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Open Source Making Inroads in Small Businesses
prostoalex writes "In a story mainly about new OpenOffice release, NewsFactor Network quotes an interesting finding of Jupiter Research analyst: "Open-source productivity suites did "surprisingly well" in the mid-size business market, with the OpenOffice suite alone claiming a share of about 6%. Furthermore, [Joe Wilcox] found that some 19% of small businesses ran Linux on their desktop, and a whopping 26% ran Linux on their servers.""
And those pockets are in small and mid-size businesses -- those of 1,000 employees or less -- where paying top dollar for Microsoft's very expensive productivity suite does not make much sense. In conducting research for a new report, Wilcox found that open-source productivity suites did "surprisingly well" in the mid-size business market, with the OpenOffice suite alone claiming a share of about 6 percent. Furthermore, he found that some 19 percent of small businesses ran Linux on their desktop, and a whopping 26 percent ran Linux on their servers.
I want to know some more detail... What state? What area of business? 26% server share, sure, believeable, 6% OO share, eh, not too believeable, but I will go with it based on the fact that they have shown no data to back up this claim... 19% on the desktop? Uh, no way, that's just too unbelievable for me.
I love Linux and I think it has great potentional but I think this "research" is just as skewed as anything that is funded by MS...
Small to mid-size business move faster than big business. When the smaller ones are more competitive and saving cash the larger businesses will have to follow suit to remain competitive.
Trolling is a art,
If only schools could switch to OpenOffice to, and we could probably get rid of the MS Office dominance for ever in a few years...
Where? Silicon Valley?
Everywhere I've been, it's more like 1% running Linux on the desktop. At least, if you're only counting places where the management has made the decision to run Linux, not places where individual IT folks are running elicit Linux boxes on our^H^H^Htheir desktops.
I think the SMB sector would benefit from the invaluable experience that the Open Source developer community can offer. Their ability to balance the books, manage inventory, deal with suppliers and analyze Ogg Vorbis compression algorithms would allow the business owner to improve efficiency by offer 14%!
It is understandable that the SMB sector would turn to Linux quicker than the large enterprise since they suffer from their sheer mass in their on vested interests. It is much harder to turn a supertanker, than a small ship.
Only we free the home offices from the clutches of HP-based toner cartridges can we reach the heights in environmental awareness.
Which is nice.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
I ran into several companies and except one, no one runs Linux as a Desktop operating Systems, and every computer runs Micorsoft Office.
Strange, is not it ? I don't believe in that report
can't cahge that
I see you're using Office XP! Good for you. But you should install SP1 which fixes the spell checker.
Wearing pants should always be optional.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
As we may remember from a recent interview with James Gosling, he made the statement,
"There's no way that I could pay nearly $4,000 for a freaking word processor at home. It just isn't going to happen."
If the home user cannot justify purchasing an expensive office suite, it is no surprise that the small business will try to avoid it as well. Initiatives such as OpenOffice really help to push these boundaries, making Open Source software appealing to business, and to the end user.
I personally use Abiword and OpenOffice in my day to day word processing, and I prefer it much to the expensive Microsoft Office suite.
For those companies that are:
1) Big enough to worry about getting busted with unlicensed (pirated and/or over-installed legal copies of) software, but
2) Unwilling to spend $x99.99 on Office per seat,
OpenOffice is a no-brainer alternative. Heck, Notepad is a better choice for some percentage of the staff, I'm sure.
It's pretty much inevitable -- good research becomes commoditized over time, everything from Velcro on the Space Shuttle to Spelling and Grammar checking in a Word Processor. I'm actually sort of surprised that it's taken this long for a Free office suite to start (more accurately, to be SEEN to be) really getting into mainstream commercial use.
Still, I think there will always be a percentage of people who want the latest and greatest features, and organizations that are willing to spend to provide them. And organizations with the money to spend will continue to standardize across their staff, etc.
IMHO, neither 'side' (MS, Oracle, etc. on one side and Linux, OpenOffice, MySQL etc. on the other) should really focus on 'winning'. Keep those core users, go after the others. MS is gradually learning to be competitive instead of anti-competitive, something that will benefit both sides in the long run.
You shouldn't verb words.
It would not be too hard to verify Open Office.org's market share by experiment. All we need to do is start sending out .sxw and .sxc attachments. If we get e-mails asking what programme opens them, we tell them Open Office {though I'd expect MS Office to be able to open them just fine; after all, the Open Office.org file formats are public knowledge, whereas the MS office file formats are closely-guarded secrets}.
Also, it might give some people a dose of their own medicine.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
But I must say, that even Ximian's suped up "compatible" version still does wierd things. For example the bullet list in OO is always an outline list (with a funny symbol) in Word. Also Word tables aren't displayed properly in OO.
--------
Free your mind.
We're a small business, and we run open source on our server and a few desktops. We'll be moving to more in the future.
You can just imagine the look on my boss's face when he asked how much he had to pay for my software and upgrades.
Basically, we use open source because this company lives month to month. We make plenty of money, but there's not enough to throw around on wild expenses. Also, the only excuse for not using open source is not having any employees smart enough to handle it. The MS philosophy is to make computers dumbed down to the level of the dumbest user. And that's why a lot of businesses use windows. But in a sense, if you have open source knowledge and background, then the sum of all open source software is like a benefit you bring to the company once they hire you. Because you have free or cheap access to a program to do just about everything on just about any hardware. What could be better for a small business? This had a large role in my employment.
Slashdot Syndrome: the sudden, extreme urge to correct someone in order to validate one's self.
Well at my company Linux has 100% desktop usage. Well its only a few linux peeps but does that count? The point it depends on the sample size and no mention is made of where the data comes from, number of people etc.
97% of stats are made up on the spot
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
...BSD will be dead and THEN what will we do?
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Are you a linux consultant? That'd explain the figures ;)
I'm in the IT department of a small company.. ~70 hosts and ~8 servers. The need arose a while ago to have a seperate database offloading data from the MS SQL server for reporting purposes. I installed linux on a redundant P3 lying around and set things up because I didnt want to hit the management with a bill for some fancy UNIX solution, and I'm just used to linux.
