading a MAIL SERVER product to a DATABASE product.

Mayhaps you meant upgrading SQL Server to Oracle?

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[Beliskner]

I am thinking of writing an access clone myself that uses an external database as a backend

Try this

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[Honig the Apothecary]

Um you might want to look at this: Oracle Collaboration Suite It is like a database...for your e-mail and other associated stuff.

Re:Can it be done? No, so dont waste your breath.

[SuiteSisterMary]

Interesting. I didn't know that Oracle offered this product.

I don't feel like downloading a PDF on my (sadly dial-up) home connection, but I'll be taking a look to find the underlying technology.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[Call Me Black Cloud]

"stole"? No one said or implied "stole" or even tried to put the blame anywhere but on the shoulders of the companies in the US who sent the jobs overseas. The parent poster wrote, "And hiring someone from India for 35K to do the job of an American...". See, he wrote "hiring". That means those doing the hiring, i.e. American tech companies (by implication), are to blame.

He was not complaining. Please try to read what was written without your preconceptions.

the average office is not well served.

[Erris]

You are right, there's nothing wrong with the hardware.

The average small office, however, has an awful mix of M$ OS. A typical set up will have an assortment of win98 and XP desktops and a "server" of some sort from M$. The desktops are clogged with legacy shit, sometimes carted in from home, spyware and all need to be "rebuilt". Microsoft's tools are so inadequate for sharing work that versioning problems plauge all work. The server might be used as an inferior mail server that ends up blacklisted because it's been broken into. The situation is not much better in larger organizations despite heroic efforts of teams of IT dudes, equally hampered by inferior tools like SMS.

You can compare the frenetic activity of a M$ shop to the calm and order in Largo Florida and know that free software is superior on all platforms.

Oh yeah, I've been thinking about this. The more I use and read about free software, the more I'm convinced it has or will produce the best tool for every job.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[1lus10n]

and after all of the fields are sent offshore ?

and exactly why is it management never gets offshored ?

I see a problem

[khallow]

Saw a few machines today. Pretty old: Pentium 133, 32 Mb RAM, 1 Gb HD, CD ROM, network card (10Mbs), cheap video and sound for $35. Ain't a diefic gaming machine of destruction, but it does a lot for the money. I suspect anywhere that large numbers of machines are recycled, you'll see these kinds of deals.

Re:I see a problem

[Anonymous Coward]

I bought a Pentium 166, 48MB RAM, 2.5GB HD, floppy, network card, cheap video and sound, keyboard and power cable for $9 :)

Best buy of my life. Nice Linux box for damn near free.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[Anonymous Coward]

huh??? if he wasn't complaining what was the point of the post??? just some completely random observation? he most definitely WAS complaining

Bucking the trend

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm posting anonymously because I relate some obscure details of my company's network.... Our company is in the student loan financing business, and as the economy gets worse and more people return to school, we find a larger market to do business in. We're experiencing growth at a time when most companies aren't doing major upgrades and changing their network.

This year alone, we're upgrading desktops for a department, rolling out another 150 new ones for a new department ongoing through December, upgrading our achingly old/slow NT 4.0 domain to a (hopefully) easier to maintain win2k3 domain, and replacing our aging nightmare AS/400 with a spiffy new linux application server delivering said app through a web-client written in java.

This year, we hired another guy--an engineer, not a lackey--and we may hire a technician in September if our new team grows as rapidly as we anticipate. Plus, we're building a new data center and populating it with 75% new equipment. The company is quite profitable, and we've never been in better shape.

Sure, there are companies cutting back, but some industries (like mine) are growing. Anybody else experiencing any kind of growth or major $ projects this year?

Re:Bucking the trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Can you tell us what your company name is or your competitor's names? I'm looking to invest in some shares of your company.

Re:Bucking the trend

[Anonymous Coward]

Our company is in the student loan financing business

In a bad economy, college enrollments become more competitive, as people choose to go there rather than straight to work. Five years ago techie people went to work at a dot.com. Now they go to college. :)

Sure, there are companies cutting back, but some industries (like mine) are growing.

I believe it. I suspect that your business is the type which goes up when the economy goes down. Just like the mortuary business (as the old saying goes).

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[Centinel]

and after all of the fields are sent offshore ?

...you'll probably have to move to China, India or Eastern Europe to get a job.

Re:Good news for Linux

[ClosedSource]

"I read every line of code before I compile it"

That's nice but it's going to take a lot more effort than that to insure it's secure.

"Of course, you wouldn't know what "efficiency" and "quality" are, since you use closed-source proprietary crap."

Well, unless you designed your own microprocessor, wrote your own BIOS etc, you also use closed source stuff so I guess we are both in the same boat.

