Slashdot Mirror
Where Is The Plug-and-Play Linux Office System?
cdlu writes "Where oh where is the plug-and-play Linux business computer? Robin Miller asks the question and makes the case for starting a business to sell a self-updating networked Linux system for small business. Any takers?" (NewsForge and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.)
... and they come pretty close, with the best installer in the market, and a very easy-to-use setup. Why is it that the snooty Linux gurus always pooh-pooh Linspire anyway?
On the other side of the coin:
Where is interop Linux/Windows groupware? You'd think that IBM would be all over this with Lotus Notes but there's nothing. I realize that you can get something to work with some duct tape and string but the out-of-the-box solution would complement OpenOffice well. It is one of the few things missing.
Life is the leading cause of death in America.
..and something that most of us have been doing for years, whether the customers know it or not.
I don't know about the rest of you, but I have stock systems that I go with, both hardware and software wise. I get a customer order, I already know which systems I'm going to use ( hell, I have ghost images of the damn things ). It's just a matter of what extra software packages they'll need.
There's another aspect of this, and one that people can't quite grasp: Customers want to feel special. I don't care how much they belly ache about wanting it fast and cheap and good ( heh ), they want to feel like they are your most important customer. On the opposite side, most IT contractors are cock-chokers, and will spend as little time on the customer as possible. You see the potential problems arising from this situation?
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
Most of the small business owners I speak are reluctant to migrate to Linux (or *BSD) because of the perceived lack of business oriented software. They are perfectly happy with the Linux offerings today when it comes to setting up things such as firewalls, print servers and backup mechanisms.
As a specific example, a small handful of these businesses run some very specialized sales tax tracking software. (Think stores that sell both taxable and tax-free goods.) Conceptually, the software is trivial. However, the software is so old that the minimum recommended operating system is DOS!
Let me be more clear. Sure they can run it in a DOS emulator on Linux. That's not the problem. What they want is "external support" for that particular configuration, and they don't have the time or the patience to chase down dozens of Google leads, whenever a problem comes up. They'd rather pay (and expense) for a dedicated vendor, but the market is too small to support one.
I have spoken to accountants who plan to move to OSX as soon as all of their accounting software gets ported over. I believe Peachtree has taken this step. I'm not sure about Quickbooks or some of the more specialized packages. If these companies sold Linux specific, supported, and certified editions, they would move.
They would even still move if you simply "repackaged" existing software for Linux and provided support for the Linux specific issues (and acted as a go-between for the other issues).
That said, I doubt businesses are looking for a zero-administration box. I sincerely doubt they want one that's administered remotely, unless this company was willing to assume the legal risks and obligations. If they break the box when you're trying to submit quarterly financials, will they pay the penalties?