So now theres the need to use a better VPN solution than the one that comes with win2k, and to replace the MS proxy server. Will I hit them with a bill for the cobalt raq server, an RS/6000 or a used Pentium3 with Linux/FreeBSD? I've no beef with FreeBSD, but I had to install something on the RedHat that doesnt install on FreeBSD.
So Linux is eventual. Everyone will have a need for a utility server and not want to pay for it... and the techie who suggests it will be preferred, for saving the small business some money, natural selection of OSes comes with it.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky
... unfortunatelly most of us do as we learn and we learn from people too bored to think on the importance of what they teach.
I visit tons of small businesses, and this guys telling me 1 in 4 are running linux somewhere?
.com startups or what? Sounds like a dataset skewed towards tech-oriented businesses.
And what exactly does he call a small business? Are these
I mean, your local mom and pop dry cleaner or deli stand doesn't usually have a server farm in the closet or care how many megaflips per flop the electrowizzer can do.
When I think small business and computers, I think of a cheap dell in the corner running QuickBooks..
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
The only OSS in my biz is VNC, and that's because it's the only one easy enough to use. Linux? Puh-lease. I spend my time running my business. Linux is too expensive (time-wise). It's cheaper to pay $200, install W2K, and forget about it. Open Office? Maybe, if we did documents of any kind I'd think about it, but it's gotta be 100%. My vendors send my Word & Excel docs all the time and I don't have time to dick around with opening them. They either open, or they don't. Time is very, very valuable. Saving a few hundred bucks when it's going to take me & my employees hours and hours to fight with the software is not a good value.
While it's not for everybody, the open source solution really seems to make sense if a group or company can get started with it. I work for a small (~2500 customer) ISP in central Michigan and we use a combination of Linux and Windows 2000. When I started at the ISP, it was a Microsoft-only shop. I introduced the first UNIX server -- a FreeBSD machine -- after about six months. It had a much better uptime, could seemingly handle more tasks, and was easily maintained.
But the main reason that it worked, I think, is that I was there to take care of the new FreeBSD server and answer any questions. If a company does not have a knowledgeable *NIX person on staff, then the chances of that company making an open source solution work are probably greatly reduced.
There is still, I think, a good deal to overcome to really get Linux and open source software into businesses for good. It doesn't help to have a free or even much-less-expensive solution if nobody knows how to use it or fix it. Maybe we just need to breed more *NIX-loving types. :)
Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary (1913) [web1913] Whapping \Whap"ping\, Whopping \Whop"ping\, a. Very large; monstrous; astonishing; as, a whapping story. [Colloq.]
-A
the reason i use open source is that its good to have open source. it runs faster and more developers can look at it fixing bugs and crashes and adding features and enhancements and trying to get more featureful enhanced product out there. I wouldn't want a virus on my network, and when i use open source, its not possible. Also, the open source community seems to work more well together than other coding teams. thats why i use open source.
small businesses need to conserve money - Linux is free and its TCO is usually less than MSindows, so it seems obvious that Linux would make inroads at small businesses.
the important thing is that when some of these small businesses go big, they'll choose Linux because of familiarity and loyalty....
smd4985
As noted at the end of the article, M$ already has the problem of companies not upgrading old versions which now do more than what the company needs. If Microcrud forces an upgrade a lot of that upgrading is going to be to OO rather than to Orifice.
Basically, Microslug is losing market even if OpenSource doesn't gain market share. If they try to regain market it is going to be at the expense of market share. Short run, they'll have no real choice but to force their customer base into either upgrading or leaving, and that means that they lose in the long run because a significant share will leave creating a perception of loss in the market.
Either way they jump, Microjunk is going to lose. It's just a question of how long they can hold on.
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
These small and medium sized businesses can move more quickly and make changes that they see as being a better business decision. Costs and benefits of any decision are up-close and personal.
Hmmm... let's see ... I have to retrain myself a little to understand the new application (which takes time), suffer a little loss of features, but it costs a lot less, especially over time.
Large companies take longer to do this. The costs and benefits appear different. Large companies like MyCorp have negotiated multi-year, site-wide contracts with companies like Microsoft for things like Office. Consequently, at the department level those products appear "free", we don't pay for them because it comes out of some company wide expenditure, just like electricity and phone service. (And, too, the standardization on One product helps to minimize support costs; so the old One product line is more firmly entrenched . The support techs are more familiar with the old devil than the new devil.)
OpenOffice still has a way to go to compete against that impression in large companies. CIO's are cautious about making a big move unless they feel real comfortable that they understand the costs involved.
While in a small business, the proprietor feels and benefits the costs directly, in the large business, the CIO assumes all of the costs of worrying about the transition. If they're wrong, it's not like they'll just go back the next day like the small business can. No, a bad IT decision in a large company is head-on-a-platter time.
Therefore, study the issue and defer a major transition decision until more evidence is available.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
I haven't consulted for small businesses in a few years, but when I was, I didn't find ANY linux, I couldn't even convince them to convert from SCO Xenix to linux.
If these numbers are accurate, it must be for a small microcosm where the VARs that set up systems for small businesses have switched to using linux in their deployments. Even then, small businesses tend to stick with what is working...even if it doesn't work perfectly.
I think they need to provide more details and some source information to back up their data.
About five years ago, I set up a linux server at my godfather's business, and it's been running like a tank since then. It replaced an NT machine that required constant fixing and administration on his end. Since he's not the most savvy user, this was a constant source of complaint for him.
The linux machine grew with his business, and was only recently replaced (due to a motherboard failure). When I asked him what kind of OS he wanted on the new server, the choice was clear: Linux. Since it requires so little maintenance (none from him and only remote administration from me) he's been one of the most vocal Linux advocates in the small business community, and had several business in our area come in to see how well Linux works with their existing technologies.