It's all Linux's fault!

[anthonyrcalgary]

Now that we don't need a new computer every few years, it's killed the upgrade cycle. Oh yeah, it starts out innocently enough. We want the source code and all that.

But then it actually starts making things cheaper and more cost effective, and all of a sudden people stop buying new things. I haven't bought a new computer since 2000!

We NEED software that's slower with every generation!

Re:It's all Linux's fault!

[anthonyrcalgary]

I was shooting for "funny", not "insightful".

It is not racist

[screenrc]

The main point of the post was about business alternatives, not about Indians. Furthermore, every poster is allowed to talk against Indians (when on topic) if he chooses, as long it is on specific topics and provides supporting evidence. Why not?

Don't call people racist just because they directly express an opinion, what counts is the quality of the opinion and the quality of evidence. For example, if I say that it has been my experience that Indian students at US universities tend to rank at the bottom of the class, does it make me a racist? No. I could have easily said that Frensh students tend to be at the bottom of the class (if I had different observations).

No, really?-Moon landing a fake.

[Anonymous Coward]

"And to top it all off we had the Y2K craze, where the Y2K bug was basically an excuse to totally upgrade everyone's infrastructure. You had people cashing in on that one big time, you could even buy Y2K steak knives."

So your contention is that Y2K was a fake, instead of a catastrophe narrowly avoided through lots of behind-the limelight hardwork.

Well I guess that proves the old adage: "Out of sight, out of mind".

Then why is software pay dropping too?

[blair1q]

Something is wrong, here.

Insert witty comment here

[Kris_J]

I order new computers when we have new positions or old ones fail. I upgrade computers when I have an option to make a signifcant performance (or function) increase without hitting one or more other bottlenecks too hard (RAM mostly, CPU possibly, video card theoretically). If the economy slows and no new positions are created, then PC spending slows approriately. If the economy picks up and new positions are created, new PCs are purchased. Why is this enough of a surprise to justify an article?

"old" PCs are also awfully handy now

[Craig Ringer]

You can pick up P100s with 32MB of RAM and a decent PCI NIC very cheap now. These make very good LTSP thin clients - trust me. I'm presently deploying a set of such machines, and the results are good so far.

The point: you don't have to have /new/ hardware to make intelligent new deployments. We're buying machines, but the vendors will never count it because they're second hand. Now, if I could get reasonable systems (say, a slow diskless VIA C3 with 64mb of RAM in a little box with PXE capability) for reasonable prices (no DVD decoder, thanks - I want AU$300 each), new would be an option.

Unfortunately, new computers seem to be in two categories - stupidly fast, cheap and crap, and insanely ridiculously fast, expensive, and somewhat less crap. I'm looking for slow, basic, quiet, VERY CHEAP, and not crap - and it's proving hard to come by.

Hence, we resort to old hardware like OEM P100s that fit our needs better than anything being made now.

Re:"old" PCs are also awfully handy now

[shepd]

>say, a slow diskless VIA C3 with 64mb of RAM in a little box with PXE capability

This is very possible, and for less than the $300 AU suggested.

ECS (uggh... it's PC-Chips, but they're the only people in this game right now, from what I can tell) makes/made a board with a built on C3 processor, and built in everything (sound, video, lan /w boot rom, etc) for under $100 AU at its lowest price. Add in the rest, and you should be able to get these systems built for about $150 AU. They worked wonderfully with Linux.

Currently they make the same thing, but with a duron processor integrated (the K7SEM-B). Same price.

You might want to build one and give it a whirl, see how it works for you (But be prepared to buy some spares! It's PC-Chips parts!)

Re:"old" PCs are also awfully handy now

[Craig Ringer]

> Be prepared to have some spares

Ha! That's the great thing about LTSP (and thin clients in general) - "oh, it's not working?" [drop workstation on floor, stamp, throw into bin] "Don't worry, I'll have a replacement installed in 2 minutes and you can work on this machine here (with all your files etc) in the mean time."

I'll give my friendly local PC dealer a yell and see what they can do. I'm interested in small (micro-ATX or smaller) and cheap (small cases seem to be pricey as hell).

The VIA EPIA boards might be OK if you could get cheap case/PSU combos for them. Fanless or near so, nice and quiet...

Thanks for the tip.

Craig Ringer

AutoCAD/Microstation

[aaarrrgggh]

It's funny... I could easily move our company over to Linux or OS X if a viable alternative to AutoCAD was available on those platforms.

I haven't been able to find anything about Bently porting MicroStation to either platform... is there something?

About six years ago, Autodesk partnered up with MS... and I think Bently had to do the same more recently. For us to be able to look at an alternative on a corporate basis, we need an option.

