Slashdot Mirror
Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More
securitas writes "Jupiter Research has issued a report that says businesses that choose to stay with Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more than if they chose another solution. Software Assurance clients will see the lowest costs and SA-have-nots will see the highest costs. The rationale is that Microsoft's strategy of integrating server and client software, as it has done with the new Windows Server 2003 and Microsoft Office 2003 suite, will force costly upgrades and licenses. Ultimately the goal is to transform Office into a platform instead of a collection of applications. Analyst Joe Wilcox says, "Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear." This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice. More on costs and integration at Jupiter/Wilcox's Microsoft Monitor Blog."
That is, if you pay for them *nudge nudge wink wink*
You mean the ones that paid for Windows upgrades that probably won't get them since a new Windows version won't be out in the contracted time?
aren't you?
Surely if a company went with all open source software going with Microsoft would cost them a literally infinite amount more?
I have over 70 freaks, do you?
2. Consumers who use Microsoft have to pay more
The logic is impressive.
This is the exact reason why my computer still runs Windows 3.11.
If your time is worth say, $12 an hour, and it takes 20 minutes to copy a file on linux, while only 2 minutes on windows, then the costs add up. Linux would cost around $4 while windows would cost just $0.40. So that $3.60 saving will add up.
The purchase price is just one part of TCO.
Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More
Really. Did they figure that one out themselves or do they have a team of monkeys working on this around the clock?
... company has monopoly. Company has losts of customers. Company sees sagging bottom line. Company raises prices.
The next step? Company doesn't have as many customers.
Peter M. Dodge,
Chief Executive Officer,
LiquidFire Studios
Platinum Linux - www.
Just go down to the Free Admin Depot and pick up some guys to run it all?
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
That's assuming they download every single piece of software from the project sites and order no distributions of Linux, etc. from large companies like Red Hat or Mandrake.
Sorry, my karma just ran over your dogma.
It "May" cost more.. hurrah! \o/
In all fairness, it probably will end up costing more... until you need support.
MCSEs (yes, they do know how to fix common issues with MS platforms) are a dime a dozen.
Can you say the same about support for other platforms?
No, you have to think of the TCO. Support, training, updates, IT staff, time spent, etc...
No solution is cost free.
Yea...Microsoft wants to save you money. That's why they extort money out of everyone with "maintenance" plans and "pay now or you will ultimately pay more later" threats. They even have the nerve to send us threatening letters telling us that we "may" not be in compliance with their licensing agreements. Basically, they are telling me that I am too stupid to read their license agreements and that they KNOW what is going on inside my organization without ever having set foot in the door. That is scary stuff imho.
FuckMicrosoft.com has the largest list of Microsoft-alternative software that I have ever seen.
"Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more than if they chose another solution" but..."Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs... but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen." Uh, like the 10%-40% increase has yet to be seen. It MAY cost more, but it MAY cost less!!!
There are other costs associated with software than the upfront cost paid. This article does not account for those costs. Second, for those under SA you don't see the big costs of upgrading.
Costs that come up when switch.
Testing (QA) on the new product, mainly to help develop some means of support across the organization; ie standards. You also have to determine the best install of the package and how to deliver it. (is it easy to push?)
Training. Sure it might LOOK like package X. The key is finding the quirks that generate support calls and find solutions.
Prior investment. If it works, its even cheaper to not upgrade and keep the old stuff.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
I assume you're joking, however I'll still bite. You've made several bad assumptions:
Enterprise level software from companies like Red Hat *ARE NOT FREE*. Customer support and upgrades cost $$$. And I did not even mention the most likely SCO license fee's.
I mean, if you think of software as only needing x amount of functionality in the first place, with little or no noticable productivity gains seen from upgradeing to the next major version, the question will pop up; Why upgrade at all?
Troll!
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.
"means some enterprises may end up paying 10 to 40 percent more" some... may... does not equal "issued a report that says businesses that choose to stay with Microsoft products may end up paying anywhere from 10%-40% more" The research is a little flawed, it makes no comparison of features or the benefits that come with the MS server products (good or bad, the data needs to be there). This is GREAT data for any enterprise that is using it's office suite for word processing... but there are not many of those, most are doing a little extra work with the software that they purchase.
Don't forget to check out the recently released OpenOffice.org 1.1. Unlike previous versions of OpenOffice.org, it has wonderful font handling, looks like a native application, improved office file formats support, and most importantly, it's FAST. Now it only takes about 4 seconds to load on my machine, compared to around 30 for 1.0. Download it now.
Windows Version
Linux version
Other versions
Actually, some of us get work done on Macs. Probably more work per hour than you do sitting at your pile of parts scattered on your desk. :)
The hardware on which it runs is part of the Total Cost of Ownership. Assuming the same baseline underlying hardware, there is a cost of ownership bar on which both solutions begin. The hardware itself is a fixed cost, before any software is considered.
You're making a funny, right? Only if the open source software is free. And then the purchase price of software is only one factor in the ultimate price-there is support, IT, training, hardware. After you consider all the costs then purchase price probably is one of the smaller costs.
I for one am shocked by these figures.
;)
10-40% is far too low to be plausible.
This leaves the door open for other office suites like Corel WordPerfect, Sun StarOffice and OpenOffice.
IIRC, MS Office costs anywhere from 2 or 3 times, in the case of WP, to 00 (that should be an infinity, but two zeros side by side is the best I could do) times, in the case of OOo, as much as MS Office. To my recollection, MS Office has always cost lots more than its competitors, but plenty of people still buy it and plenty of people frown at the idea of a "work-alike" or whatever you want to call it. As much as I would like to see Corel, Sun and OOo eat MS's lunch on the office suite (and I think we are approaching that) there is lots of inertia to overcome.
I hope jupiter reserch does a study on gentoo users and thier higher then average OTC drug use.
Well, you don't have to worry too much about 24/7 uptime. Not with all those patches that require the fscking machine to be rebooted!
Is it just me or do the slashdot editors post some story comparing the TCO of linux and something else EVERY DAY???
Isn't this a little excessive? Does it occur to anyone that the TCO of deployment for an OS might be different for different companies in different industries? Does it occur to them that one study doesn't answer the question with any finality at all?
All this inspires is the same worthless conversation about it with all the IT people (and 15 year olds who claim to be) arguing for and against linux and something else.
Why not real news?
Oh wait...this is slashdot...
Brian
"Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen...
Yeah, like how integration of IE into windows OS has cut down on maintenance costs.
"Microsoft argues that increased integration will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear."
,. as in implied ownership.
.. as in a company can justifibly stop supporting patching for a version past a certain point .. if you have to pay every year or lose the ability to safely use a piece of software than you are not getting anything lasting for your money.
,. but not necessarily to small business or some corporate purchasers .. like the fact that at some places ,.unless it's written into the contract explicitly ,. you have to "purchase" a copy of windows with the PC and than "purchase" the right to use that software over and over again
Perhaps microsoft needs to usurp & change another dictionary word,. like the apparent change of acquisition from a word meaning to aquire
To a new usage defined closer to "toll, some thing paid each and every time used."
