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Energy Company Refutes Windows TCO Claims
apt-get writes "Computerworld Australia has a gem of a case study on Country Energy with comments from an IT manager that shoot down Microsoft's 'objective' Windows TCO claims. My favourite; 'we get to see both sides and Windows is not cheaper at all'. Interestingly, in almost every area of its critical IT infrastructure, open source and commercial software work in peace together. The IT manager even says not having MS Office on Linux is a hindrance to its desktop take up."
I live in Chile and i must say Chilean IT managers are very intrested in this kind of resources. At least 6 big Chilean firms are considering moving existing management, database and mail(the pain of spam beaking throug) to Linux as a safer, cheaper and more reliable alternative. But in general people are affraid since there always will be a Microsofr counterreport saying otherwise. As long as Linux doesnt gain reputation within the corporate world, it'll still be a small idealistic comunity. So TCO i think is the best way to change things theese days.
"The quality of life is inversely proportional to the number of keys on your keyring."
I have not come across anything that MS Office can do that another office programme, such as StarOffice or OpenOffice can't do. AppleWorks is a bit crippled. The MacOS X version seems to be exactly like the one that I used to run on my PowerBook 1400c way back when. .DOC files? Feature wise MS Office has always kind of pissed me off, but document formating was a total sabot in the gears when trying to get my stuff to print off of windows machines at school
Is the cause just coverting some of the document formating used in existing
f.p. too
It was reported that the latest virus incurred a loss of about 30b dollar globally. At this backdrop, I am just wondering do these consultacny firms like Gartner and all include the cost of fighting virus and the loss incurred by them while calculating the TCO ?
http://www.nasirudheen.blogspot/
A while ago (year or two ago), IBM visited my university. One of the first things that came up was Lotus Notes on Linux, or lack thereof.
Basically, the IBM guy said the code of Notes was an absolute mess, and that porting it to Linux would be more trouble than it's worth. So, it might be ported, but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting.
-Erwos
Plausible conjecture should not be misrepresented as proof positive.
so download the source and rename the application names.
I'm betting that 90% of msoffice users will not know the difference.
I did that here, replaced IE on all desktops with firebird + a IE skin.
nobody noticed anything changed.
most of the time it's resistance to change, even when there is very little change.
'Objective Studies' aside, there is little comparison in performance, ease of maintenance, etc. The answer I've begun giving the Windows Admins here at work (who are fighting for server installs - a losing battle in this age of dropping budgets and 'increased efficiencies') is this: Go and administer an enterprise level *nix network for five years, then come back to me and we'll compare notes. (Yes, I did my time as an MS Admin, MCSE+I and all that crap, back when NT was going to save the world)
IMHO, the only reason M$ still has any of the server space at all is 'time to market' considerations, and the overall lower level of expertise. Back when I was a Windows admin, I used to say: "The biggest problem with Windows is that Microsoft designed it so that any idiot could set it up - and most of them do."
Any given network is only as stable/secure as its administrator, it's true, but remember that the ideal case stability of the platform represents a hard limit, no matter how competent the admin. Anybody wanna bet their job on 5 9s from NT?
Thinking outside my Head
Features definitely do not equal value despite the propaganda that tries to convince people otherwise.
The essence of good design is simplicity and value comes from the elimination of unnecessary features, not their addition.
You would consider a door with fifteen handles and ten ways of opening to be "worth more" than a door that has one handle which works exactly as you expect? Hardly.
As for OpenOffice.org, it is easily, easily sufficient for 80-90% of all computer users. You can argue with this but the real reason MS Office is popular in academea may have more to do with cheap licenses than anything else.
Finally, people will switch to OOorg for several reasons. Firstly when the weight of yearly licenses starts to hurt. Secondly, to avoid yet one more cycle of upgrades that break large numbers of existing configurations for little obvious gain. Thirdly, when they are running old versions and do not want to pay once more for new ones. Lastly, and I believe significantly, many people use MS Office with no license at all. OOorg provides them a way to become "legitimate".
Now, the discussion is not about "why switch", it's about cost.
In a global market, any business that pays more than it needs to for a service (including software) is at a competitive disadvantage, and will eventually be beaten by leaner competitors.
Microsoft's offerings costs more, and for the majority of its users, this extra cost simply does not translate into extra value. You cannot debate this observation away. If you work for Microsoft, you would do better to consider how such an unbalanced business model can actually survive. Eventually your customers will be unable to pay for your products, however much they like them. What will you do then?
Ceci n'est pas une signature
The first job that I worked for, in India, back in 1997-98, was a big M$ shop. We worked on C/C++/Win32SDK/VC++/MFC/COM. I used to be treated as the villain around the office, because I was the only Linux evangelist. I had to sneak in one 486 and run a seperate domain for the few linux lovers there.
Last week I had a chance to run into my previous project manager, and he was telling me that they went completely Linux. The organisation grew from a group of 40 programmers to 250 dudes. The only reason for this is, with the recent M$ licensing policy it was impossible to buy so many licenses. Now the whole organization is running RH 9.x and they use it to monitor home security systems and medical automation.
So please dont give us bull about TCO M$!!!
I'm glad someone acknowledges two facts in one statement: Office is an important application and Office keeps people on their platform.
If this is not acknowledged, it can't be properly addressed. Next time you say "it's just marketing" or whatever other BS on Office's success, realize you're not doing yourself and your favorite alternative Office program a favour.
Allow me to rant a bit on what's needed to get people (companies) to replace Windows and Office...
The big challenge is that apart from having to be every bit as good as Office, the working environment should also be better.
I think with KOffice and OpenOffice, Linux has two excellent candidates, KOffice for the more simplestupid crowd (me and most people although most won't admit it) and OpenOffice for the "power user". For obvious reasons though, they should be 100% interoperateble. Even if features are not fully supported, they should not result in document hell.
Right now, in a lot of environments you can't do away with MSOffice. Find out why (without resorting to arrogant BS) and fix it. Sometimes it's easy: a few people are seriously into Powerpoint, and the company distributes them to others. Well, that's enough reason not to switch.
But also, apart from having the clip art, dictionaries, etc etc etc all that stuff, there might be a lot of things that arguably are outside the scope of the software, but need to be looked into in order to fulfill the full productivity cycle people are running now with MSOffice.
Their Office runs on their OS and they don't really differentiate. So if you can map the whole experience and make that good, only then you can claim to be able to replace the desktop.
The same goes for the Gimp btw. If you already *have* Photoshop, there is not ONE single reason to go to Gimp.
Disclaimer: This mail not to make things seem easy or to in any way berate Linux developers (bless you) but in response to the many derogative remarks here on MSOffice.
Comparison: SCO is not being beaten up and undressed by "Fuck You" comments but by a bunch of highly skilled lawyers - and appropriately the Groklaw crowd.
I think, therefore I am...I think.