Did we have trouble? Yeah... ACT didn't like to be on a SAMBA share (until I found out it needed oplock tweaking), and getting tech support from his ISP was troublesome, but once everything was set up, there was nothing more to do.
Small businesses often can't afford to have a full time IT person, so this kind of set it and forget it proposition makes great business sense.
"This is not a company that appears to be bothered by ethical boundaries."
Attorney General Mike Hatch on Microsoft
It runs under Linux, WinXP, and MacOS, it handles ALL the MS files we've run into, and gives us a solid office package for free. Ok, so we're a 3 person company, with only two "office" machines, but our company is 50% MacOSX ;), and we run OpenOffice for productivity. For the cost of one copy of MSOffice, we can get an entire PC workstation, with an overpriced copy of WinXP, and OO.
This is where I get my recommended daily allowance of "Foot in Mouth."
I'm sure that my observations mirror those of many, many others. Linux is making significant penetration into many new markets, true. But the desktop and small-business-server aren't two of those markets.
I see Steve Ballmer has joined us today then... :-)
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
It's more like 70% for big companies.8 ,17096,00.html
http://www.forrester.com/ER/Research/Report/0,133
It's not saying they're *exclusively* using linux, and it's unclear whether this is server or desktop.
Until Linux bucks up its ideas and fires their lead developer, ESR, they shall never progress past the hobbyist stage I am afraid.
Dear idiot moderator. This is not 'insightful' this is a troll. Learn to tell the difference.
...because for many people, with access to MSDN disks from workplaces and CD copiers, I suspect that *most* home users of MS Office run it because they obtained it "freely". I think the proportion of businesses and home users running OO would be much higher if everyone had to pay several hundred dollars for MSOffice...
Gentoo Linux - another day, another USE flag.
..., I would like to offer OSS as a solution to my customers. Not only do I have specific, in depth domain knowledge of the products I would be offering,... .. Their left and right mouse buttons are reversed, the familiar "Start" button has been replaced by a picture of a small rodent, and the whole lot is so unstable that it crashes every ten minutes or so... </i>
It seems to me that the parents post is written by two people. The author of paragraph 2 should start reading Linux for Dummies or so. "crashes every 10 minutes" common!
That is, once people know 2 or 3 people who say "we used OpenOffice/StarOffice at company X and it was fine and saved us a packet".
OpenOffice isn't going to grow because of IT Directors deciding to use it. It will be people installing it themselves, or trying it at home and finding they like it and forcing the issue upwards.
I think Microsoft is finally starting to succeed in eliminating the 'casual' software pirating. Sure, there are the larger corporate versions that don't have the activation feature - but most of the smaller companies (less than 25 people) won't have that type of license. A few years back, you could buy a dell and take the copy of office 97 and stick it on every desktop - not legal, but easily to do. Now that is just not the case as today's software loves to finger print your hardware to prevent this from happening.
So why the increase in OSS? I suspect a big chunk comes from folks who look at the CAL's, email, file, or print servers - all the things in addition to an office suite - and have to decide if they really want to pony up for it. A personal example: a friend was looking to get a copy of office to update their resume, among other things. With the product activation, they could not install my copy of Word. Best case, they could buy a student edition for $130 (and sign up for classes) or plunk down $200 for a normal version. I explained what the activation did, pointed them to some on-line vendors I trust, and then gave them the link to Open Office to use while they thought about what to do.
Office is just peanuts, IMHO. The back office pieces are the spendy bits, and that is where a lot of the OSS software shines. Even for something as basic as a web server for the public, is it really worth two grand for IIS? Some folks might say yes, others might go Apache...
+++ UGUCAUCGUAUUUCU
ZZZZZZZT!
(-1 Piss Poor Troll Atempt)
When I started my music company, it was the era of Windoze95. The system crashed constantly - literally 4 or 5 times a day. Productivity was slowed to a snail pace. Then can Win98 but it wasn't any better in the reliability department.
So, I tried Debian Linux. I put up a mirror of our web site and moved everything to the linux platform. We didn't have a crash or require any reboots for over a year (excepting updates and such.) Life was good. We've never had a reason to go back. The frustration and headaches are gone. We don't scramble on Win Bug alerts. We know the Linux systems, desktops and applications. Why would we want to learn Windoze now?
Banjo - The more I know about Windoze, the more I love *nix
Apparently small businesses do very little surfing as Google linux usage is around 1%.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
For s small development company like this one, nothing beats the deal MSDN gives you. If you shop around you can get universal subscription for around 1k and that gives you enough dev licences to ALL of their software. The time saved from not having to reinvent the wheel pays for itself.
Two small points. First, I don't believe for a second that Gnome crashes every ten minutes. You need something to back this up other than hearsay.
Secondly, TeX existed long before MS Office, and MS Office has never replaced its functionality. The closest thing to replace its functionality is mathml.
My wife runs a small business (40 employees) and I do the computing stuff (in my leisure time, basically). So I have some experience in SMB and Linux.
5 years ago I introduced Linux file + print servers, routers, and firewalls. Since I was a newbie in the beginning I had a steep learning curve to climb up. After that, everything was perfect. No problems with the 4 Linux and 1 FreeBSD servers, but there still is a NT machine, because some software the company (fashion business) needs runs only on windows. The maintenance costs for this machine are 10 times higher than the 5 other servers combined. I would be glad to get rid of it, but software we need is simply not avaliable in Linux. This is a big obstacle towards an MSfree life.
Then, the desktops. All these Win machines on the desktops require far too much attention. Many of them are > 5 years old and need to be replaced. So this is a good time to migrate towards OSS. So I gave a KDE desktop machine a try --> endless hassle with MS office formats, OpenOffice crawls, users dislike it because it's not Windows, 1 GHz + 256 MB RAM needed etc etc. My conclusion is that it is not the MS desktops which are the problem. Maybe some might be better off with Linux desktops but I think the gain will never be more than 10%, if at all.