Last time I checked, if you purchased 100 copies of WordPerfect( software anymore. While the issue of updates is a valid one
These are all obvious facts
:goatsecx:
oh wait
they obviously drank cough syrup.
-WIPO Troll>all you fagballs.
Only assuming that there are no other costs to software than purchase price. In general support needed by users (for IT depts), training (if any) needed for using tools, time needed to learn tools (OS or non-OS), all have associated costs. And in these areas, open source solutions have costs too, even if there's no sticker price.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
we have heard it all... microsoft sucks but cant we put it in the title and move on???
"slashdot, News for nerds, Microsoft sucks" that becasue 80% of the news on slashdot is how much SCO or Microsoft is evil... I got it...BAD!!! make a microsoft section and dont make the MS BS appear on the front page anymore..
and no this isnt a troll... I really just am getting tired of it and dont see how everyone else isnt. I for one want more biotech, nanotech and hard science news... even if its not big news, it would be interesting which is what news is supposed to be, informative and interesting, and SCO and MS news is now neither...
just my $.02... but I know all of you think im right even if just a little bit..
I wonder who at Jupiter Research will get canned for this report. Surely MS has some pull somewhere to get the author of this blasphemous report fired.
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
...something I don't already know.
:).
PS. It's a heck of a lot more than 10 - 40%, but we're getting there
I am sure they did not include all the significant factors. Security? Own your own data or have to ransom it from MS someday? Cheaper admin, one good admin can replace 4 MCSE. I suspect the costs for MS will come down when they actually have to compete but that remains to be seen.
If you look at the actual article, they note that "Wilcox estimates that firms taking Microsoft up on its offer to integrate back-end processes with front-end client software on the desktop may run up tabs 10 to 40 percent higher than with earlier editions of Microsoft's products, depending on the server licenses and client access licenses (CALs) they purchase. "
That is all. This is not a comparison against Linux, Macintosh or whatever competing Office suites may be left. This is simply an alalysis of how Microsoft's vendor lock-in--- umm, i mean, how the vertical integration of Microsoft's products affects the amount that companies will pay to use those products.
Isn't it grand how monopolies lower prices for consumers because they're more Efficient? Ahhh.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
It doesn't take into account the real costs of running software -- the Total Cost of Ownership, or TCO. For any business, the licensing costs for software are only a fraction of the money required to run and support that software, so a marginal increase in licensing costs is not a major issue. But its well known that in TCO terms, due to its superior ease of use and ease of maintenance, Microsoft software comes out far ahead of other solutions. I don't see anything in this story indicating that has changed, so I think most responsible business will stick with Windows, Office, and the rest of the MS software lineup until there is a legitimate atlernative in terms of TCO.
otc cough remedies and patched 2.6 test kernels are an unbeatable combination.
You have to pay people to keep fucking patching windows every week!
/pissed off windows user.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
that if I want to have a windows XP based Media Center PC, I have to buy the over priced crap from computer makers. I could get a bunch or good hardware together for 400 bucks, but the lowest POS is 899 and does not include a DVD-+R/RW
(of course, mu price would include canabalised hardware liek a case and Proc, and a hard drive. but damn-it, I want to frigen have the same thing.....)
oh well, I guess I will ahve to use this
to bad mythTV and Freevo do not have a ready to install Linux solution, that would make them a kick ass option. to much work to get them working right now.
I am the Alpha and the Omega-3
...a new feature of Office2003 and onward looks set to be the ability for emails to 'auto-destruct' (I suppose it would have something set on the server and would only work with MS Exchange etc).
Details are here: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3205080.stm
Now, given the stresses banks and governments can have in court trials with incriminating emails popping up this could be something corporates would be happy to pay 10-40 percent more for.
--
FreeNET user? Comfortable with the adverse selection?
Or just install Debian, which has everything prepackaged... and incedently is free too.
X=OS product
Y=Microsoft product
X * (inf) = Y
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
I can't speak for my entire organization, but I can speak for my department of 20 people.
We've made the switch away from Microsoft. About 2/3 of us use RH9; the other 1/3rd use Mac OS X. I'm one of the linux guys.
In a nutshell, we've managed (with some pain) to completely unload Microsoft. Pretty good, eh?
Our primary Office products are Open Office and Mozilla (for Web & Email).
Needless to say, we are an IT-centric organization, so we can take care of ourselves pretty well. In addition, our organization never standardized on the "viral" Microsoft practices, namely "MS-Exchange".
The savings? Well, for starters, there is the fee for Microsoft Office for 20 people. Plus we were able to get rid of our IT support guy (he was a contractor - we paid about $50k/year for his services - VERY PART TIME).
That's all pretty substantial $$$ - and it's money that flows right out the door.
The downside? Well, none really. It was difficult at first - we had a bunch of older docs in Visio and PPT 2000 format and stuff like that.
Now we have one PC in the office just for Windows.
It's kind like the old days when you had an unused microfiche machine in the back room.
Correct me if I'm wrong.
Half an year from now, Microsoft pulls out of the hat a new Office (replace with OS, Visual Studio etc. as needed) due to peer/boss/underling pressure the net-admins/IT officers/whatchucallemthings has to do an upgrade - because upgrades are free - almost, aren't they? Sooner, rather than later and certainly sooner than they would choose to (if win98 was stable would you have upgraded? - mine worked fine enough). So you sweep the cost of the upgrade, time, hardware - 'cause you have to change some, you didn't think it would behave on your old hardware, did you? - under the rug, grind your teeth to the gums, and do the upgrade - welcome the brave new world - no stabler, no cleaner, no faster than before, and yet still an all out eye sore.
Better off without, I reckon!
The overu'se of apo'strophe's i's a pandemic of pointle'ss proportion's.
Well, we just replaced 30 of our desktops at work with Debian.
Exchange was a bit of trouble of course, but we did get it solved. www.opengroupware.org.
Otherwise, our setup is pretty easy. OpenLDAP is our directory server... like AD, it hosts users/groups/otherstuff. Each desktop is configured to get account information from it.
Home directories are mounted over NFS.
Email is handled by Postfix, Cyrus IMAP. Two very easy packages.
OpenGroupware let use get teh Calendar/Contact stuff. We're using their Web Interface on Linux. We don't have a whole lot of shared stuff going on, so it's totally fine.
Outlook can connect to OGo with the ZideLOok plugin, which isn't free, obviously, as you have to license MAPI stuff.
ALl in all though, we came out better. Where it took me (the only IT employee except my boss) 100% of my time to just manage the windows workstations/servers, deploy patches, come in on weeks, etc, it's still just me... and im pretty bored most of the time. Other than the few windows workstations we have left (5?) nothing ever breaks... ever. At all.
Cost wise... we used Debian. It's monitarily free. All the packages are free. ZideLook set us back a bit for the 5 workstations... but overall it saves me enough time to be worth it.
Oh, we got our VB6 applications working too. I came up with an ingenious idea for this. Run them thru the VB7 conversion wizard. Patch them up a bit, and then run them on Mono. It actually WORKS.
