Lockheed Replaces 10,000 Solaris Seats with Linux

bl8n8r writes "Citing hardware and software TCO, a source close to Lockheed Martin says the aeronautics giant will be replacing 10,000 of its Solaris seats with Linux. The article mentions AutoZone, IBM, SCO and Daimler Chrysler and what may be in store for Lockheed Martin. 'Every engineer has a Microsoft PC sitting next to their Sun Blade,' said their source. 'That's for business applications, and Linux is no threat there. It's Sun who has to worry.' Wait till they find out how much they can save running OpenOffice."

Comments

Reliable source?

[RobertB-DC]

The whole "article" seems to depend on the word of "a Lockheed employee who is close to the transition." I have my doubts about their source. For example, the source says this about Lockheed's lawyers:

According to our source, Lockheed's lawyers "are like a deer in the headlights" because of SCO's legal threats over Linux usage.

Are you serious? Lockheed is a defense contractor, a major government supplier. Their lawyers aren't going to be "deer in the headlights" against these or any other litigious bastards. More like "alligators in the swamp," if you want to use nature as a metaphor. If SCO so much as puts a toe in Lockheed's water, they're going to lose a leg.

So after calling BS on this, can the source be trusted? He's competely ignorant of the real legal threat, but knows a lot about what's on and under the engineers' desks.

I say their "reliable source" is the janitor. He's probably the guy who stole your lunch out of the fridge last week.

Re:Reliable source?

[Judg3]

Good call - a quick search of Google News doesn't show anything either - and I'd assume that this would be a big enough switch to turn some heads and fire off a few more articles.

Then again, it could be true and a very early report. I would of at least expect to see it on Lockheed's Press releases.

Re:Reliable source?

[Lacutis]

See, you don't understand, the reason this makes perfect sense they needed to save some money to pay for the Satellite they dropped on the floor so they said, "Hey! Lets quit paying maintenance on solaris!"

See, perfect sense!

Linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

But won't they lose money by not using microsoft products? I've seen microsoft's stats...

Cool

[Anonymous Crowhead]

Where can I get a linux powered seat?

Business App != Office

[kannibal_klown]

Business Apps don't necessarily mean "MS Office."

We consider business apps where I work:
Bioinformatic software
Data Analysis software
specialized inventory management software

I'm sure Lockheed uses CAD as well as a plethora of engineering apps that have no-where-near equivalent versions in Linux.

Re:Business App != Office

[Anonymous Coward]

CAD and other engineering apps usually have versions available for linux, or solaris. They are usually very expensive.

From the CAD and Engineering point of view, the advantage of Windows is in a cheap lower quality competition. You can often find a system that doesn 60 percent of the big system for a tenth the price. On linux, you have the choice of contorting yourself around an open source app which is free but does 30 percent of what you need, badly, or shelling out the $10,000 per seat for the real stuff.

Re:Business App != Office

[kannibal_klown]

CAD and other engineering apps usually have versions available for linux, or solaris. They are usually very expensive.
True, but I just mentioned CAD in passing. I'm sure they use a lot of other specialized stuff that grubs like us know nothing about.

Don't get me wrong, Linux can replace a lot of MS workstations out there now. But a lot of companies use software that isn't available at all on Linux. Maybe it's from a small firm, maybe it's not that well known outside the people that use it, maybe nobody's released a Linux version yet.

I'm just saying, that Lockheed probably had a good reason not to go with Linux on the "business app" workstations. They probably need to run some stuff under Windows, and want a modicrum of support (most vendors will not support their app if it's running under Wine or something).

Man...

[thatguywhoiam]

Linux could be renamed to 'Eclipse' just based on what its doing to Sun...

OpenOffice

[vasqzr]

Wait till they find out how much they can save running OpenOffice."

We've only got ~100 PC's, and we pay about $160 for Excel/Word/Outlook. I can imagine Lockheed can work something out for the few users that need Powerpoint (managers that make presentations).

The very FIRST issue you have with OpenOffice, whether it's a formatting issue, file conversion, or other imcompatiblity, will cost MORE than Microsoft Office in the loss of productivity and IT staff.

Re:OpenOffice

[RobertB-DC]

The very FIRST issue you have with OpenOffice, whether it's a formatting issue, file conversion, or other imcompatiblity, will cost MORE than Microsoft Office in the loss of productivity and IT staff.

I agree, there's a non-zero cost to moving to so-called "free" software. On the other hand, what about the cost of upgrading when Microsoft decides that your version of Office has reached "end of life"?

It's appropriate to put scare quotes around "free" software... but the same thing applies to "purchased" software. "free" isn't completely free, but neither is "purchased" completely paid for.

Re:OpenOffice

[xs650]

I retired from a major defense contractor a bit over 6 years ago. If anything, what I observed then is even more true now.

The biggest obstacle to LockMart changing over to OO is the fact that their main customer, the US Government is a big time MS user. If the US government changed over to OO this week, LockMart and the other major defense contractors would change over by the end of next month.

