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Japan To Do Payroll On Linux
strannik writes "Yahoo/Reuters is reporting that the The Japanese Government will use Linux for it's payroll system. Fujitsu LTD, IBM Japan LTD and OKI Electronic Industry Co. will develop the system by March of 2004. The new system is expected to halve operating costs (to about 350 Billion Yen a year)."
RTA...
1. The adoption of the Linux open-source operating system, which can be obtained for free and copied or modified
2. Until now, the Japanese government has relied on expensive large-scale computers for its backbone system. The new system, using lower-priced advanced servers and personal computers, is expected to halve the network's operating costs to around 350 billion yen a year
It doesn't say in the article that they have been running windows in the past. Just that Microsoft wanted them to use it. Maybe they are already running some *nix variation and already have a knowledgable staff, mass layoffs and new hires would probably cost as much the added expense of nix admins... at least for the short term.
Visualize the world of wine
The problem with BSD is that it doesn't have enough visibility (or at least less visibility that Linux). Why is linux getting all that good press is the real puzzlement.
On a large application / heavy loaded server, it makes no doubt that BSD is a lot better than Linux, but on the desktop the problem is not the same
The huge number of drivers support can partially explain the popularity of Linux on the desktop, and if the MS saga has proven anything, that is desktop leads to server, because it provides a good visibility in everybody's mind.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
Well... first before I get flamed to death, I will note that I am writing from MozillaFirebird on X11 with a lot of nice graphics support (GL, etc).
That being said, however, one of the nice things about 'nix is that you can trim down the graphics or the GUI (as above, not to indicate that linux can't do advanced GUI). With windows, you're looking at the latest OS every now-and-then just to make sure it runs on your hardware... which usually included a bevy of bloated and distasteful GUI crapulence.
Now, for payroll, we're talking money, calculation, etc... a simple GUI (widget-wise, not necessarily design wise) is all that's needed for the client-side. For the server-side, no GUI needed at all... we're just processing more or less straight numerical data, except for strings on names, account ID's, etc.
As always, the beauty of linux is choice. For your accounting system, you can eliminate a lot of headache by not using the unnecessary GUI components. In windows, you often don't have as many options in that direction (except disabling "fade effects" and other silliness).
I fully expect linux to take root and grow within the financial sector more and more as time passes - as long as you don't have MS-only software, there's just no need for an MS Operating System in such an environment.
I think you may want to look carefully at one of the major vendors that is developing this Linux-based computing system: IBM.
You know, the same IBM that spent over US$1 billion to port Linux over to run on S/390 and AS/400 hardware. In short, the so-called "Linux wins" are mostly due to the fact they're getting IBM big iron computers running Linux.
I'd be willing to wager that most of the cost savings will be in manpower, usability, etc, of the home-built software itself. Additionally, unless they're deploying Linux on the exact same hardware that their old system was running on, you can't credit Linux with the operating cost savings.
For example, let's say that they were running the old payroll system on some cluster of Pentium 2 or Pentium 3 machines. Those machines supported X concurrent users. With today's hardware, you can support X concurrent users with half the amount of hardware. Remove half the hardware, and you can potentially remove half your support resources. Congratulations, you've halved your operating costs.
I think "using Linux" is just a side-note to this story. Systems evolve, and get easier to use, more powerful, and require less support, regardless of which operating system they're using.
Yes, C is portable. Java is cross-platform. Difference, and not a subtle one either.
But as far cross platfor:
PHP, Python, Perl, heck they could just about write it in XUL! These are ALL cross-platform. From Macs, to Windows to *BSD to Linux.
I'm sorry, I'm just sick of the Java guys always saying "Why don't they just write it in Java!" as if Java were the only cross-platform language anyone would ever consider using.
You have to look at the requirements of the project before you can even begin to say that you could code it in Java, or C, or any language. Requirements drive the design. They drive the language choice. They drive the platform(s) used. They drive everything. You don't pick Java just 'cause it's "cool."
My journal has hot