The real problem is that there is an overly complex machine at every desk capable of gazillion CPU cycles per sec and able to process GB of data, for what? Writing an invoice (3 kB data) or booking something into an accounting system (234 bytes data). That's what 80% of all workplaces are like. For these 80%, all these diskussions about which desktop is the best are regularly missing the point. That's why I will give thin clients a try. So my idea is: big server machine for those 80 %, old PCs as thin clients, typical desktop with 4 buttons: e-mail, web, write_a_letter, modify_database; Linux or MACs for the remaining 20% (mostly designers). This will take a long time to set up, because there are no off-the-shelf solutions. So the 2nd big obstacle is: there are no experts available to help SMBs. My wife's company would still be locked in Windows if I were not around. Businesses of this size cannot afford a full-time sysadmin. If Joe Fashion or Jill Plumber needs a network for their 5 employees business, they will always end up with MS, provided by the local we-sell-computers shop.
For SMBs, the break even for OSS is still far, far away.
Jupiter announced these figures (server and desktop, not OO share) a month or two ago. At that time, it was hard to get some important details, but they said the state they researched is New York. Maybe New York SMB are more cutting edge and tech savvy than those who perceive Linux and OO are too difficult.
Maybe the general perception that people can't and aren't using Linux and OO in this manner is flawed. Could that be why Microsoft is going all crazy over their small business pricing? Do they know something you don't?
I think the freedom to "just do it" is as significant a factor as the free price and the freedom to modify the code. The ability to download open source software, install it on an old, redundant computer, and play around with it without having to ask anyone for permission or money is a huge factor. Even if the techie knows that his boss will probably approve the money, it is still a hassle. The boss might say "no", the boss might not be around, the boss might use the discussion to bring up other, unpleasant things, such as WTF those clueless users in Marketing are demanding right now.
Of course, this "freedom from hassles" is also why people use the software that is installed by default on the computers they buy instead of going through the hassles of downloading OSS. It does cut both ways. This changes when it is time to upgrade the system, and then the hassle factor comes back in. If you can upgrade that Win98 box to Linux without having to get permission, then even if the TCO is higher for OSS, it will still get done.
SPF support for most open source mail servers can be found at libspf2.
30% Troll
40% Flamebait
30% Insightful
Piss poor what now? You're a cock gobbler. Go on, admit it.
The point I switched over to RH for work was when it set up the display & wireless card on my notebook straight out of the box. Goodbye Win2K. The only app I'm really missing is AutoRoute - for most things OpenOffice is just fine. Its a bit sad that there isn't more educational software for Linux - all the stuff in PC World is for PCs. Having said that my kids are happy enough with mame, doom, pingus etc...
Possibly the bleeding-edge 2.4pre gnomes weren't mega-stable, but you expect that from a pre-release (and if some wise guy tried to sell me a business solution based on pre-release software I'd tell him where to get off). In general gnome has been fine since 1.0 (ie years ago) and KDE is also fine (if a bit slow).
You will never convince me that debian-stable crashes every 10 minutes. And while it isn't the most up-to-date, eye-candified distro around it is the ideal basis for a business solution.
"'I pass the test,' she said. 'I will diminish, and go into the West, and remain Galadriel.'"
- JRR Tolkien.
Well, as the previous poster says, you must be a Linux consultant. I have spent the past five years doing some consulting jobs around all Spain, about twenty medium companies, and all I can say I have seen is about half a dozen Linux servers, mainly in file and web server tasks. Most of the remaining servers run Windows 2000, and there even were a couple of ancient HP 9000 running HP-UX.
If ignorance of the law is no excuse, how does that explain Congress?
If "pro" and "con" are opposites, then what is the opposite of "progress"?
If so, a Microsoft spokesperson did not show it when he gave a cool response about his company's faith in the free market -- a safe bet when that company owns over 90 percent of the market for desktop-productivity suites, according to Wilcox's research.
and
Hiser said that OpenOffice version 1.1, due this week, can translate Microsoft files with an accuracy of 90 percent.
But anything less than 100 percent is not good enough, Wilcox noted.
So at the end of the day, why all the poncing around with Media Player and Explorer at the anti-trust trial. Bundling these two packages into Windows pales into insignificence in the MS monopoly when compared to the constantly changing and jealously guarded MSOffice file formats.
Until Microsoft is forced to compete on the quality and features of MS Office (neither of which are worth the price over OO.org) as opposed to locking everyone else out with convoluted file structures they will have a stranglehold on business.
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
I think that ClarkConnect (free as in beer for the home edition) is exactly what the community needs to make inroads in the SOHO: take an old computer, put in two nic cards, pop the CD in the drive, answer about ten questions (mostly everything autodetects), and you've got a small business server.
Web based administration (you don't have to touch the cli), samba, firewire, vpn, antispam/anitvirus filters, apache, email/DNS backup. Best of all, there's a solid community behind it.
Such a price the gods exact for song: to become what we sing - Pythagoras
It doesn't really matter what is happening right now. If users have to interface with folks that use MSOrfice and MS throws the DRM switch on, then writing and import filter for any third party ware is in violation of the DMCA! MS is just getting ready to drive the "OSS is dangerous for your business" point home to the PHB's. "See you should have stayed with M$ Office!" they'll say. Never mind that is was M$ using monopolistic control of the market to bend users over the barrel. In John Ashcroft's HO, the only rights are corporate rights so this will work out swell. What really bugs me is that I don't ever recall seeing any mention of corporations having ANY rights in the constitution, and certainly no rights that trump the rights of "we the people". For example, corporations have no guarantee of political representation. How about grass roots effort to push through referenda eliminating corporate donations to campaigns in as many states as allow referenda? Get that done then push on to a national reform. The vote is the only way we have to take back our country -- any other way will be labelled as terrorist and then Bush et al will just convert AREA 51 into a northerly version of Guantanamo.
1st layer the displays, old obsolete PCs running an X server.
2nd layer login servers with plenty of memory and CPU which serve an easy to use user interface like Gnome, but which do *NOT* run any heavyweight applications.
2 machines should be plenty to serve desktops to 40 users and give you some redundancy.