I am starting to have more faith in the fact that non-engineering people could be shifted over easily enough... looking at our help system queues, it looks like justification could be made to switch...

Re:AutoCAD/Microstation

[Anonymous Coward]

AutoDesk was asking how well received a MacOS X port of AutoCAD would be, but that was a couple of months ago.

I don't see it on their website now, but I didn't search very thoroughly.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[1lus10n]

so lemme see here .....

behind door # 1> we have a gov't so corrupt and nasty that it makes the us gov't look like sweden.

behind door # 2> coutries that are by an large always at war, and still aren't caught up to the rest of the world as far as technology/quality of life

behind door # 3> a country that would still be identicle to ethiopia if not for having a mass-population, being located in asia, and being able to offer up semi-literate people for cheap labor.

YAY !!! where do i sign up.

and flame me all you want i have been to india and parts of eastern europe. and i work for an outsourcing company that has offices in india, so i know exactly how "good" indians are at our jobs.

Obligatory yada yada

[Read Icculus]

Contrast the age of the metric system to the archaic measurements that my country uses. "My car gets forty rods to the hogshead, and that's the way I likes it!".

Re:cool!

[Sad Loser]

Also, MS are sitting on a cash mountain ($40 bn +) like the world has never seen, allowing them to ride out the storm.

uh

[waspleg]

Japan was rebuilt by the United States, and does not maintain as much of a military there as we do. They were re-created in our image, we even gave their women civil rights which they had not had previously (seriously pissing off a lot of Japanese).

As for the other point, no matter how much you increase productivity that doesn't eliminate the fact that what is produced hits a limit of available resources for that product and thereafter the product ceases to be produced.

Unproductive workers in 3rd world countries? Check the labels on the products you buy.

South Korea is about to become a smoking hole in the ground when North Korea decides to pull a Nike and Just Do It... if our war on _____ hasn't kicked open the WWIII powder keg and held a match to it the Korean Problem certainly will.

Is humanity better off as a whole? No. the just isolated segment, with resources, in which YOU live; this allows for the rose-colored distortion of the downtrodden because you are the beneficiary. I know this because I sit in an affluent area right now myself and I know many people like you who seek to justify their existence therein by shrugging off starving nations with a "it's their fault" in some form.

is that enough rant? =)

you mean stopped?

[appleLaserWriter]

Y2K was the mass paranoia that brought computer purchases into Q4 lockstep. Rather than seeing purchases spread across the year, there is a residual purchasing due to the Y2K "upgrades."

It could be argued that Y2K also changed IT thinking from "wouldn't it be cool if..." to "OMG we'd better check the numbers." Once people started to check the date in all systems, they began to refocus on numbers elsewhere.

Enron fell. Worldcom fell. Others fell. USA went to war. Now wireless telecom is the new new thing.

Excessively "cheap" spending practices are just as dangerous as "excessive" spending. The key to successful operation is taking the middle road between two hazardous extremes.

Re:Economics 102: Commanding Heights

[Tackhead]

> need proof? ask your gov't they're the best working example
>
> they hold a gun to your head for welfare for medicaid for tax breaks for the already stinking rich etc etc

Right, and that is teh sux0r.

> How do you think America go to be where it is today? where do you suppose all of the things that allow for our quality of life comes from? that's right they come from other countries, so while you enjoy the availability (not that you necessarily have the means to buy them) of everything from cheap clothes to cheap food to cheap toys remember that almost all of that comes from countries where the people who make them are living well below your standard...
>
> everything costs something at the expense of others,

With the exception of Chinese prison labor, those things do not come at the "expense" of others.

The people who make your Nikes for $5/d do not have guns to their heads. They line up outside of the factory, because working in the fields and villages pays $0.50/d. They work in the factories instead of the farms for the same reason you work in a cubicle instead of a factory - because in their economy, that's where the money is.

(All the more ironic, then, that Russia has a flat tax, a lower tax, and a simpler tax system than the US of A - and gee, whose economy is growing by leaps and bounds these days? We showed them that capitalism was a better system than central planning, so they adopted capitalism at precisely the time when we've finally rejected it. To answer another Slashdot thread, now that's irony! :-)

I'd strongly encourage you to watch the fantastic PBS documentary Commanding Heights: The Battle for the World Economy. It's probably airing on your local PBS affiliate this week.

(Worth seeing, if for no other reason than that it makes macroeconomics seem fascinating, at least for the six hours the series lasts :)

If you do nothing else, at least glance over this Washington Post review of the series.

The episode on the reform of India (Episode 3, I believe) should also prove useful. But I don't want to give any spoilers ;)

Here's a tip on obsolete equipment at work

[Anonymous Coward]

If you still have a Pentium 400Mhz or slower at work - do one thing - rip out the fan to the CPU and throw it in the garbage can.