I'd say, we spent... total on actual products, 400$.
Took me about a week of my time to learn all the packages. Now, I know im a smart person, but it took me over a month to fully understand AD to the same level I understand what we've set up now.
Oh, Samba 3.0 is authenticating with LDAP too... that services our domain needs.
You can log onto Unix, and your home directory is there... and then log onto windows, and behold H: is also your home directory.
Password synchronization was EASY. Samba 3.0 has it built in. 2.2 was a LOT harder (had to write a script, or download a script from the net).
OpenOffice for our office stuff. HEre we had a bit of a problem. We had some very complex spreadsheets running in Excel. I'm talking hundreds of macros. Insane stuff. THey're still running on the windows box. But this is ancient stuff, we really wanna rewrite it web based anyways...
Anyways, it's not as hard as people think. Overall it IS cheeper. It runs a lot better too.
TCO is dead. Long live ROI!
Did you flunk grade 2 math when they were teaching the basic operators? Multiplication is not defined for infinity. Infinity does not have a place on the number line (anyone who wants to say it's at the end is just going to prove their ignorance).
Open source does that to Microsoft not because Microsoft is better but because they are the dominate platform right now. To compete they have to be compatable. If I tell my company they should switch to openoffice and they cannot share files with their partner company that uses Microsoft Office, it is a non-starter not because Microsoft is better but becaause it is the most widely used and you have to have compatability with it.
Free software costs less than not-free software! Details at eleven.
Well, in the case of foo*0=5, foo has to be inf.
GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
Not really, since a company going with all OSS would still have to pay the $699 fee per workstation.
Microsoft Ex Pee Home Edition (Upgrade): 84.49 quid
Microsoft Ex Pee Home edition (Full): 163.30 quid
Microsoft Ex Pee Professional Edition (Upgrade): 168.99 quid
Microsoft Ex Pee Professional Edition (Full): 251.99 quid
Microsoft Ex Pee Office (Standard): 333.99 quid
Microsoft Ex Pee Office (Professional): 397.99 quid
A boxed version of SuSE Linux costs about 60 quid for the PRO version, and about 30 quid for the home version. Of course, you can get it for free, same for OpenOffice. As a home user, I cringe to think what companies (and governments, with taxpayers money) are paying out in license fees for MS software.
-- Fuck Beta
dear worker drones:
- My Documents is now
/home/drone
- you'll be using mozilla instead of IE for the internet. you'll notice the lack of popups.
- the big K = start button
Thanks.management.
p.s. since we have transitioned over to linux, and saved shitloads, we'll be upping the christmas, er, holiday bonus this year.
sure, there is support options. but look at it this way: if you save money on software licenses, virus attacks, security holes, etc., then you got a few bucks to hire a linux admin. nuff said. it is that easy. businesses just have to be willing to bite the bullet.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
not Troll. Just a RTFA.
Check the survey that asks how mans % think that MS is doing enough to enhance WinLin interoperability. I think it's 12% or 13%... so there is an overwhelming majority that wishes MS would say:
"Hmm... how can we make Office emulate OpenOffice? How can we make our desktop look like KDE? How can we share files with SMB?".
bickerdyke
I just read this story on BBC about Outlook 2003:0 .stm
:)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/320508
I decided to email them on: newsonline.complaints@bbc.co.uk
to mention that they forgot to metion the MS-lock-in angle. Perhaps others should as well
- Henrik
Oh, all this was chosen after we took a look at our local linux user's groups, and came to the conclusion that if I got hit by a train on the way home one day, 40 other people would be available in our immediate area to assist.
Of course it doesn't. You have to remember, Slashdot editors suffer the same brand if inadequacy a lot of young Linux boosters do. They feel they have something to prove, and they won't shut up until you start taking them seriously.
This is part of the reason a lot of people don't take Linux seriously. The difference between the younger more inexperienced and easily ego-bruised Linux users and the old fuddy-duddies is that the young ones act like they're on some sort of crusade. They forget that it's about making technology work, and sharing that technology so that everyone can have a shot at it. It's not about religion and politics. When I sit in front of my computer every morning, I don't think about how I'm sticking it to the man because my Operating system is free. I'm thinking about how I'm using the best solution for the task at hand.
Perhaps the mystery team of MIT mathematicians from SCO worked this all out, after all they seem to have completely disappeared from the face of the earth, perhaps this math problem is what has had them occupied! :)
The Matrix is real... but I'm only visiting!
How hard was that illogical statement to conjure up? Did you break a sweat? Way to play devil's advocate bucko.
1) TCO
2) Bandwidth/Media costs
3) Expertise
Too easy to ignore as stupidity, except to the few of us who can't keep our mouths shut and blather something from the above list of easy retorts.
And me, who reflexively replies to your posts whenever possible because you don't deserve a positive correlation with anything on this forum.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
Linux is only free if your time is worth nothing.
There seems to be this notion that Open Source = = Free Software. This is not strictly so. Many companies produce Open Source software for which they charge for.
Integrating Internet Explorer into Windows is monopolistic.
Integrating Media Player into Windows is monopolistic.
and integrating MS Office into Windows errr... isn't?
Hmmmmmm..... Deep fried and look like Squirrel.
We all know it takes 20 minutes while we sit here waiting for MacOS to copy the file, and no one can figure out why, while it takes 40 seconds for Windows NT.
With linux, the file is on an FTP mirror list and already copied everywhere it's important.
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
The article is not about the cost difference between say Office and Open Office, but between the current pricing and software structure versus the future.
It would be ludicrous to use this articele as a vehicle to prove the viability of Star Office, say, versus Office. I find the description of this article very misleading. Any new generation/paradigm(is it a paradigm? I'll check Kuhn) can result in a rise in total cost of acquisition or even ownership.
This applies to any software, free or not. If PHP or HTTP were radically changed, would it not require significant investment to reintegrate old applications? IPv6, while necessary in the lon run will undoubetedly cause an initial cost of migration.
What are the costs of migrating from office to Open Office? What are the costs of then intregrating Open Office into the organization as tool for scheduling, data sharing, etc.?
We aren't interested in fair here!
Choosing Microsoft Products May Cost 10-40% More
I thought Kazaa was working to fix this problem?
if that was only possible. The problem is that key apps are windows apps for small business. For example UPS world ship software, essential shipping integration software from UPS, comes only in a window version, small business software such as Quickbooks is available for windows only, etc. I long for the day when I can buy reasonable priced software with comparable features that runs under Linux.
infinity times zero is undefined and not arbitrary.
infinity times your humor is still zero though.
Hrm, shame you posted as an AC because you bring up some very good points.
/. MCSE's are easier to find. Some of them actually even know what they are doing but...still.
I think many people like the functionality of MS products, like Exchange, and think that moving over to something else will be a very big hassle so they just stay with an all MS solution but they just don't know enough.
Key of course is getting a good set of admins and then letting them goto work. Of course having a good set of admins is key for any enterprise level IT but as has been noted many times before here on
Really, I know what I'm doing...Ohhhh, look at the shiny buttons!
