InformationWeek On Windows-Linux Interoperability

prostoalex writes "InformationWeek magazine has a lengthy article about the issues that enterprises face when vying for Linux+Windows interoperability, as most of the corporate infrastructures are seldom monocultural. What's also interesting is the InformationWeek surveys of the IT professionals. The following questions are asked and the responses to them are nicely graphed: 1) Reasons for choosing Windows, 2) Reasons for choosing Linux, 3) Top Windows concerns, 4) Top Linux concerns, 5) Top interoperability issues."

Comments

Interoperability v compatability

[puregen1us]

Interoperabilty needs help from both sides. Both involved parties must decide on a standard then write software to adhere to it.
eg. all mp3 players play the same mp3s. One mp3 can play on all players because of the standard.

In order to sell an mp3 player it either has to have better features that the standard implements or have more human=friendly features eg. its smaller, better looking etc.

Here microsoft coes out with a system. Then the OSS teams try to reverse engineer it and create a compatable system. Then microsoft changes it.

Therein lies the problem. Microsoft is not trying to interoperate. OSS is trying to be compatible. They are always following, and not creating. Mainly because they don't have a market base to force products onto to get a lead.

OSS needs a killer-app style product/system/something to get the lead, so that microsoft will have to try to be compatible.

True interoperability cannot happen without support from bothsides. OSS just needs to make microsoft want to help. Easier said than done.

What keeps linux out of some of my offices...

[rosewood]

Farmers Insurance agents were given a free Dell with windows 2000 and Office XP. Many of my agents want to be able to use exchange with outlook and linux has yet to give me a workable clone of exchange that works with outlook.

Yes, Ive tried suse slox and ive tried the outlook connector -- but when an address book sorts by company and creates a bunch of blank entries for an entry with no company -- it does not work.

If someones could get on the ball in that arena, I would think a few more people would be switching over.

Graph scale different - not obvious, but important

[mattdm]

I brought the various graphs up in different windows for side-by-side comparison, and at first missed something interesting -- the scale on the graphs is different. For example, the "Linux Concerns" graph goes from 0-40%, while the "Windows Worries" one goes all the way up to 80%.

A quick visual comparison makes it seem that people are as worried about "Lack of a complete and fully integrated software environment" and "Accountability if problems arise" on Linux as they are about the top MS Windows issues, "Software quality or vulnerabilities" and "Cost of ownership is too high". Not so -- in fact, the top concerns with Linux are down near the middle of the MS Windows scale.

Wine

[IamTheRealMike]

It's pretty frustrating to read at the end:

On the other end of the spectrum are the many commercial and internally developed applications that have been written for Windows but not ported to Linux. With those, Handy says, "there isn't interoperability" at all.

As somebody who is available for hire to make apps (any apps) work on Linux via Wine, I must point out that this is just blatently not true. I (and many others) have been hired before by companies wishing to move their infrastructure to Linux. For custom software, the job is often reasonably straightforward as the source is available, but even for 3rd party apps the company uses it is still possible.

So, to say there is no interoperability is not true. Typically, if you do the math, you may find it is cheaper to hire a Wine developer for a time to make your apps work on Linux than continue to license Windows for all the machines needed.