True grit

[Anonymous Coward]

If the above is your site? A couple things.

1-Go here and see what a little HTML and CSS can do to make a big impression.
2-Put an area code on that phone number.
3-Here's an excercise to sharpen your business mind. Make out a business plan. There's plenty of books on this whole process. You may not plan to use it directly, but the excercise will help you as your business grows, and makes certain that you've covered all your bases. Keep it current.
4-Incorporate. Become a business of one with all the benifits (and downsides:see above).
5-First impressions will always count, regardless of what you do. Make certain all your actions reflect that.
6-Watch the price you charge. The home consumer will like it. The business owner will be suspicious of it.
7-Bolster the service side of your offerings. Handing it off to the big boys may be OK. But that's your growth area, not the OS. Remember you can remote admin a lot of it, and value add like crazy on your end because one of the great strengths of Linux is communications (#2 Is it's glue nature in a heterogenous environment).
8-Improve your knowledge of other operating systems. A lot of environments are a mix, and such knowledge will be the shot that gets you the contract.
9-And finally be a businessman, serious in thought and action. Because there's going to be a lot of times that you don't just feel like it. And you'll need a certain "grit" to pull you through those valleys, so you can get to the hills quicker.

Good Luck.

What You Missed

[Poeir]

If you look at the clock in the background, it's ten after five. Since it's daylight, I'm guessing it's 5 PM. I have this vision of this being a mandatory meeting for all employees, to be held at 4:55 PM.

Enterprise, the model of reliability!

[SuperBanana]

It's a humbling gesture that keeps sys admins in their place and makes them come up with functional miracles with existing equipment purchases (think of Scotty from Star Trek).

Yeah, but did you notice the Enterprise was always getting the stuffing knocked out of it? Well, okay, in TNG that was mostly because Worf couldn't hit the fucking broadside of a barn, but in TOS, Scotty didn't seem to do a very good job of keeping that thing from blowing a gasket every time some alien or space anomaly popped out of the woodwork.

Then again, if Scotty got dilithium crystals instead of dilithium duct tape, the Enterprise woulda opened a can 'o whoop ass on those pesky aliens that kept popping out of nowhere, and the series/movies would have ended sooner. Oh wait, that's a Good Thing...

Romance is dying

[August_zero]

Never again will we fall in love with that shiny new machine, just like the cars of today have no soul, or technology rolls on into utility rather than frivility (is that a word?)

What is Utilitarian Lingerie? That's right, plain old underwear.

Re:Bucking the trend-Dying off.

[Anonymous Coward]

" Anybody else experiencing any kind of growth or major $ projects this year?"

The funeral industry is doing well from all the professionals leaping off bridges and other such. We will proably see a jump due to this

Re:Economics 102: Commanding Heights

[waspleg]

we have prison systems in the United States that have programs for inmates to work and they undercut market prices... thus putting the people outside of the prison out of jobs (and therefore unable to provide food for their families while prisoners are garunteed rations etc), naturally because it is the gov't that benefits, the prison gets to keep the money, they pay the inmates pennies and none of it is illegal (because, in theory, the inmates volunteer)

as result the gun is still held it's just held to the head of the legitimate worker who is now out of work by the gov't (subsidized by you and essentially captive labor)

just because someone volunteers doesn't mean there is no tyranny, that's why we have unions and they don't (no there aren't unions in prision afaik)

i will check tvguide.com in a minute.. i haven't watched tv in months but that does sound at least worth having on in the background

remember America makes nothing anymore, our only export is culture, virtually every industry focuses around services. Once our culture fails to interest the people outside *we* will be relegated to the third world and the third worlds will have us as their low-paid wage slaves and I doubt they will have any more mercy for us than we have had for them.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[Anonymous Coward]

And hiring someone from India for 35K to do the job of an American

hmmm, surely the job should go to the person who can do it best? doesn't that make the most sense not only from a human rights standpoint but also economically?? and what exactly is "the job of an American" and why is this classified as one. what about someone who moves to america from india? do they not deserve the job (the original poster didn't actually say that the work was out sourced to india just that an indian was hired instead of him...)

BTW where was the name-calling you refer to? i didn't call anybody a name.

why am i on your foes list, fucko?

[Anonymous Coward]

huh?

they'll keep buying M$

[Wansu]

This is not necessarily awful, however, for those who hope businesses will start looking toward open source options as the cost effective alternatives..."