3rd layer an array of load balanced application servers run the heavyweight applications. Sun Grid Engine provides the load balancing and high availability. These can be PCs off the desktop if they have the horsepower.
4th layer - 2 NFS servers (again, redundancy) to hold all your applications and data.
This architecture works spectacularly well for Linux and Unix systems, it takes full advantage of their abilities. e.g. A single Gnome login is around 90Mb of RAM but with Linux, 80-95% of every application is shared code so the second and each additional Gnome login to the server only consumes 18Mb of RAM. 40 people at 90 + 40*18 = 810Mb of RAM, you get that in a desktop these days, go for 2 boxes and put half the users on each.
The same is true for Open Office, 90% shared so you create a couple of Open Office servers and they run all of your instances of the application, it completely eliminates the long startup time OO seems to have, qsub the job onto the grid and bang, Office appears on your thin client running on the least loaded application server.
It's worth noting that this isn't new, we've been running this type of architecture forever using old rackmounted Sun workstations. It's "the one".
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
I know a number of people who own and run Small Businesses and being a technical type, I have helped a number of them with their software and hardware problems. Well, I'll bust the bubble on MS and Small Business, hardly anyone in small business pays for their software. About 95% of the software I see in Small Business is pirated. Open Source may not be making huge inroads to small business, but MS is not making money off them either. If MS had a sure fire way to stop people from pirating their software, Open Source would be 75% of the Small Business software within two or three years (The Life of MS software life cycle).
Linux O Muerte!
A lot of comments here express surprise or outright disbelief in the statistics quoted in the article.
Why? Microsoft itself has been the prime mover behind a shift to other products.
Has anyone here read the Ernie Ball (guitar string manufacturer) story? If not, you should Google for it and find out what kind of liability you let yourself in for by using Microsoft products. Let me quote directly from the story:
In 2000, the Business Software Alliance conducted a raid and subsequent audit at the San Luis Obispo, Calif.-based company that turned up a few dozen unlicensed copies of programs.
Ball settled for $65,000, plus $35,000 in legal fees. But by then, the BSA, a trade group that helps enforce copyrights and licensing provisions for major business software makers, had put the company on the evening news and featured it in regional ads warning other businesses to monitor their software licenses.
The BSA had a program back then called "Nail Your Boss," where they encouraged disgruntled employees to report on their company...and that's what happened to us. Anyways, they basically shut us down...We were out of compliance I figure by about 8 percent (out of 72 desktops).
72 desktops is not a big company. At $1000 per desktop (hardware costs). that's only about $72,000 but they had to pay $100,000 because they had 8 unlicensed copies of MS software? Read the article; it wasn't even deliberate piracy.
Given this kind of behavior, I am surprised the percentage isn't a lot higher.
I for one welcome our new Open Source Making Inroads in Small Businesses Overlords.
Hey - I looked out of the Window and didn't see any chinses people! All that crap about 1/5 of the worlds population - its a boax!
AGGHH!! That's the second time today I've seen that gaping red hole!
Don't drop the soap, Tommy!
Threatned proprietary software vendors love to promote the image of the open source community as a bunch of software pirates and thieves.
The true irony here is this. The biggest software pirates that I've ever observed are bigtime Windows advocates, and some Mac advocates. They all turn a blind eye to piracy or directly engage in it. They'll think nothing of borrowing a CD of some hideously expensive software development tool to install it at home. Office suites. Expensive 3D modelling / rendering software. You name it.
One of the windows advocates, using the expensive development tool, when debating about open source, makes the argument that the expensive software is worth it. I have never thought to argue the point that if it really is worth it, then why isn't he buying the development tool? After all, it is worth it.
The irony on top of irony is this. I don't know of anyone who pirates open source software (i.e. infringers of copyright) other than the likes of SCO. Maybe Microsoft of others will eventually be shown to have infringed the copyrights of various open source projects. If they did, who would know?
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
All our servers(3) run Linux. The development team (4 machines) uses dual Linux\Windows machines (a must, since we develop cross-platform software). Development also uses solely OpenOffice (and to date we had never seen a Word document, Excell spreadsheet or presentation we couldn't open nor have produced one of those the other people in the company couldn't open).
I am trying to convince one of my other (two) partners (Finnance/Project Management) to move to OpenOffice, but since she has been using MS Office (98 at the moment, she once installed 2000 but disliked it so much she quickly returned to 98) since the DOS days (and she is quite a power user), it will be a long process (OO has yet some edges to cut before it can be done).
We also favour open development tools (Netbeans, CVS, Tomcat, Zope, WxWindows, NYSE or InnoSetup installer systems) whenever possible. There are things like Flash, for instance, that must be bought, but it is now almost possible to run a serious development shop without any proprietary tool (even if you are developing desktop Windows software).
Have you ever tried to compare the size of the resultant files?
100K sxw file gets to 400K in Doc going to 700K as PDF.
This makes a difference for people on a dial up, and folks like me that caps attachements at 250K.
Help fight continental drift.
Please donate copies of OpenOffice 1.1 on CD to the School Library so that they can borrow it just like a book.
I work as a technology consultant, independant mainly to very small mom and pop shops and small offices. Many have upgraded PC's in the last few months and just now have Office XP/2002 and here 2003 is comming out at the end of the month.
These people express a disgust that every 18 months, what the buy today won't be powerful enough to run that in the future and its been cheaper to buy $700 boxes every 2 years and chuck 'em than to go through, upgrade hardware and software.
Many more use FreeBSD and Linux daily. I have helped 4 businesses set up ecommerce sites through Yahoo, they have no idea what the hell FreeBSD is, but that is what powers their site.
Also, I have a portable FreeBSD box called my Apple iBook that many take a look at and two mom & pop stores have switched to using Macs for Point of sale and other uses and love them because they are easy to use and don't crash.
I started out in the graphics/video production field with wedding businesses and most switched around 2000 - 2001 to Dell's and PC's. Many are now switching back to mac because of their lost time and work with system crashes.