No, there are training, maintenance and support costs assoctiated with software even if the software itself is free. However, at this point it seems highly unlikely that any of those costs are lower for M$ products than for open source. In fact, given the number of patches coming out lately for M$ software, I would have to guess that the maintenance costs are much higher for M$ software. I find any claims about TCO being lower for XP than open source or even previous M$ products to be "extremely dubious" (which is a polite way of saying "utter and complete bullshit!")
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Ever since the dawn of Windows 95 they have been saying pretty much the same marketing non-sense. Yet with every new issue of a Microsoft OS you almost have to or HAVE TO upgrade the hardware.
In any business environment hardware costs can run into serious coinage. So now that Win2003 is the next best thing to sliced bread I suppose all the hype and non-sense about how great their past OS's were was nothing but a bunch of marketing bull.
My karma is not a Chameleon.
It's better to just have a Mac in the case of cost you mention (virus/exploit)
... Macs have FAR less down time in my personal IT experience as well.
Also, I think POS (with mac POS) and database with a secure version of excel or better yet FileMaker is a better option than any Microsoft offering as well.
Honestly and unbiasly I say this as well
Yell & scream & rant & rave... it's no use... you need a shaaaave ~ Bugs Bunny
as well as well as well ;)
Though, I'd agree - it'd also cost a lot to switch whole platforms and "training" to a Mac. This was just addressing software.
See subject.
While important, this article only addresses the cost of licenses, which most IT pros will tell you is on a fraction of the TCO for a system.
The remainder -- staffing costs, infrastructure requirements, etc. -- are what make up a bulk of the TCO.
Then, of course, you have to take that TCO and factor it into an ROI study to see if it's actually "worth it" in dollar figures to implement the system.
This is where Microsoft often beats Linux flat. In addition to the fact that Microsoft-trained staffers are significantly cheaper that Linux-trained staffers, there's the cost and hassle of the migration to worry about. Seeing as most companies only look to next quarter, it's seen as an increase in cost, not a decrease.
These rising costs, though, will encourage more and more companies to take the leap. As the required refresh cycle for software and hardware continues to get longer and longer, companies will start to look 5, 10, even 15 years down the road in respect to their planning, and Linux will begin to have an edge.
Problem is for many large companies that have been on the MOLP train for years, it would be really hard for them to seek alternatives.
Its part of the plan, force people into staying, and funding, microsoft.
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This article did not compare MS software to "other solutions". It compared different MS software packages to each other.
TCO is completely irrelivant.
"Microsoft argues that worldwide "666" marks on hand and foreheads will cut down ongoing costs, maintenance and what not, but whether that will be the case has yet to be seen. The increased acquisition costs, though, are pretty clear."
This story isn't about TCO. It doesn't compare Microsoft products to non-Microsoft products. It's about costs forced upon current users of Microsoft products as a result of actions Microsoft is taking that will result in forced upgrades and cost increases.
Absolutely no one in this discussion read the actual article. Everyone is responding to the summary/blurb.
absolutely.
....etc etc etc.
from someone who has been in several med/large corporate environments...i.e. 500, 1000, 3000, 15,000 strong and sbc as well (200,000)
i can say with certainty that training is a complete farse.
in the best of environments, it nets you almost nothing. we're not talking about On The Job Training...whereby one learns their job by doing their job.
i'm talking about classes, conferences, on staff trainers...in house and out sourced Microsoft Office training, Windows 101
it's a load of crap.
if you've got a boat load of stupid people on your staff..you are so screwed...cause training isn't going to help.
sharp ppl will figure things out, good departments pull together to make sure new additions get EXACTLY the knowledge they need to do their job...no more no less.
i'm sure a few exceptions exist...and i'm sure they will be replying shortly.
Yes, companies really do have asswipes who don't know which end of a mouse to click. The place I work at has 130 people, and after twenty years of training them - or trying to - I have the same stupid faces saying "but I have 1000 emails in my inbox"! Did you check it in the last 6 months? "No, I forgot how". And you CANNOT fire them thanks to unions and protective laws.
Of course, they are middle aged. the younger staff are more compentent, but we have to prosecute them for trying to steal products. So, yes, there reall are MANY places saddled with nitwits who can't or won't learn.
It's not a monopolistic powerplay to squeeze companies out of every dime possible by integrating clients and servers, it is a feature!
No trees were harmed in the composition of this; however, numerous electrons were inconvenienced.
I don't have the will to read the thing, but whats the point of a study to find out something may be something? Then in the little blurb used for the headline it is acknowledged that the switch from "collection of applications" to "platform" could possibly make up the cost. I'm not reading anything that can at best come to the conclusion something possibly could happen. Watch this:
Linux may cost more to use than Windows.
Windows may cost more to use than Mac.
Using MS Office may make your PC explode.
Using Photoshop may make you a homosexual.
I don't have any facts to back this stuff up, conditions may change, and IANAL, but in the great universe any of these things may happen. God Bless May.
Yep I understand and also think we need a more friendly website to produce information for alternatives to Microsoft software. For those of you that have seen the Blue Screen of Death, goto FuckMicrosoft.com. For those of you that enjoy a little spice with your operating system, try GNU/Lesbian or RTFM OS. And for those of you that always RTFM, try Emacs OS; just remember that when using Emacs OS, you need a good wordprocessor and the best one you can get is here.
Interesting notion. Except that it's not really true. I spend as much time tinkering with Microsoft garbage at work to get it to work as desired as I do with GNU/Linux to get it running smoothly. In fact, using GNU/Linux I can usually achieve the desired result more quickly. But maybe that's because I'm not as willing to put in an effort on the MS side, I dunno.
I do not have a signature
Ooh, 30 desktops.
Business are looking to help out the bottom line. Look at it like this.
You make $100 in a year. This puts you into a tax bracket that costs you $25 in taxes. Net for the year, $75.
But if you spend $5 in software, and claim it as an expense, you drop a bracket and you pay only $15 in taxes. Net for the year $80.
Software is a capital expenditure and depreciates at 100% per year. So you can claim it all back. Hardware I belive depreciates at either 33% or 50%/ year. Maybe even more.
Now, governments are not in the business of making money, they are in the business of spending it. Our money! Gr! So, if they can spend less by going open source then by all means, I work in the public sector, and while we run a MS Desktop and combo MS/Novell(aie!) shop. (Along with Unix, Solaris, and a whole crapload of other stuff), if they went to an open source to save crap loads of taxpayer money? Sign me up for the Linux courses and away we go.
Just some thoughts.
Excellent "case study" type material..perfect to knock the wind out of the sails of the "it can't be done" camp. You should consider doing a write up of your experience switching over. Seems it would be valuable material to give to the PHBs for reading.
-- Two in the pink, one in the sink.
Infinity does not have a place on the number line (anyone who wants to say it's at the end is just going to prove their ignorance).
But you can represent the infinite numberline as the unit circle. One point is infinity (positive and negative). With some fairly sophisticated mathematics, it works out very nicely.