It doesn't seem to matter how many people they've laid off or how tight their budgets are. They keep reachin' fer th' M$ brand. They still don't view M$ as extravagant. They will scrimp on office supplies and cutback perks and benefits but M$ spending is like a sacred cow. We're bombarded with one email borne virus after another and they are unfazed. M$ prices remain high and it's license terms onerous, yet they are unmoved. I just can't imagine how much worse the downturn will have to get before they "start looking toward open source".

OpenLDAP? bleh

[_defiant_]

Did you migrate to OpenLDAP from some other DS? I wouldn't. Don't get me wrong -- for small stuff OpenLDAP is fine. I run it at home (just something to play with). But for a business I wouldn't touch it. Why? Couple reasons.

1. You have to reload the server to change ACL's. And ACI's are too experimental; for OpenLDAP they are still a moving target.
2. You can't do schema updates w/o restarting the server
3. Hell, you can't do much of any administration to the thing w/o restarting. Replica management is the other one that comes to mind.

At work I used NDS/eDirectory, and I love it. I wouldn't trade it for anything.

Re:Stagnant until Carmack pushes the envelope agai

[asv108]

Well it probably wont have any effect on Q4 hardware sales, the release Doom 3 will be delayed until early 2004.

maybe

[tetro]

Maybe the reason people are buying less is that everyone's broke and usually have things that they want or need. Most companies rely on people repeatedly buying objects and expect consumers to be enamored by that shiny new spec, regardless of its usefulness. Consumers aren't blinded right now considering how the economy is going.

Free rather than paid for...

[Numen]

So, I'm supposed to be reassured that companies are will to use software that I create for free, rather than software that I make to sell.

Inreasingly I think developers are going to find the cost to their own pockets of free software.... I'm not sure people adequately thought through all the implications of free software.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[fireboy1919]

surely the job should go to the person who can do it best?

Perhaps it should, but that's not the issue. Its going to Indian programmers because they're cheaper, not better. And its happening because India has a HUGE population and not very many ways of making money. The programmers are desparate, and willing to work for less than the US standard rates.

In the global scheme of things, this will mean giving American wealth to other nations at its expense. I'm not so sure this is a bad thing, though. There are lots more Indians who live in abject poverty than Americans, and more money to that country might help alleviate that.

Re:Economics 102: Commanding Heights

[Anonymous Coward]

stupid pothead wanker. go back to school

Re:I hear ya brother

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah right... give pakistanis nuke and what do you think their next target would be after india?

Screw that

[Nugget]

If property prices colapse, I'm buying the goddamn hills.

Re:Screw that

[darkov]

Good idea if you can pick the bottom of the market, but keep in mind that under deflation, the real value of assets like property goes down and the real value of your debt goes up. Quite a bummer.

US Gov goes COTS.

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Gov. has mandated COTS to be used everywhere including in military weapons and intelligence stuff. This means that alot of techies in DoD and non-DoD software development are losing their jobs due to this mandate. The gov. says it will adapt to commercial practices;however, alot of gov. is so different that there isn't a commercial practice for it. Moreover, alot of the COTS software is said by management to be 80% what they need, but in reality is on 30-40% (if you're lucky)and you'll have to piece together pieces of functionality from different vendors (more licenses) to make it partially work (and with different DBMS and languages),thus they'll spend the money to make the COTS software more like GOTS. In the end, they will make the commercial practice more like the governments and declare success that they are doing commercial practices.

How does one convince oneself to implement COTS when the ROI is going to be low. Well, simple, decleare todays technology (JAVA, web etc) legacy and the new stuff the future. So where will it end? Well after they spend lots of money and years doing it and the next technological trend/buzzword comes along and they declare the old system legacy again.

Everyone in government thinks, COTS, automatic test and CASE tools are the "hot" thing that will somehow speed up development, save money and save their butt. Also the trend is towards biztalk and .NET (jave is old hat). Mostly, it is a result of a new manager coming in (rotated every 3 years) and the first thing they do is say, "Hmmm, what can I change to make my career go places so that when I leave I can say, 'I reinvented government' and improve the bottom line."

So alot of turmoil is going on now and lots of people are losing their jobs (contractors and gov people). It's not just in my company/organization but in alot of other agencies too. When will it end? Probably with a change in administration by getting rid of Bush before he runs the country into the ground like his father. I was unemployed when his father was in, and unemployed again with his son (by court order).
(sigh!)

You're the one that's full of crap.

[Anonymous Coward]

The American employer that lobbies the government
for special non-immigrant visas (H1-B, also
known as guest workers) instead of training
younger or older workers or blacks and females
is the racist/sexist. Guest workers are
un-American. Look at the only other industry
that massivley employes guest workers:
agriculture. This practice only makes the rich
richer and hurts the American middle class.
Complaining about guys from Indian taking our jobs
is not racist, it's patriotic. Whining "racism"
when we do is just plain pathetic.

