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Ret. World Bank CTO on Desktop Linux TCO Facts
comforteagle writes "W. McDonald Buck, retired CTO of World Bank, believes we need to take a more honest and frank look at the Cost Analyses it will take to put Linux on the corporate desktop. In Part I of Corporate Desktop Linux - The Hard Truth he begins with one of the most common misconceptions... that a business can buy a computer without Windows and save money in the transaction."
I'm a Linux devotee. I'm offended by the rigged analyses that Microsoft has purchased in its "Get the Facts" campaign. But I think it is important that the open source community demonstrate fairly that open source software presents a better cost/benefit case than Windows. This case is not helped by resorting to the same kind of trickery and distortion of which Microsoft is guilty. I don't like to see obviously skewed analysis on Linux's behalf any more than I like to see it on Microsoft's behalf. No that's wrong. I have a greater dislike of pro-Linux trickery, because I expect better of us. Without an honest and frank appraisal we don't really know where we are. Better to know where we are, even if parts of the truth aren't always palatable.
So I set out to review some of the TCO analyses I had seen on the net. To begin, I wanted to get a realistic assessment of how much one could save on a Windows-free computer purchase. It's at least erroneous, and probably intentional distortion, to use the Windows shelf price of $299 in a TCO analysis. Nobody pays $299 to get Windows with a computer. A fair assessment of what they do pay is the difference between otherwise identical configurations with and without Windows. That is what I wanted to find, and so I went shopping. I thought this would be a relatively straightforward number to get. Silly me.
When I went to IBM's website I couldn't find an option on their desktops to enable me to buy Linux (or anything other than Windows). After diligent searching I simply couldn't figure out where IBM had hidden it. So I called their toll free number for help. This is IBM - you know, the company that has invested more in Linux than any other company? The company who says "the future is Open". That IBM. The sales rep explained that IBM does not sell desktop computers without Windows. I thought at first I was just getting the run-around, that the guy didn't know what he was talking about and just wanted to get rid of me. But he explained that I was not the first caller to ask for this, that he gets these calls from time to time, and he has, he says, checked it out thoroughly. There is no option to buy a desktop without Windows. In fairness, maybe this is part of the reason IBM sold the PC business.
Then I went to Dell's website. I had had some experience there a couple years ago, and had a memory that their configurator would allow me to pick operating systems. I was right, there was an operating system selection combo box which offered the choice of Windows XP Home or Professional. Where is Linux? It took me a while to figure out, but at least they sell such systems. Dell has invented a whole new series of systems, "the N series", which have pretty much the same features available but come with no Windows. This separation makes it pretty hard to compare: you have to drill all the way down into the regular systems from the top, and configure. To compare you have to back all the way out, and drill in again into the N systems. I'm sure the difficulty in comparing the prices is just an accident, of course. I did this a few times, trying to figure out what I was doing wrong, because the systems without Windows kept coming out more expensive. Eventually I stopped trying to remember, and carefully wrote out an exact configuration, one that was simple, and that I knew was available in both places. PIV 3.0G 800FSB, 512M/400 2Dimms, 80G 7200, 48xCD, built in sound, video & net, basic KB/M, no speakers.
The boxes with Windows are less expensive than the boxes without.
Did you go back and read that sentence again?
I tried a lot of configurations. I was looking at the Optiplex line, including the SX and GX 280, and the 170L, and I found a few where the Windows option costs $10-$20 more. Just a few. Mostly the Windows boxes cost up to $230 less when you factor in the big "instant discounts" which are available only on the Windows boxes. I called their toll free number too, and another polite fellow explained to me that they have this assemb
We rely HEAVILY on vendor software...and I'm not talking about office and that crap. I'm talking about MANY different systems, almost all of which have some kind of desktop component. Guess which OS all these desktop components are made for?
Sure, all the Linux Gurus can point to software that does the same thing...the only problem is big banks don't like writing/customizing/modifying/maintaining software. They're not in the software business. They want a vendor to do that and for most Linux desktop apps, that's not an option. They MUST have a contract with a well established vendor that can fix an application when it stops working. I wish it wasn't that way....hey I'm a programmer....but I can't blame them either.
$7.95/mo, 200 GB disk, 2TBxfer, MySQL, PHP, RoR.