It's known as a compactification of the reals.
Check it out.
Yeah it's just that simple too...bingo bango you're whole 500 employee organization is all set! Because that's all anyone does is look at an empty /home/drone and surf the web....
If you create an account (free) and log in, you can disable Microsoft and Caldera/SCO related stories in your preferences and they will not appear to you on the front page.
> VB6 applications working too. Run them thru the VB7 conversion wizard. Patch them up a bit, and then run them on Mono. It actually WORKS.
Right, you did. The VB/Mono compiler doesn't even support functions, methods, or even FOR...NEXT yet.
http://www.go-mono.com/mbas.html
YHBT, Linux Nerds.
do busineses really sit down and say, "first you take the mouse, move it over the text, push and hold the button, no the left one..."
Hell yes, they do! And it's not because their employees are "stupid" or whatever other moronic arguments you make.
If you work in IT, then it's obvious that you know something about how to use a computer. Sure, some companies expect some people in some jobs to have computer literacy skills, and usually those skills are on MS Office, or Wordperfect or Lotus 1-2-3. Training and retraining really is expensive. People in, say, accounting or manufacturing know how to do THEIR jobs, not YOURS. They don't spend their days tinkering with computers, they spend it doing a real job for which they get paid real money.
If you were to take my marketing job, I GUARANTEE you would get your ass handed to you, day in and day out, forever. You don't know how to use a machine tool? You don't know how to close a company's quarterly books? You don't know how the mailroom works? Boy, you must be a complete moron.
Yes, you're expected to know how to "use a freaking computer". That computer is called an x86 personal computer running Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office. My marketing job is not valuable unless I know how to use that OS and those applications, and I know how to use them well.
There just isn't any deep pocket funding the success story ink.
You left out how easy it is for the administrator to push out updates with Debian. :)
Amazing to me MS never seems to learn anything. It's like they're trying to soak up as much money as they can before the end. Sad. It didn't used to be that way in Redmond.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
Your drivel about our lack of ability to do marketing is completely irrelevant. The fact remains that to do YOUR job of marketing there are certain computer skills required. These skills are best acquired in an abstract manner rather than being some limited rote. This way you can actually exploit the tools available to you to more effectively do YOUR job.
The sorry fact of the matter is that computing skills are no longer purely the domain of the IT department. If you can't compute well, all of the marketing wizadry know-how in the world will probably mean jack sh*t.
Management types with dedicated secretaries that can shield them from office technology can get away with being total tech rubes.
Drones like you in the trenches really can't.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
larry + curly + moe larry + curly
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
TCO is dead. Long live ROI!
Isn't the TCO part of the ROI?
I mean.. for an accurate appraisal of the return on the investment, you have to determine what that investment and its related costs are.
Please provide some links showing how these are calculated differently. Thanks!
living with the choice costs!
Engineering is the art of compromise.
That's all?
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
There where is 1 on this numberline?
Jason
ProfQuotes
Most corporate IT environments need to embrace real document management systems, not, try and build uber applications instead.
I work at a firm whose essential strategy is try to and replace the work product of financial types in excel with collections of applications dedicated to different parts of the process. As a result of this, the business has become stagnated and locked into a process that exists largely because of the weight of money that went to create it, not because it has ever really been questioned.
Sometimes flexibility is worth more than one would think.
This is my sig.
If anybody needs a clear demonstration of how one can manipulate people by using facts and footnotes, this article is it. Forget about reading Al Franken's book about the right-wing media, this lesson has been adopted all journalists.
Basically the argument boils down to this...
If you look at Office 2003 and see all the wonderful features touted, you may have to pay 10-40% more than previous Office products to take full advantage of all the features touted.
Pay careful attention to that phrase "features touted", as that's the key of this argument. The fact is you don't have to pay for integration if you don't want to use the features. You can continue to use Office with all the existing features it's ever had in a non-integrated fashion and paying about the same.
In fact this guy isn't even arguing that the competition offers the same features for less. They don't. They just assume you don't want them.
So somehow Microsoft is being dishonest in touting features of Office because they might involve integrating with extra server products.
Uhh, whatever.
I'm intelligent, I can look at products from multiple vendors, find out the system requirements to make the product perform the features they claim, and then add up the total cost.
This article is more manipulative and deceptive than Microsoft's marketing group.
Our company migrated over to pads of paper and pencils and trimmed millions off our IT budget!
"Drones like you in the trenches really can't. "
Nor can asses such as yourself
"Using GNU/Linux I can usually achieve the desired result more quickly"
From using the excellent documentation no doubt. ROTFLMAO
News for nerds, or at least information for nerds.
If there are new TCO stories everyday, then they are more than free to post it here. It's a closed story posting system, with the only available control being the submission system for general users.
If you don't want to read them, then just skip them. It's the only choice you have.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
No sh*t sherlock!!!!!!!
Surely if the author of this thread were smart enough he/she would not have even posted it! d'oh!
Wow, way to contribute to society and the economy.
excuse me? are you trying to say Linus has contributed to neither the economy or society? pardon me while a go red in the face with laughter...
Get this, Linus has given years of virtually free labour to Linux, which is doing quite well as a server OS in many businesses that make money via its functionality...
could you please enlighten me as to how this equates to zero contribution to society?
Would you also care to inform me, how having an OS that is monitarily free (keeps money in peoples pockets), and creates jobs for sys-admins and training organizations (not to mention hundreds of other businesses using Linux in their business plan) is not contributing to the economy?
Didn't think so troll...
5468652047616D65
So you're a marketer. Your profession is to interfere in market transactions to persuade participants to make irrational decisions in your favor. That's defective and antisocial behavior.
All other things being equal, the more a company spends on marketing, the less they can spend on their product, but the better they will fare against their competition. Your profession considers the resulting reduction of average quality as a form of success. Eventually your successes drive the highest quality products from the marketplace, limiting the freedom of choice of everyone.
Ironically, marketing is the very reason you're convinced that Microsoft Windows and Office are actually quality products, and you appear happy to use them despite your belief that you have no other choice. You should be pissed off that there aren't a dozen interoperable choices that suit your needs.
When rational and honest people weigh these effects of marketing against the best positive arguments they can think of, they conclude that marketing actually harms markets and societies. So they avoid that profession. That you didn't reach the same conclusion yourself speaks volumes.
The average office employee is expected to be able to figure out how to use common office tools like pencils, staplers, telephones, keyboards, and graphical user interfaces. It is your job to make people confuse brand with quality and skill, and you have clearly confused yourself. Congratulations on your success!
I remember a Slashdot article that was post sometime this year in regards to running a company on Linux versus Windows and which decision was cheaper. In accordance with the article run here on Slashdot it was cheaper to run Windows.
What sucks is I can't back it up because I can't seem to find the article but I know I read it, because I couldn't believe it to be true.
Most people who spend all day in word or excel would completely freak out if it suddenly changed.
We are talking about the average workers. Basic computer training is not for IT staff, it's for typists, CS reps, managers, etc...