Fuck OSS

[NineNine]

Yes, fuck OSS. Why? Because /. is so one-minded, so, hell, delusional that nobody realizes that there are greater implications of companies cutting costs then the chance that they might use your favorite OSS distribution. Jesus, talk about the Borg. The Borg has arrived and it is here.

Michael's Motive gets lost

[mobileskimo]

I would have agreed, only, it doesn't matter at this point, since the original agenda to stir sentiments among Linux pushers didn't quite flood these pages. Instead, he got a whole lot of misdirected conjectures and half-baked theories. I laugh quietly in my office, for I meant to write a post with some content about this topic. But then came to my senses and looked at what a bunch of morons are filling this site with nonsense.

To the point about /. being great, it was great at one point, not because of the oh-do-deep-thoughts and revolutionary ideas that sprang to life and smacked so much garbage. It was great simply because it was the product of an idea, a process of communication, that I personally had great interest in, out of curiosity if nothing else. An interesting experiment to observe what happens when an attempt is made to raise the signal/noise ratio by using an anonymous vote from the same sample. Though the simple fact of the matter that pervades all of our e-shit continues to plague everything anonymous. We all have the perception that hidden identities provide us with a soapbox from which we can launch our egos while being protected from scrutiny. It's fan-fucking-tastic. It tastes like someone's been fuckin on my ceiling fan. I can't wait till VR develops into a real commodity. I hope I'm still alive for it.

Kudos to the creator. Slasdot really is a ground-breaking piece of shit.

Patents dampening new development

[Morgaine]

No doubt there are various reasons for the doldrums.

One of them is pretty likely to be the ever-increasing threat of patent claims that looms over developers these days, with patent-squatting companies everywhere and the most idiotic and trivial of basic software and business methods being at their mercy. This must be having a cooling effect on development of new ideas.

Copyright never caused that kind of problem, as you could plan ahead and clean room any new development. In contrast, the small developers that tend to create the new ideas in software and for online commerce simply have no means of creating anything new without opening themselves to patent claims in the future.

If the party is over, the end is surely of our own making, and disincentives for recovery like the patent nightmare suggest that the next party may be a long time in coming.

Technology != IT

[krysith]

I realize that it's about as useless as complaining about the press referring to crackers as hackers, but:

Technology != IT !!!!!

Those of us who work in technological fields ~outside~ of computing/telecom get a little annoyed when people use the term "Tech sector" or "Tech spending" to refer to only the IT sector. If you mean "Information Technology", call it that, or use the handy term "IT". Please don't co-opt the word Technology to only mean your little bits and bytes. Rockets, airplanes, oil-wells, nuclear submarines and medical breakthroughs also involve a little bit of "Technology" too, and it's annoying when analysts refer to the companies who make these things as not being "Tech companies". We can't help if the press is stupid, but this is Slashdot - we are Techie nerds and should know better.

Re:Technology != IT

[NDPTAL85]

The tech fields you mention are "industrial" technology and computer geeks don't like to sully their hands with the likes of ewe!

Good news for in-house developers

[jamesmrankinjr]

He has an aggressive rationalization program to weave together 45 different business planning software systems running in 100 different locations.

This sounds like the kind of thing that could keep consultants or in-house developers busy and gainfully employed for a good long time. Bad news for hw/sw companies, though.

Of course, the problem for programmers in the West is that the good news might be off-shored to India, etc.

Peace be with you,
-jimob

No Not Really

[mobileskimo]

In a variety of industries, especially the large houses, that actually have a plan, replacement doesn't happen in one shot. Instead it happens in an ongoing rolling phased approach. If your company has 500 desktops, every year 100 desktops are upgraded such that any snapshot reveals a staged aging. Whoever is directing your IS may have gotten caught up with the "buy in bulk, save on bulk, replace in bulk" mentality (they been spending too much time at Costco?), and forgotten that improper scheduling and coordinating may cost just as much. This also allows experimentation and piloting projects to occur with controlled risk in smaller groups.

what's gonna happen in 2004?
whatever happened in 2003, with a small adjustment learned from the 2003 implementation. Plan a little bit and have a methodology and maybe you can get your head out of your ass.

PS "you" and "your" in the context of this post does not refer to anyone in specific. It refers to anyone making massive swaps like the one described in the parent post.

Re:No Not Really

[LostCluster]

In a variety of industries, especially the large houses, that actually have a plan,

Let's talk about the small houses instead. Think about the small business that has only 20. It'd be a bit disruptive to replace just one every quarter, and better to replace all 20 in one shot every 5 years.

A disproportionate number of companies who were on that kind of cycle replaced everything in 1999 because of a combination of Y2K fears and the fact that it was the hot thing to do at the time. As a result, some of those 5 year cycles got sync'ed up by that event, and those companies will be due for a total swap-out in 2004.