Now to the kicker: I set-up a Linux or FreeBSD box with KDE set up and most people can pick up how to launch Mozilla and Netscape w/o any proablems. In fact over the next two weeks, I am converting one office over to Linux on all of their PIII 700 boxes they have. Total cost: About $2540. ($2500 to hire me to do it, $40 for a copy of RH). Most couldn't tell a difference between OpenOffice's Spreadsheet and Excell and since it can read/write MS office formats (at least for now) they have interoperatblity.
Their office file/print server has been Linux for "at least two years" one employee remarked, but I don't know I didn't set up their LAN. Well I know its RH 6.2 on IBM hardware, how long its been there...
Why did they switch? They had spent over $6000 US in the last two years just on support calls to wipe off viruses on these machines not to mention the cost in lost time due to data being lost and computer downtime. The hardest issue was to find a replacement for their accounting/payroll/inventroy software. So I recommended buying one new Dell just to run the software package as it would proably take longer and be a hell of a lot more to reset up 4 years of data on a new system and the PR person wanted an iMac, so I recommended getting her one so she can run QuarkXpress and Photoshop.
People and businesses are sick and tired the MS upgrade game every 18 months and I think Linux is poised to make some grounds in the business world. Red Hat and SuSE has done a wonderful job of taking Linux from Geekdom to so easy grandma could use it. Still the lack of commerical software is hurting the platform. OpenOffice has made some tremendous gains in terms of functionality to the point where it now can be used.
Special software is getting there too, like the NOLA Enterprise Resource Planning software, phpprojekt group ware, are good resources for medium sized businesses. What is lacking is some good small business software like Quickbooks that is extremely easy to use and designed for small business. Maybe there is something out there, I just havn't found it yet.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
If you ever loose your job at Microsoft I am sure the Home Shopping Network can use a talented presenter like you,
Best of Luck
Help fight continental drift.
Please refer to Jakob Nielsen's excellent AlertBox column on why PDF's should not be used for anything other than printing: PDF unfit for human consumption. In short, PDF's present a critical usability problem. Issues include: jarring user interface, linear exposition, lack of editability, and loss of navigation tools. It is true that some PDF files do not suffer from all of these problems, but most do.
I am still in shock that the Dept Of "Justice" did not require MS to open its file format as a result of being found to have abused an illegal monopoly.
"Violence is the last refuge of the incompetent" --Salvor Hardin
Ugh. At least now that I'm using KDE I can view that format with a normal app.
I don't give a damn what the content providers want. Only what the content receivers want counts. You want to prove that PDF provides more benefit to the receiver than HTML?
Big Brother Bush is doubleplus ungood.
"Still, I think there will always be a percentage of people want the latest and greatest features, and organizations that are willing to spend to provide them. And organizations with the money to spend will continue to standardize across their staff, etc."
Hey! Were can I get a job there? Any company that loose on the purse, were I can say "I want that." and they will get it for me, will also give me raises and bonuses when I ask for it. Win, win.
"There is still, I think, a good deal to overcome to really get Linux and open source software into businesses for good. It doesn't help to have a free or even much-less-expensive solution if nobody knows how to use it or fix it. Maybe we just need to breed more *NIX-loving types. :)"
And yet the fact that we have a lot of IT types out of work, is left flapping in the breeze, every time this argument is trotted out. You guys want to know were to update your skills while out of work? Your answer is above.
Instead of teaching general word processing concepts. I.E. text can be selected, then cut, copied, pasted, files can be saved and opened. Margins need to be set. Text can be delt with on a character level, word level, sentence level, paragraph level, then in some programs in "sections" or pages" or with "styles".
If you teach these concepts, then someone can set down at a new wordprocessor they have not seen before, take an inventory of the tools available, and they style (Word is paragraph based, built around sections, Wordperfect is character based, built around pages). Then they can get to work and be productive.
If you have been trained in how to use Word (or any other wordprocessor), click here, pick this menu option, you are lost in a new program, especially if you rely on where things are at on the menu.
A vocational school should teach MSWord, or WordPerfect or OpenOffice, or whatever a student would feel is the WordProcessor they need to learn how to use to get a job. Or what the local job market is demanding for entry level word processing skills.
A regular school or college should teach WordProcessing concepts and theory. Students should be exposed to several different word prcoessors and DTP programs after having some theory, and then the class should focus on basic mastery of one product.
vi +
My firm needed a file server, but the guys are cheap, cheap, cheap. I bought an IBM Netfinity server with a SCSI array, installed Red Hat 7.2, set up SAMBA and squid, and we haven't looked back. I back it up every now and then (usually weekly) with a USB hard drive that is stored off site.
I've been using OOO on my computer without telling abyone about it, and nobody has noticed. Our documents aren't grossly complex -- they usually consist of no more than twenty pages, and most are just numbered paragraphs or letters. Very basic formatting.
Our linux box has been running nearly two months with no intervention (it runs an absolute minimum of services in order to reduce complexity and the need for patching). The only reason we had downtime since it was installed was from power outages, and we've fixed that with a smart UPS. Each month it runs, I take a sip of scotch from the bottle that every lawyer has in his desk drawer. I think "happy birthday" and thank god that I don't have to screw with an NT (or win2k or whatever) box.
GF.
Lots of petrified grits
"The hardest issue was to find a replacement for their accounting/payroll/inventroy software."
Did you try this?
but this is Mozilla 1.4 uder Linux 2.4.20. User agent replacement happens all the time because many people must lie when accessing web sites to prevent the badnesses that used to happen on IE 'compatible' websites.
See my journal, I write things there
You see, the login servers run only the user interface; Gnome and a few small applications like the calculator and xterm. Everything else, including the office apps, web browser, interactive terminal sessions is farmed out to application servers managed by Grid Engine.
The situation you describe needing 2GB of ram is because they run the applications directly on the login servers, which is simply the wrong way to do it.
If you run everything on the login servers you need more RAM, more CPUs, more and faster disks, more and faster nework interfaces all of which make the login servers larger and much more expensive to purchase maintain and replace. Because they are expensive, adding more when they are overloaded is a costly pain.