To these people it doesn't matter that it's Windows running Office, what matters is that it's the same interface they have been using for years. It's what they were taught to do when they started working.
To discount someone's intelligence for not learning computer skills beyond the beginner level is just plain stupid. Not everyone wants to be a computer geek. It's like saying "Wow, you can't run a successful farm, you must be an idiot"
Infinity times zero is zero, as can be seen with logic (A whole lot no times is nothing) or L'Hopitals rule, lim x-> inf of ln x * sin x if I remember correctly.
You are a complete idiot.
You obviously have never worked for a big company, or even a medium-sized one that actually has non-geeks as employees... you'd be surprised. You are also acting arrogant, trivializing changes that are non-trivial for people whose main function at work is NOT to learn how to use new tools to do the same old work.
Now, for small startups the desktop part just MIGHT be ok; or at least training might be just people teaching each other where to find things that are in different places. But desktop is really the least of worries. Fun starts when users have to switch their office suite, and other essential tools for their jobs. Even apps seemingly simple to use, like web browsers or mail clients, are likely to be very different. Even if individual differences are minor, net effect is big. Thus, people have to learn to use the new tools; training for that may be formal or informal, or even self-training via trial-and-error. But don't even think there's no learning curve, temporary lost productivity, and associated costs. Even if there need not be silly "how to click my mouse" training.
Of course, similar (level of) training is needed no matter which direction change is going, to or from open source, or between closed source environments.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
MS has a monopoly on Windows-compatible operating systems. That's all that was implied. We all know that Microsoft doesn't make computers.
Besides, a monopoly is an economic device, not merely a dictionary definition. It is the opposite of a 'free-market'. In a free market with zero barrier to competition, the market price of a product will approach it's production cost. With a monopoly (or various forms of collusive pricing among market leaders), the market price of a product will remain above production cost, as is the case with most of Microsoft's products.
This is the realistic definition of a monopoly, since, by your strict definition, all products have 'substitutes' that are sufficiently similar to prevent a monopolist from charging "whatever the hell they like". In the case of MS software, pencil and paper comes to mind.
"I assumed blithely that there were no elves out there in the darkness"
But how many MCSE-man-hours do you need to get Exchange working in the first place? Probably the same in $$ amounts to hack together an open groupware environment. Exchange is one of the poorest written popular microsoft products(close third after SourceSafe and Windows ME), and it's a constant headache and a capricious environment.
actually there is a difference. for instance, with the forced upgrades, there are changes. try going from office97 to office XP. which many have had to do. now, computer skills are just that, skills. the point is is that it is very possible to introduce say, linux/OO.org to an employee, and expect them to be able to use it. if they are familiar enough with computers, then they can figure out in a relatively short time the differences. for example, do you know how to embed a spreadsheet into a word doc? if yes, then you'll be able to figure out how to do it, because you'll know what it is you're trying to do. whereas if you don't know it on any program, then it isn't an option, whatever suite your using. if you have skills, then you should be able to adapt very quickly. and if a company can save some real bucks, then it makes sense. now, there are some things for sure where say excel is necessary, fine. but imagine going into a job interview, and saying i know program X, and if you're asked, "can you do program Y?", you reply, "no, i do program X", and when asked if you have the skills to learn a new program ,you reply no. yeah, you'll get the job.
My problem? I was perfectly gruntled, until some numbnuts came by and dissed me.
Eh, sounds convincing to me? Although I personally prefer Laurel and Hardy.
I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization -- Oliver Wendell Holmes
If I am taught what a door looks like, and how it works, I can be reasonably sure it will work that way for all doors (or most, anyway). I don't have to be re-trained for every door I encounter, because they are similar enough that I can easily figure out how to resolve any variation between them. I think it can be reasonably argued that the Linux desktop is similar *enough* to Windows, that the "retraining" we keep hearing about might not really be that be big an issue.
I'd rather die.
The significance of that remark escapes me. Do marketroids keep their asses somewhere other than in their pants, and need to tender them to someone else for safekeeping?
There are plenty of free alternatives to MSOffice out there, and the interfaces are so similar to that of MSOffice that there is really no reason why anybody with a reasonable handle on one should not be perfectly productive on the other.
When I was just a little Netscape coder
My momma used to tell me some crazy things.
She used to tell me that Netscape was number one
She used to tell me billg was afraid of me.
But then I got a little bit older
And I realized, she was the crazy one.
But there was nothin I could do or say to try to change it
Cause that's just the way she was.
You don't
Wanna fuck with billg.
(Why not?)
Cause billg
Is gonna fucking kill you.
You don't
Wanna fuck with billg.
(Why?)
Cause billg
Is gonna fucking kill you.
Listen to this in Windows Media
Listen to this in RealAudio
"They replaced five UNIX sysadmins with fifty MCSEs. Ain't progress wonderful?"
That's 45 people not in the unemployment line.
Only 5999955 to go.
perhaps he compiled with microsoft .net and ran it on mono after that. that would solve the problem.
so if it costs "probably the same" to hack together an open groupware product and exchange is "one of the poorest written populair microsoft products" and "is a constant headache" then i'd say i would go for the open groupware solution, because it works fine with me and does not give me headaces and is fun to develop.
Your profession is to interfere in market transactions to persuade participants to make irrational decisions in your favor. That's defective and antisocial behavior.
Keep in mind that many folks, like you, say that exploiting flaws in human psychology or knowledge is a Bad Thing. A good number of those go on to support cracking ("but the system *allowed* it!), which seems to me hypocritical.
Keep in mind that a major reason the West is wealthy is not because of natural resources (which are scattered all over the world). It's not because of knowledge (there are smart people all over the world with decent education). It's not even all because of the willingness to use military power in nasty ways. No, the West got mass media early on, learned how to market very, very well, and proceeded to drive up demand for western goods.
As a result, you make many, many times what a worker in the Phillipines makes.
May we never see th
While that's a reasonable complaint if you're arguing for large-business customers, he wasn't. It's significant for small-business folks. Furthermore, I see little reason why his argument wouldn't scale. If anything, it's more useful if more computers are present, since (a) he pointed out that the majority of the conversion costs were essentially constant (him figuring out conversion processes) and (b) maintenance, a major cost that normally scales linearly with the number of machines, has been eliminated, and (c) traditionally, per-user costs increase superlinearly -- enterprise customers are herded towards more expensve solutions. All three of these points are in favor of large-scale deployment working more successfully than small-scale deployment.
This *does* sound like an unusually good conversion, IMHO, though. There were no oddball custom apps that were written exclusively for Windows aside from a few macros and VB. There were no oddball elderly hardware devices that needed to be supported. This wouldn't be the case for a bank or a physics research lab, respectively.
In general, I've had pretty good luck with set-it-up-and-forget-it Linux servers. They really are more suited to this than Windows servers. Better designed for remote administration, cheaper, less stuff masking what's actually happening and making troubleshooting difficult.
May we never see th
Maybe that's why they are ussualy happier?
