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Will Munich's Linux Desktops Be Running Windows?
An anonymous reader writes "Remember that story about the city of Munich choosing Linux to power 14,000 desktop computers? One aspect of this story that most people don't know about is that up to 80 percent of those Linux desktops will be equipped with VMWare, a virtual machine emulator, under which they will run Windows and Windows applications. That's right, folks: The majority of those 'Linux desktops' will be used to run ... Windows." This Gartner report from early June seems to be the one mentioned in the article, though I'm not sure exactly where Thurrott gets the 80% figure.
interesting if it's true, although the article does specify a redmond source.
vmware is a great product for developing using a virtual network, and I'm sure they must have done their sums (they are Germans, after all)
My guess is that they must have a lot of legacy apps that they can't afford to update now, and that in the future they will use linux clients, but that they can start moving everyone to linux now to make the later switch easy.
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
By switching to Linux for operating system, Munich avoids depending on Microsoft for technical support and product upgrades. While using VMWare allows continuous usage of existing programs and possible future migration to Linux. This decision allows CHOICE and FLEXIBILITY, which are what I believe Munich wants in the first place.
It often makes sense to maintain backward compatibility for a stage or two. If they were just going to run Windows apps they wouldn't need Windows at all. So clearly, if the story is even true, what it means is just that they have some 'legacy' apps they can't immediately replace. No big deal. Run VMware (or Win4Lin, or Wine, depending on the specifics) use Windows and the software for it that they've already payed for, but it gets them off the upgrade treadmill, and looking for *nix-native programs to replace the legacy crap.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
Good grief. A little common sense would dictate that even if they are using VMWare, its not something to generate a whole lot of hulaballoo about. Everyone needs a transition period.
Munich has over 100 Windows-only custom apps! They can't be expected just to switch to Linux and loose those overnight.
Even *I* dual-booted Windows next to Linux for 2 years, and I'm a geek. Its to be expected, and isn't "Betrayal" or a "Loss" to Linux... it is the necessary progression.
Look,
Bad news would be a total reversal and going with a full MS solution. This is an intelligent, well thought out migration. As nice as it would be to have all Linux based apps at the changeover, it's just not going to happen. As nice as it would be for all systems to be rolled out with Linux and everyone be perfectly happy with their systems and no retraining required, it's not going to happen. This is an excellent migration strategy. Start porting your critical apps over to Linux over a period of time (months/years), keep your existing legacy apps running on Windows in a sandbox (ie. VMWare) so that the typical crashes don't bring down the whole system (just restart the virtual machine), and, best of all, keep everyone happy and content. This shows that IT was thinking of the users throughout the migration and have their best interests at heart.
To everyone blasting this as a betrayal or a PR stunt, work in the real world and do this for a living. Wholesale switches from one platform to another is not an easy thing from the IT side of things or (especially) the user side of things. This is warranted, justified, and just plain right.
These guys don't need yelling and screaming, they need a pat on the back for thinking this through thoroughly enough to see that not all apps can be migrated over yet and people still need to work, otherwise, they could have 14,000 new bright and shiny systems with only a handful of people actively doing their jobs while all of the others sit and twiddle their thumbs for most of the day (besides to send emails, type up some documents, and surf).
I love linux (as I state all of the time), but a migration of that size (or any size) has to be thought through from the perspective of not only IT and monetary considerations, but from the user standpoint as well.
CliffH
sigs are like a box of chocolates, they all suck remove the underscores to email me
this start demonstrates already how serious a reader can take you: the city in question is Munich, not Frankfurt
They simply didn't want an American winning,
so IBM is not an american company? could you please let us know where their headquarters are?
and were willing to do anything, even pay more, to accomplish that goal.
i suspect most of the extra cost is training for the new environment, a one-time cost. the main reason microsoft's offer ended up being so much cheaper is that they offered to pay the extra training out of their slush fund, something that they most likely would not offer again on the next upgrade. with linux additional training on future upgrades should be considerably less.
and do you really think that the only reason MS can lose is anti-americanism?
and the only way to run Office is to use VMWare.
I use Microsoft Office both on my home PC and my work laptop (when necessary, which is, unfortunately, often). They both run Linux. I use CrossoverOffice, which is a commercial version of Wine.
So, there are ways other than vmWare, FYI.
JWall: GUI client for IPTables
If you read the Gartner report you will see that it doesn't refer to any sources at all.
At one point it says "Munich hasn't yet disclosed the business case behind its decision." and at another "The business case assumes that many applications will not migrate to Linux".
Note that the source of the business case is carefully omitted and it doesn't refer to Munich's business case as that hasn't been released. I read it at referring to Gartner's own ASSUMED business case.
The article is just another imaginary pro-MS Gartner report. Move along folks...