2 single CPU systems with 1Gb of RAM each cost less than half the price of a single dual CPU system with 2Gb of RAM. Take advantage of this.
The system we have in place runs on ex-desktop Sparc 10 workstations, the login servers have 512Mb of RAM and handle 15 sessions each as Gnome on Solaris consumes 128Mb rather than the 90Mb on Intel and 25Mb per user rather than 18mb, the grid node application servers have 256Mb each.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
That's why you have one of these hosts files set up.
"OpenOffice still has a way to go to compete against that impression in large companies. CIO's are cautious about making a big move unless they feel real comfortable that they understand the costs involved."
Yeah those CIO's are real cautious
The chem lab where I used to work received one of those bsa audit letters when they were hitting the east coast. Apparently, they must be mailing the letters based on a business yellow pages listing, because the lab was using windows 3.1 as the latest and greatest software, and none of their software was ever "registered" (though all properly licensed) to anyone's knowledge. The machine shop next door received a bsa letter the same day as the lab. Same with other businesses on the block, including a couple that don't have any computers at all.
After the bsa letter was received, the owner asked one of us to make a chart comparing what an upgrade to windows would cost, vs an upgrade to novell (novell 2.0 was still on one server) vs an upgrade to linux, vs an upgrade to whatever else could run the apps for the lab.
The subsequent meeting with the tech consultant who provided occasional tech support to go over the numbers lasted less than ten minutes. When the owner realized what the licensing costs were, linux was chosen within the ten minutes.
The result was no forced upgrades, we finally had (I no longer work there) networking and communication like the rest of the business world, and we weren't limited to only one desktop with access to the customer database/billing/invoicing/everything else. And we had staroffice (later switched to openoffice) on all the desktops, instead of one with word and wordperfect.
There have been no crashes or unscheduled shutdowns/reboots, and the server has been running 24/7 for over two years now (I still visit regularly).
The cost was $250 fee for the consultant to set up the server, and he guaranteed the labor for 30 days. The owner installed ethernet cards he bought from ebay for $6 each in the desktops, and all the desktops boot from the server over the network. There are also emergency floppies and cds to boot desktops individually in case the server goes down, until the tech can get there to fix the server. The server hasn't gone down yet. And its basically nothing new, as accessing the old database server involved inserting a floppy and rebooting anyway.
So the lab now runs one windows desktop so that the owner can im his friends on aol at night (he has no life) and everything else is linux.
According to the other posts on this topic on slashdot today, it can be said that the lab runs windows on the desktop because it has one windows desktop. Everything else is running linux, including the server, and all the desktops (except the old IBM PC's, which are still running dos 6.0 or earlier). That's what you are doing trying to rationalize the report, saying that the report is reporting that companies running one linux desktop is reported as the whole company running linux, right? Actually, if the lab were to fire up the novell 2.0 server, it could be said that the company is running novell 2.0 on the desktop, right?
btw, from what I've been told, the company's novell 2.0 install was running 24/7 since novell 2.0 was first released (whatever year that was) until it was shut down a little over 2 years ago because the owner feared the hard drive would eventually crash, so he transferred newer database info to one of the client hard drives, then shut it down. He was even afraid to shut it down in case it wouldn't start up again when he needed to transfer older data from the database.
I've been asked for help over the past couple of years for by a small business contractor, but have always bumped up against the OpenOffice translation problem, so just helped with with the File/Print server on RH.
Finally, I said to hell with MS in any new office installs unless they don't want my help. Amazingly, OpenOffice works like hell on wheels when it isn't having to translate screwed up table formats, etc., and the contractor is able to lower his price for desktop support by a third because of far fewer infected/BSD'd machines. (Admittedly, he's really scoring here because his daily calls dropped by more than 70% at the new sites, and emergency calls stopped altogether.)
I guess the moral of the story is, make a clean break from MS whenever possible to realize the greatest efficiency increase, period.
BTW, none of those linux servers / desktops have ever lost any data or 'blue screened'. Newest versions of Mozilla seem to be THE exception, and the users can handle these problems ~90% of the time.
I am a physician in a large multispecialty group practice that is part of a somewhat larger organization (approx 250 employees). As soon as I came here I repartioned my hard drive, kept 25% as Win98 and used the remaining to install Debian. I rarely boot into Windows. (Being one of the physicians, I was sort of allowed to do whatever I want after promising the relevant parties I knew what I was doing and wouldn't screw anything up. I don't think the secretaries would be allowed to repartition their drives).
The funny part is that the computer support folks have barely even heard of Linux. I showed my Debian install to the junior level guy who comes around to take care of simple problems on the Windows boxes, thinking he would be impressed. I told him "Debian - you know - Linux, open source, KDE, etc" and received only a blank stare in return. I explained that it was a unix-style operating system, which seemed to eliminate any interest on his part. His boss certainly knows what Linux is, but has virtually no personal experience outside of Windows.
drop by when you have spare time, to show her gimp and scribus. Even if it's just for the giggles.
Scribus may not be at the same level as Quark, but it's highly doubtful she uses the full capabilities of Quark anyway, like most users. As for gimp, it ain't photoshop, but it works for me, and it ain't $1,000 either.
And the kicker is that she can run the apps on all the other desktops without licensing worries.
At a minimum, she'll have an option when she runs into trouble with the mac, and better yet, you may even get her number!
Just lose the pocket protector before you walk in.
MPU, blinding idea ;)
you are already dead meat in the job market if you ask me ... jeez.
...
It doesn't matter if it's young kids. Kids are not retarded they're just young: let them learn "word processing" on their own for god's sake. Teach them some history, some grammar and some math instead.
Teach them how to manage information
I know everything else that you posted. I don't know what application servers are, but I've seen them listed as "java" and "j2ee" application servers, and know that sun and ibm are offering these.
Can you elaborate? Can I run an application server without java? Without sun? Not looking to start a flame war, but sun is dead imho, in the next couple of years because they are spurning linux.