Re:No Not Really

[mobileskimo]

Yes. They've synchronized watches to swap out all together in 5 years.

Let's talk about real small houses, not imaginary ones.

I don't know what kind of small businesses you've worked in but in the small businesses with 20 machines I've seen, the old machines were wiped and became handmedowns, 2 or 3 at a time, to temps and administrative assistants or paper clerks. They never bought 20 new machines all in one shot. The big shots bought 2 or 3 and said "Clean this one up and give it to Stella". And Stellas became a print server.

Where do you get your data of "disproportionate number of companies" that did this? I'm talkin from working at small law, doctor, and jewelry shops.

Re:Economics 102: Commanding Heights

[Tackhead]

> i haven't watched tv in months but that does sound at least worth having on in the background

Check it out. It aired in April of '02, was probably the best thing I saw on TV that year.

And yeah, it presents a pretty balanced view of both the "pro" and "con" aspects of globalized trade. The case studies of Argentina, Bolivia, Poland, former USSR, China, Japan, India, and of course, the US and UK, are the most in-depth I've ever seen on television.

There's also a book, which is also fantastic. (The TV series was based on the book, not the other way 'round, which is probably why the TV series works so well.)

Wake up.

[Duncan3]

Oh look *shuffles* it's the economy. Oh look *hides things* it's just a slowdown. Don't look behind the curtain.

No, it's not. This happens in every industry, over and over and over - well, make that once per industry.

First there is something new, then there are thousands of companies that do it, and then there are 3. How many car companies, oil companies, trucking companies, railroad companies were there in the beginning, thousands of them. And how many now?

Yeap, TCP/IP won, CPU's are all fast, the NT/Linux/OSX kernels differ by barely a function call. Only Nvidia and ATI remain. Remember when a graphics card review had 20 different companies, and they weren't almost identical?

IT is a cost you pick one vendor, and put it on everything in the company. If you're smart you pick the same thing as your partners/customers use. No more running 10 different systems because that costs more. If your secretary has a faster CPU then your competitors secretary it doesn't matter, one company just paid too much.

Intel won, HP/Sun/SGI/Alpha lost. Oracle won. Windows won a long time ago, if we're lucky GNU will overtake so noone will ever have to pay people to write software again. The middleware battle is still going, but it will be over if Oracle gets PeopleSoft.

Back in the day when you needed something shipped, you got to pick between a truck or a train or a million small companies. Now everything is in the standard shipping container, and all you do is bid it out. Guess how many companies there are now, oh and it's a heck of alot cheaper too.

Java is rapidly winning too, not because it's any different then any other language but because it's so dumbed down everyone can learn it in an hour so you can bid the work out to high school grads in India - it's cheaper stupid.

Look around, noone is willing to buy from the guy with less then 50% market share anymore, so if that isn't your company, you better keep that resume at the ready and just pray you get acquired instead of killed.

Apostrophe elitism

[fizbin]

Lately I've been seeing an increase in apostrophe usage pedants on slashdot. The thing is, I can't understand where they're coming from: in forming the plural of abbreviations it is perfectly acceptable to use the apostrophe. I get this from http://www.askoxford.com/asktheexperts/faq/aboutsp elling/pizza. (I admit that using an apostrophe to pluralize abbreviations that do not contain internal punctuation is not the preferred way to do it, but is still acceptable)

Now as for the use of an apostrophe in "Dell's" and "Mac's", that has a point. But please, let's keep our grammar pedantry in check; there's no need to whine about "G5's" or "TP's". After all, there are certainly enough posts that still confuse "you're" and "your" or "its" and "it's"; surely those provide much more fertile ground for grammar complaints.

Re:Or Not -- Name Calling

[beta21]

You are right he didn't say stole. It my embellishment.

I suppose a more appropiate statment would have been... "harder to find jobs due to a lot more competition"

Buying a new computer in 2007

[KlausB]

> Electronics are becoming commodities as they become efficient and
> cost-effective a few basic tasks that people find entertaining and useful.

I think that is correct.

I am pretty sure that in 2007, the decision to buy a new computer will look like this:

-------------

Imagine a small office, say at a dentist's. There are three chairs, three computers, a couple of potted plants and a coffeemaker.

NURSE: Doctor, i think my computer is dead. There is smoke coming out of it.

DOCTOR: Oh shit. I just send Jane to Staples to bring the printer paper we ran out of. Quickly call her on the mobile so she will pick up a new one for you. In the meantime, use mine.

NURSE (on the phone): Hello Jane, are you still at Staples? My Computer broke down, so please bring me a new one. Try to get one with the integrated scotch-tape and post-it dispenser on the front, you know I like my desk real neat and tidy.