It's not the technical challange, it's the suitability for the job at hand. A good share of a defense contractors work needs to be compatible with the goverment's systems.

Government offices and defense contrator employees tend to do a lot of fancy, unnecessary but pretty and fun BS with Powerpoint, Word and Excel that make their files unreadable by OO. I'm sure the Linux zealots will say they should stop doing that, but that doesn't change reality.

I will confess to doing quite a bit elaborate engineering work in Excel that made them OO incompatible and would have been better done in more specialized packages...but, that would have made it more inconvenient to share my work with others in my organization and in the government. Considering reality, Excel and other MS Orifice packages were the best tools for the job, and still is if you are working at a major defense contractor and communicate with the government.

Isn't Linux mainstream enough yet?

[jolyonr]

Haven't we got to the point where these kinds of stories aren't news any more?

Surely we don't need to have any more "another company using linux" news flashes.

Lots of people use linux. Lots more companies use it every day.

In order for the Linux community to accept the level of success that we have achieved already, it's time to realise that we don't need to bash out these stories all the time.

Jolyon

"no threat there" ...

[thrillseeker]

'Every engineer has a Microsoft PC sitting next to their Sun Blade,' said their source. 'That's for business applications, and Linux is no threat there.'

Oh ye of little faith...

Sun worry, why?

[steelerguy]

They just have to convine Lockheed to use Sun Java Desktop, aka SuSE.

YA know...

[MisanthropicProgram]

However, Utah Unix company SCO could throw a monkey wrench into Lockheed's Linux plans. According to our source, Lockheed's lawyers "are like a deer in the headlights" because of SCO's legal threats over Linux usage.

I know an attorney (like everyone else) and if you threaten her with legal action she'll just laugh. Yes, it's expensive for us regular people, but it is not a big deal in the grand scheme of things. After all, I would coutner-sue for something and settle out of court. Yes, yes, I know, it's sad that it has to come down to this, but that's the system - sue to bury he other guy ----and if he has the resources to fight you --- settle out of court.

That's America!

Netcraft Taking Sun's Pulse??

[gregarican]

It sounds as if nearly every other news story I read regarding Sun Microsystems make the picture for them look progressively more grim. They have been trying to realign themselves and have changed their strategies somewhat but is it too late?

I recall years ago working with Sun/Solaris systems alongside i86/Linux systems. I was amazed at the hardware costs associated with servicing some of the Sun product line. The prices were outrageous. Something like 5 to 10 times what the i86 servers were demanding. What's the point? I even recall when Sun started deploying supposedly lower-end, lower-cost i86 hardware. The costs were still 3 times what I was expecting.

Can't say I'm sorry to see them hitting hard times. Java will be the only legacy they have left over looking back at this 3-5 years from now.

Re:Netcraft Taking Sun's Pulse??

[Teancom]

You, my friend, are wrong. I'm in the middle of migrating all of our layout and design people from Sun workstations to $1K Dell's w/Linux, because the price to performance ration is just too dag'gon compelling. To give numbers, this is how it breaks down: we pay roughly $1,000 for a machine with a 3.4Ghz PIV, NVidia GPU (440MX 64MB), large enough harddrive, dvd/cdrw, and etc. Then we load it up with our own ram (I work for a RAM manufacturer, so I'll admit we cheat there). Add in the cost of a Redhat Enterprise WS license cost, and we have an initial cost of about $1100 with recurring annual costs of less than $100. All parts are covered under warranty for the first three years, which is about as long as we'll have these machines anyway. Compare that to a Blade 2k. Again with minimal RAM, we pay $5k for a dual-900Mhz U-III, decent harddrive, and a crappy video-card. In addition to the initial cost, we have support contracts that cost $181 per month per machine (Gold, I believe, not Platinum). That's $2175 per year. And, according to our benchmarks running our tools, it's between 3 to 5 times slower than the x86 solution (depending on the tool). Now, reliability estimates aside (we're only about 4 months into the rollout, and as such are still working out various issues), I can't think of a single reason to keep Blades on engineer's desktops. And, for the vast majority of our users (i.e., greater than 95%), Linux is all they need. They use the same web and mail tools that they're used to on Sun (Mozilla), and Crossover Office and/or Citrix fill in the gaps (when OpenOffice falls down, which isn't often).

So just *saying* that Suns are as cheap as x86 w/Linux doesn't make it so. And when you take a $2000 per year per machine difference, and multiply by 500 machines, you're starting to talk real money, even by corporation standards. And that's ignoring all of the compute servers that we are rolling over to Opterons w/Linux, for the same reason. We estimate that we'll be sending approx. $1.5 Million a year less to Sun by this time next year, in support contracts alone.

Lockheed Martin will never run OpenOffice

[stratjakt]

So forget it. It's not good enough, they have to interoperate with too many subcontracters, government agencies, etc, etc..