Can I run an application server on linux?
You explained what the topology basically is, but if it's possible to run the application server on linux, can you give a few details for a better understanding?
Thanks. Slowly making the switch to linux on a few family business setups, and the application server sounds like a good idea if I can do it on linux and don't have to learn or even use java.
Forget sun. And java. And application servers. The only beef you need to concentrate on is your data. For that, use 3ware ata cards and raid 5 with hot spare, or buy a nas setup if you really, really, count and charge your internal labor hours.
Instead of login/application servers, get one decent, reliable box for login, install clusterKnoppix, and then add $200 walmart/tigerdirect boxes on the network, running clusterKnoppix. Adding memory to these boxes is a joke, and you won't be using the hard drives for the work, so the hard drive sizes don't matter. You'll be getting 1.3 Ghz or so of processor power, plus around gig of ram for under $300 per box, and you'll have the clustering power of openMosix running your company. And the faster desktops will take some of the load as well when not in use. And best of all, as you add employees, you just add more walmart/tigerdirect boxes for more power. One goes down? Move it to the side, add another, pull the memory from the one that went down, and continue on.
My installs of clusterKnoppix have had fantastic uptime and solid stability, exactly what I would expect from linux in general, and debian in particular. And once you install to the hard disk, it no longer is a clusterKnoppix/Knoppix install, but a debian/openMosix install.
In this case I'm talking about a Linux PC, a Solaris/HP-UX/AIX workstation, doesn't matter as long as it has Grid Engine[1] and the application you want to run installed.
We had a load of Sun workstations sitting 98% idle on engineers desks, we took them away, put them into racks and installed the applications the engineers used onto an NFS server so they were available to all the machines. You could do the same with Linux boxes, and if I was putting new systems in I'd probably use Linux.
An application is started by 2 scripts. The first script is run on the login host from a Gnome menu and all it does is submit a request to run a job on the grid using the Grid Engine qsub command, the second script is the job which you want to run and it starts the application, OpenOffice as an example. The Grid Engine system copies the submitted run script over to a queue on the least loaded machine and runs it, up pops OpenOffice on your desktop.
It's really very simple and nothing to do with Java, though it's worth noting that the systems set up as grid nodes should all be configured identically so it doesn't matter which the application starts on.
It's a highly scalable system, you can go from 10 users to 1000 by adding login servers, grid nodes and network capacity, all completely transparently. Grid engine handles the high availability of the execution hosts automatically and a round robin DNS entry or IP failover on the login servers can add high availability to those as well.
[1] Any network queueing and load balancing system should be able to do the job, but SGE is easy to use, easy to get hold of, is free and runs on most platforms.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
After all, the current events are really getting the discussion going for proper copyright honoring online. Most people kinda know they aren't supposed to download copyrighted software, but it's always been a grey area. Now that MS and the RIAA is cracking down is a GREAT time to start exposing OSS/ free software! We really need to use this to our advantage. Maybe even offer up a few PSAs touting the advantage of GNU/Linux...and start marketing cute Tux toys to kids. We really should get some kind of media push to mention OSS everytime they mention RIAA crackdowns, etc...Then people will finally see the need for OSS and start to seek it out!
This biog of analyst Joe Wilcox who produced the report for Jupiter Research:
As a senior analyst with Jupiter Research, Joe Wilcox largely focuses on Microsoft and illuminating the right strategies for efficiently deploying Microsoft products, smartly partnering with the software giant or competing more effectively with the fast-moving rival. Wilcox is part of Jupiter Research's Microsoft Monitor team. He is main contributor to the Microsoft Monitor Weblog, which, as a companion to the larger service, offers spot analysis on breaking Microsoft news or shifting strategies. Wilcox's Microsoft experience dates back to his work as a high-tech news reporter, where he honed skills for ferreting out the "real meaning" behind companies' product and business strategies. Most recently, he worked for CNET News.com, first as the reporter covering Compaq, Dell, Gateway, HP and IBM and later Microsoft. As the lead reporter covering Microsoft, Wilcox developed a reputation for to-the-point news analysis. He also took charge of CNET News.com's legal coverage, particularly Microsoft's government, European Union and private antitrust cases.
Given the close ties to MS suggested by the biog the report wasn't as rabidly anti OO.org as it could have been. What do you folks think?
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
and we use Linux servers for our databases (Postgresql), Linux for our industrial machine drivers, Linux for our web access (much safer than windows) but we still use Win2K as desktop clients. Our office suite is Star Office though and we are very stable and please with the combination. Problems, none! One day the Win2K may go away but not the Postgresql, it is the most stable piece of software in our businesses.
Look up Jupiter Research some time. They will "research" anything and provide the response that the researchee is looking for.
Look for reports they have produced involving the RIAA, Microsoft and numerous others. They will trot out whatever "research" is needed to prove the story of the day to be true.
I'd say the same goes for Mercury "Research"....
Quizo69
Visceral Psyche Films
Here is an article from a magazine called "Technological Horizons in Education" that is called "Making the switch to open source software", detailing a school that does indeed use OpenOffice to teach these much-needed word processing skills.
m
http://www.thejournal.com/magazine/vault/A4499.cf
...and he owes you one fish.
Teach a man to fish and you have a competitor for life.
At least, that's how Microsoft work it out.
Speaking of money-grubbing scum, I haven't seen any SCOX propaganda since Thursday. What's going on?
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
I agree with you that its the freedom to just get it and install on an old computer rather than go through the hassles, but Linux is just a swiss army knife. We were trying to run a VPN solution, proxy server, antivirus server, webserver, lotus domino test server, fileserver etc on a windows 2000 advanced server and we were still running into obstacles. To be fair, another techie at my workplace doesnt know Linux very well and will have more problems with it around. Hopefully, the presence of Linux will convince him to get more acquainted with it, and use it later for other kinds of patchwork.
"Give orange me give eat orange me eat orange give me eat orange give me you." -Nim Chimpsky