JANE (on the phone): Now i am in the computer department. Well, it looks as if the original scotch-brand computers cost at least 5 dollars more than a no-name. Do you insist on a "scotch" ?

NURSE: No, but at least make sure the color will go nicely with the new coffemaker.

-------------

This is how you will buy a desktop calculator today, and a desktop computer tomorrow.

I remember my mother, who is the mom part in my parents mom-and-pop business, having her electro-mechanical desktop calculator repaired every two of years between 1970 and 1990, for a price you could eventually buy three new electronic ones for.

Since then, makers of desktop calculators have rarely made it to the front page of the Wall-Street-Journal.

Chicken and Egg

[lpq]

As I walk through the store aisles of various Silicon Valley stores, the
shelves are noticeably more barren. Selection on everything is down. No
more bulk items -- if you want items (if they are available at all), you
have to buy a greater quantity of smaller sizes (usually at a 20-40% price
increase).

Selection? I went to Fry's the other day. They used to have 2-3 60G
laptop drives, now, the largest drive they carry is a 40G. Similar problems
in cables, memory, cpu's .... everything -- product isn't there to be
bought.

It's in the drug stores, the clothing stores, the electronics stores, the
food stores -- all of them have vastly reduced inventory and selection.

I couldn't even buy brand name thick aluminum foil in large size and not in
the store brand in any size except 27" wide.

What color did you want? Was that black or black? Size? One size (Large)
fits all... Everything is backordered or they've changed suppliers, or
they just don't know why they aren't getting shipments in.

The disk drive selection at Fry's is 1/2 - 1/4th what it used to be and the
prices haven't fallen like they were. In fact tech as a whole seems to be
stagnating. I could walk in every 3 months and expect to see a new size
disk drive or new speed, whatever....now....things are moving at a snail's
pace. Remember when the computer manufacturer's couldn't keep up with how
fast Intel was putting out faster CPU processors -- now...things are still
pretty maxed at 3.06, though I think I saw one 3.2MHz

Just seems like everything is stalled and in short supply. I'm wondering if
they are going to turn to rationing on basic goods if they can't keep the
shelves stocked....its just a bit too eary -- like the last decades/years of
the old USSR.

Is that where the US is headed? Did capitalism just 'outlast' communism,
but is still doomed to failure?

I see prices on many items going up, up up -- especially overseas items as
the dollar drops, drops, drops. Foreign buying power seems to have dropped
by 30% or more depending on the country...on the good side -- if this keeps
up, it will be cheaper to hirer Americans again :-/

Yeh but....

[jotaeleemeese]

.... you only need a fucking abacus in the first place....

Bullshit keemosaby.

[jotaeleemeese]

if you were over spending in Oracle without truly evaluating what you needed, it may be wise to move to MySQL if that fits the size of the task at hand once a correct analysis is carried out.

Reaaalllly?

[jotaeleemeese]

Enlighten us, oh great oracle, we need your wisdom.

Re:The right tools(Windows Troll)

[Anonymous Coward]

"Well, certainly OS X wouldn't work where I'm at, where we deal with high-end CAD/CAM/CAE systems. They just plain don't write this stuff for Macs. And they never will."

so now you can predict the future of software development. they will write for what it makes sense to write for, and i don't think you know what that is. and there are CAD/CAM/CAE tools for OSX, maybe not yours, but they are there.

"The trend now is to Windows"

is that why sales of new Windows versions are slower than ever?

"and (hopefully with the pending release of Pro/E for Linux) to Linux systems. I think a lot of non-open source, non-in-house developed UNIX applications probably won't ever be ported to Mac OS X because it's not taken seriously by folks who write these kinds of apps as a viable platform."

if it runs on Linux or Unix, it can be made to run on OSX easily. and if anyone wants it there, it will.

"Don't get me wrong -- it certainly is about as nice of a desktop UNIX as you'll be able to find in open or closed source UNIXes. Apple hardware is nice. But the guys who run UNIX at the high-end of the spectrum don't see it as a UNIX,"

go to the freebsd sites and Daemon News and you will see that it is covered like any other Unix, and taken seriously. but you're right, it's not like other Unixes. on other Unixes, i can't run Photoshop, Office and other productivity apps, play all the Games that run on OS9 and OSX, and enjoy great driver support and actual plug and play. but i'm pretty sure that's not bad.

"it's a Mac, and it's nice for graphic designers and desktop publishers, and maybe even has some room for people doing surface modeling for design purpose, but it's not a CAD workstation, and it's certainly no server."

uuum, XServe? MacOSX Server? it can serve. as well as any Unix.