And, like it or not, the world uses MS Office formats. OO.o isn't good enough.

They wouldn't save anything. They'd waste a lot of time and effort reformatting documents sent to them, resending documents to others, etc.

Seriously, it's called reality, you all might want to look into it.

Linux's been there for a while

[CharAznable]

I work in a company that does work for Lockheed, and they've been using Linux for quite a while. Even without this, they could still be targeted by litigious bastards. Good luck to SCO targeting Lockheed though. They're humongous and build fighter planes and nuclear submarines that could level the SCO headquarters with the push of a button!!!

I have been trying for five years....

[SwedishChef]

to move clients from MS to Linux on their workstations and servers. My score so far:

Internal Mail Servers: 6
Firewall/Routers: 8
File Servers: 5
Workstations: 1

There used to be more file servers. When we moved them to Linux file servers we would find that a critical software application would migrate to some server-side-critical application (like a run-time of MS SQL) and we would have to move the entire box to 2000 server.

Workstations are even harder. We migrate them and the users bitch about not being able to use their "favorite software". Only once, 2 weeks ago, did we find users overjoyed to get Linux. A local Aquatic Park had the lifegards surfing on their XP box until it was unusable. Since it had to be blown off anyway, I threw a Knoppix 3.4 disk into the CD and did the install, configured the users, their email, the printer and the network, and showed them where the apps were. So far they are still happy with the functionality. Plus no viruses and no spyware.

It is very difficult to move people away from even the "standard" apps (Office, etc.). When it comes to specialized applications it is impossible; for now.

That's news to me and I work at a Lockheed branch

[Fallen Kell]

This is most likely a case of the one hand not knowing what the other is doing, since I work as a systems administrator at a different branch. Its always interesting to read about something this big on slashdot before getting a memo about it.

In anycase, it sounds like they have a similar setup there as we do here with most engineers having a Sun system and a PC. I personally have a linux PC and a sunblade, both of which run open office, and I don't see any need at all for a MS PC other then for some website tools that ask/require IE (but are easily spoofed with multi-zilla plugin). It will be interesting what comes of this. I don't actually see us making a change like this away from Sun simply because there are no true replacements for the types of servers we are using from an x86 standpoint. However, as opterons become more and more available in server class systems, then maybe some of the systems will be converted over, but I don't see this happening anytime in the next 3-4 years...

It's true!

[GillBates0]

Linux seats have more leg space than Microsoft seats or Solaris seats. I'll be travelling Tux class on my next flight.

Our IT department gives us a choice

[Boone^]

In our last upgrade cycle we got to choose from Dell/Windows, Dell/SuSE, Sun Blade/Solaris, or Dell Laptop. Previously everyone had SGI Indy/O2/that_one_purple_box or a Dell laptop.

In engineering, I'd say 80% went for Windows, 18% Linux, and 2% Sun.

Maybe Lockheed Martin are wanting discounts?

[mikael]

Sounds like the kind of sabre-rattling corporations do, when they want to negotiate a new contract with better discounts. Have other corporations threatened to move to Linux when they wanted lower license fees from Microsoft?

A company that big forces you to cooperate

[MacFury]

What many fail to consider is a company of Lockheads size can demand the people that work for it use OpenOffice, especially since it's free. Want to send something to Lockhead? It has to work in OpenOffice.

When I do work for Mallinkrodt they are very specific about what file types they accept. They call the shots because they have the deeper pockets. Lockhead is in a similar situation.

As a Lockheed employee...

[Call Me Black Cloud]

I can say that MS isn't going away anytime soon. Not only (in my particular division) does Exchange run the back end, but our engineers have integrated the authentication across the board. Want to check your pay stub online? Use your exchange domain\username and password. Want to check your training records? Ditto. Check the status of a referred employee? Ditto. Change health care coverage? Ditto. Pretty much the only thing that doesn't require that login is access to the 401k/pension site.

The division I'm in is heavily involved in software development for the government. Sun gets a lot of the business here because of the massive data storage requirements we have. 10's of terabytes is not an uncommon need. The government is also pushing towards more COTS solutions so until there are ready-to-deploy applications on Linux, Sun will still be around. Unfortunately, ready-to-deploy doesn't mean easy-to-deploy. My current project is a nightmare of integration...but that's a story for another day...

Re:That's news to me and I work at a Lockheed bran

[drxenos]

I agree. I'm an SE with Lockheed. Equipment is not purchase company wide like this. Each project purchases what type of equipment it needs with its only money. We have several Solaris machines, and there is no plans to change them. As for MS, we all have PCs on our desks, but they are mostly for e-mail and the like. Most development is done on the solaris machines (we have xwindows clients running on the PCs).

Re:New Software Licensing to Forbid Unethical Use

[Bull999999]

That's like saying that everone should be given the freedom of speech only if they say things thing that does not offend anyone. Besides, people don't seem to mind civilian use of technologies that were initally created for the military use.