(at leat with "their" computers)
:)
"New" does not always means "better". Say "new disease", "new environment pollutant", "new way to produce even more pollution", "new software with new bugs to make new worms made-easy", ...
hany
>Key of course is getting a good set of admins and then letting them goto work.
CIO to-do list:
Step 1: replace old expensive Unix servers with new Wintel hardware, because a white box clone costs less than a Sun server. Insist on using Windows because Linux is all complicated 'n stuff, and Windows has a GUI, and you can sue Microsoft if something goes wrong. (Note to self: remember to make a list of companies which have taken Microsoft to court in the past & won.)
Step 2: replace grumbling, expensive Unix admins with snappily dressed MCSEs. Remember, that Gartner article we got for free said that people cost way more than licenses or hardware, so let's go as cheap on people as possible!
Step 3: watch costs spiral out of control as more MCSEs and more hardware are required. WTF happened? Blame subordinates, blame the vendor.
Step 4: ask MCSEs for a recommendation.
Shocking! The MCSEs recommend further investment in the products they already know! Why are we buying Exchange, NetMeeting, and SharePoint instead of competing products? Was there a TCO study, a trial of multiple products, maybe some application-specific consultant brought in? Nope. they just recommended the MS solution, and the CIO signed the P.O. "Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft!"
Another great post from the anus of slashdot!
and usually those skills are on MS Office, or Wordperfect or Lotus 1-2-3
Yeah, usually.
A few weeks back I got an excel sheet where I should have put how many hours I've spend doing what job.
Gee.
I don't have excel. One hour.
I have never used it. Really. Another. (some faint memories of ms works come closest..)
After some tinkering I realized that the sheet consisted of multiple pages. One for each month. Moving data manually is the fastest way since I dont know how its copy works. Third one.
But what's a couple of hundred $ between friends..
I work in an advertising agency. A good portion of my users are very non-techincal. After the latest Win32 exploits were announced, I became so frustrated with having to install patches that I asked if I can set up a RH 9.0 box, with Wine (for Lotus Notes client), Star Office, Mozilla and get the system all set up for one of these non-tech savvy users. Still waiting for a response on this one...
I don't understand, I don't have any K on my computer, but I think a cracker got into my computer, he even left a footprint.
"The obvious mathematical breakthrough would be development of an easy way to factor large prime numbers." Bill Gates,
You do understand how bytecode works, don't you?
Oh, you don't. Never mind then.
SourceSafe is a class all of its own. I've seen in house VB5 applications written by a college student that are better designed and usable than VSS.
Pity me, for I must admin the VSS databases here at $ORKPLACE
Which "another solution", SCO ????
And they even forgot the count the amount of lost sleep.
And what about the F.U.D. (Is the BSA going to find another up-paid licence, how much is it going to cost me next year, how often is it going to crash, is it worthwhile waiting for support {or will i be retired by then} )
Only 10%-40%!
Where is the rest?
Oh, i understand; it is in case you'll have linux installed by an MSCE...
"...if you have the skills to learn a new program ,you reply no. ..."
The correct reply is "Yes, with training". Hence a training budget.
A computer is a tool, the same way the phone, a wrench, a photocopier and a combine harvester are all tools. All require some degree of training.
Just because learning "computers" (in general) comes easy to you and I, does not mean it does to everyone.
Just dropping new software in, even if it's Office 97 to Office XP, requires some amount of learning/training.
Maintainence? I don't quite understand what people keep saying about this. It's very simple on a production Unix system: add whatever your flavor/distro's automated update tool is to the system crontab, place a log rotation tool in the crontab (hopefully your tool also filters out and marks redundant entries), and then send the remaining logfile to the root account's email every day. Login over imap-ssl (or some other marginally secure service) and read your freakin mail. If you see a lot of root login failures maybe something is going wrong. There is no maintainence to a Unix system once it is running. Adding users can be done in an automated fashion using ldap or an sql database, both which have graphical tools that, once initially setup, even your secretary can use.
So, you're left with this: the need to read log files and potentially to rebuild a kernel. You'll also be left with the lesser administration tasks of maintaining users. You can contract out a college student (or a consulting firm/IBM if it makes you feel better) and then whenever you get a new employee fire up your web browser and point it to your phpmyadmin installation to modify your user database. Most people can handle filling in some blanks (I'll even bet that most consultants that set something like this up wouldn't be against taking a little extra cash to write you an html form that submits stuff to the database.)
When the Unix system goes up, it stays up until the hardware dies. Even though Linux and the BSDs are not Unices, per say, they follow the model closely and offer much of the same functionality, including absolute stability.
Microsoft currently has a monopoly for their security flawed software... due to the fact that they WERE better in the past, than any of their competitors. There are more MS trained individuals due to this fact
Upgrading, training, and hiring linux admins IS going to cost more...
HOWEVER... most people are missing the simple fact... you can run a version of linux for X amount of years without upgrading... where as Windows upgrades almost every 2-3 years and usually has hardware costs attached to it. Also when you do upgrade the OS, more often than not, you have to upgrade all the Productivity and Development packages with it. Which will definitely be higher than 40%. Also, you're IT people have to get trained on the latest versions of the software... even more money. Then after a certain period of time MS will not support the older OSes and software
Intial cost may be prohibitive from switching to Linux... however, you can easily save money on upgrading hardware, software, and training with Linux over time. Also when you upgrade the OS... you get all the new packages with it. Once Linux becomes more prevalent in the market so will the amount of administrators, which will drive down demand, which will also drive down expensive salaries.
Anyone that argues that Linux is more expensive than MS is blind. Anyone can EASILY see the savings if they look.
And also as a result, goods and services cost many, many times what they cost a worker in the Phillipines.
I'm just going to point out an interesting anecdote. It's just my experience, so take it with a grain of salt.
:-P
Where I work, we use Lotus Notes. If you've ever used it, you know it's not like the Outlook Express that most people use at home. We don't spend more than a minute or so with new employees letting them know the major points to look out for. We give them a shiny handout that explains the more detailed instructions. If they have problems, they call us.
It's really not that tough. A good 90% of the people I work with are Notes Pros by the end of the week. And no, the number of Engineers is dwarfed by the number of sales drones so it's not a matter of having "smarter" users. Admittedly, we get a few id-10-t's that couldn't remember their own name if it wasn't printed on their shirt, but it's really a pretty small number.
Oh, we also give the mechanics Open Office (on Windows) instead of MS Office. They don't run any of our standard VB apps, so they aren't tied to the platform and the Upper Management doesn't want to spend any money on them (we use >3 year machines for them). I don't think they even notice the difference...
-Redundancy Man strikes again!
You're assuming a company's time is worth nothing. How much is it going to cost a company to hack together enough open source applications to get close to replacing all of Exchange's functionality
N.B. "Functionality" in this context equates to what they actually use rather than whatever "functionality plug bells & whistles" the thing might come with.
Also you need to consider the cost of getting exhange to work and maintaining it.
You have to measure everything from purchase price, to implementation costs, to maintenance costs and so on. Microsoft software may be more in the purchase price department compared to open source software, but if it's less in implementation costs or maintenance costs, its TCO will be lower.
If you actually really do measure everything then Microsoft is going to have a hard time competing with OSS since catagories of TCO such as "Maintaining a perfect inventory of software licences in case the BSA come knocking" only apply to proprietary software. With MS Windows there is anti-virus software, patching all sorts of things Microsoft has chosen to "integrate" into the OS for no very good reason, forced "upgrades" to push the TCO up still further.
Not proportionally as high, however. The US standard of living is still much higher. There tends to be an influx of wealth into western nations.
May we never see th
> $699 per CPU SCO licensing for Linux is much more expensive than any MS product. I'll stick with Windows, thank you.
Like you'd actually pay for Windows? Tell us another good one, Richard.
first, the training, argument is bullshit. do busineses really sit down and say, "first you take the mouse, move it over the text, push and hold the button, no the left one...". no, you're expected to know how to use a freakin computer. with something like KDE, hell, if some worker drone can't figure it out, they're idiots. one simple email:
Much as I love linux it's Really not that easy to switch over. In college I did all of my CS courses but one programming on a nix platform (some required unix) and loved it. Unsuprisingly I decided to install it at home once I graduated. I've spent hours and hours since trying to figure out some things that are very easy in windows and not so easy in linux. Yes, I know it's a flaw in windows that you can execute 'random' mail attachments just because they have an 'exe' extension but how many windows users will know how to chmod +x? or even know what the little star after something is if they ls -l? I could go on and on about things which don't have autoconfig and how the tools are often hard to find but my point is the same. There really will be some training necessary to switch your average user over to Linux, no matter how much you brilliant gurus think it's a snap.
I use something similar to what the grandparent post speaks of: the Smith Chart
Inside the circle of the Smith Chart exists every possible transmission line termination, from the open circuit (Z= infinity), to the short circuit (Z=0) and everything in between. "1," or a perfect match, is located at the center of the chart.
Il n'y a pas de Planet B.
Please don't tell me that you are going to attempt to argue that old technology is consistently better than new technology.
Life in Orange County
Ah, sorry. Bullshit to you. If a company is faced with a new technology, especially a new platform, training is vital. New software requires training. Especially if the staff are good at their jobs, but not computer power users. They need to be told how to do their jobs in the new tech environment. They can't work it out themselves, but once they are shown, they continue to do the job that they are experts in, but using a new set of tools.
http://pcblues.com - Digits and Wood
for me the path is a little different.
i got started using linux because apache felt like it worked better in it, and there was more support documentation on the web about using apache on linux. there was easer to use security options. and working with the jsp was straight forward.
my wife, and children have their own computers. i've installed openOffice, and mozilla. there was NO learning curve!? other than different icons. kids loved the dragon, and the birds over the water icon. my wife was little more critical over it, ( the icons ). i had to stand by her side, the first time, when she started using them.
my wife has a school project were the principle would like to phone parents about things like report cards going out, p.t.a. meetings, and other similar stuff. i don't have an answer for that yet, but the one thing i've noticed about the linux community is that it was what microsoft used to be like in the mid 1980's. i remember that, and liked that alot.
--The key is to print the names on their shirts backwards, so that when they take their (frequent) bathroom breaks, they see their name in the mirror and get a fresh reminder.
Bingo bango bongo. FORE!!!
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
--Hmm. I'm not sure whether to meta-meta mod you Funny or Informative.
Let's go with +1 Insightful.
.
== WolfriderV6 == I'm willing to admit that *I just might* be wrong... Are you??
Old products tend to be better than new products.
As for old and new technology, the issue simply does not come up. The latest and greatest whizzbang PC is pretty fucking old technology, and would be quite recognizable to someone from 1988.
Yep. Last week I just had an "Intro to Computers" class for my department. I got tired of people not knowing how to turn their comptuer on and off properly or how to log into the domain. So I explained how a comptuer works and how to do some of the most basic things like turn a computer on and off. Many of them have been working here since there were computers, but I finally had to say "there is a certain level of computer knowledge you are expected to have to do your job." Luckily, all the managers were on my side and made them show up for it.
Hell, if I could just get people to reboot their computers whenever they are having troubles to see if that will clear it up, it would get rid of 90% of my desktop support calls that interfere with the more important stuff that needs to get done on the servers.
Ironically, marketing is the very reason you're convinced that Microsoft Windows and Office are actually quality products, and you appear happy to use them despite your belief that you have no other choice. You should be pissed off that there aren't a dozen interoperable choices that suit your needs.
Actually, I have a degree in computer science. From an Ivy League university. Graduated top of my class. I can probably code you into the ground and design faster and more efficient algorithms, to boot. Just because I'm a marketer doesn't mean I'm a moron, jackoff. And don't forget who has to sell and market the buggy shit you code together between bouts of Jolt and Quake and wacking off to pr0n in your office. If it wasn't for we "marketers", you'd be unemployed.
But that's not the point. I have worked in high tech marketing for the past 6 years. I don't want some fucking choice. I don't want to tinker with some half-assed, cobbled-together piece of shit thrown together by volunteers, that MAYBE works with my coworkers, the half-dozen vendors and marketing agencies I work with, etc.
I have a job to do. When I switch jobs, which I do every couple of years, I want to show up for work and be sitting in front of the EXACT SAME APPLICATIONS in each place. I don't have time to learn a new word processor, or spreadsheet, or presentation package. No, they're not "too hard" to learn but even for a CS major like me who spent years working in IT, I don't give a fuck. They're just tools for me to do my job. I learned them once, don't want to learn them again, even if it means that the keyboard commands are different.
Fuck choice. Choice is for down-and-out unemployed weenies who have time to tinker. I have a job to do.
I wote: "... "New" does not always means "better". ...".
You wrote: "... you are going to attempt to argue that old technology is consistently better than new technology ...".
So the answer to your question: No, I'm not going to argue (or attemtpt to argue) that old technology is consistently better than new technology. I repeat: "New" does not always means "better". :)
p.s.: AC hinted on what I have in mind from another perspective. But there are also a lot of other examples but that's for another discussion.
hany
Wow, I think we used to work at the same company. Aren't you the guy from MIT who takes too much crystal meth, picks his nose in meetings, and threatened to go on a shooting spree over the Win2K upgrade? All the sysadmins loved you. But not enough to take you to lunch, just enough to joke about you at lunch.
So every couple of years, after you get your ass handed to you for finally pissing off the last coworker who could deal with you, and your job is handed to a lady from India, you show up at your next job. When you find things slightly different there, do you go on a little anti progress and freedom rant as a way to introduce yourself? Well, you should be happy that bias against advancement in tools and procedures has been noted by a wider audience, though it differs little from that held by other tradesmen for centuries. Your ideological brothers may have been less skilled, but they were just as self-important and lazy. Thanks for coming by, and we'll call you if anything comes up.
Why is this '100% overrated' when the exact same story was posted 2 days later?
Very on-topic, very interesting. Probably modded by an editor. Michael?