A fair assessment of what they do pay is the difference between otherwise identical configurations with and without Windows. That is what I wanted to find, and so I went shopping. I thought this would be a relatively straightforward number to get. Silly me.
It is a relatively straightforward number to get: 100 EUR. source: http://siggelkow.de/ (just an example)
I just bought a gray-box computer for my Dad. After all the negotiations, the vendor reduced the price by $65 when I deleted Windows XP Home from the package. A significant chunk of a $515 (CAN) box.
The guy I brought it from was pretty impressed when I slapped in a MEPIS CD and checked out everything - RAM, CPU, Ethernet, Multimedia - in a few minutes in the storefront. I left a copy with him.
The world's largest Linux migration is speeding ahead, with the German national railway announcing today it has successfully moved all of its 55,000 Lotus Notes users onto the open-source operating system.
1 817&e=10&u=/pcworld/20050202/tc_pcworld/119537&sid =96120756
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=
Many, perhaps the majority of our local (Perth, WestOz) wholesalers will sell you a "naked" system for AUD$50-150 apiece less than an XP-burdened system. Many of them have been offering this for over a year.
Forex, one wholesaler is offering 2.4GHz Celery, 256MB, 40GB, CD, Floppy for AUD$399exGST. With XP Home OEM, AUD$514; with XP Pro OEM, AUD$584; with 98SE OEM, AUD$578. Their home page proudly displays the Microsoft logo, too, and until recently had a direct link to their "piracy" (as in, "We're going to copy down all of your sea shanties and not pay you any money for them!") page.
Got time? Spend some of it coding or testing
Mr. Buck tried to take the cost of a box without Windows installed, and compare it to a box that does have windows installed.
.doc files perfectly, but that is hardly the fault of the developers. They have done a great job reverse-engineering the format as best they can so that it renders well in OO.
What he forgot to mention is that any serious business trying to get some work done "the Microsoft way" must own a copy of MS office for each computer in their workspace. So for a small business who can't afford huge site licenses, that's going to add another $379.00 to the cost of each workstation. Even if the bundled windoze works out to only $20 a machine, you are still out $400 per worksation just to open and read your doc and xls files.
Another consideration is that in the Windoze world, you pretty much have to have a full-blown installation for each user. Yes, I know you can do thin-clients with windows too, but there isn't an easy and inexpensive way to do this for small businesses.
Also take into account that once a business reaches a certain size they are going to need dedicated backup servers, mail server, exchange server, etc. All this stuff costs $$$ to implement, and is usually more expensive than the linux alternative.
We run a small business and power our entire sales and support department on LTSP-based thin-client terminals. The cost of each workstation? Well let's do the math:
* Pentium II computers, bought from an auction, by the pallet. About $3.00 per workstation.
* 17" CRT monitor - brand new $89.00
* Fedora Core Linux - FREE as in freedom AND as in beer. w00t!
* OpenOffice - Free.
I am not going to include the cost of my time as a sysadmin, because I'm going to get paid to do my job whether the end-users are on windows or linux. I probably spend less time troubleshooting things now that we are using linux so ostensibly the cost of tech support is *less* but I don't have the empirical evidence to back it up.
The server running LTSP has 4 gigs of memory and a Pentium 4 processor and handles up to 20 users quite nicely without even getting close to dipping into the swap file. They are all running web browser, Open Office, and Evolution pretty much all day long. I expect that this particular server could support up to 30-35 users before we saw a big performance hit. This server cost less than $2000 to configure.
My LTSP workstations are so cheap they are nearly disposable. Oh, dropped your computer on the floor? Power supply burned out? Let me pull another one out of storage, plug it in, and off you go. Try that with your windows boxen.
Yes, I'm aware that you can put openoffice on a windows box and use that, but why would you do that when OO, Firefox, and Evolution are available for linux?
The only groups that I would *not* recommend this solution to would be companies that use and depend on a lot of doc and xls files that are heavily formatted and full of macros. Open Office still can't quite render all
All in all, Linux is easier to use, and less expensive but to really find that out you have to take more into account than just the difference between an off-the-shelf computer from IBM or Dell, and the similar no-os computer.
Well to be fair on the other side. A lot of companies do re image their systems anyways. Even if it comes with the OS they are using. Just because they want to install all there common 3rd party applications in one swoop.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Funny, they are using a different url for slashdot,
here is a link to the one where everyone shoots down
his unqualified opinions.
http://osdir.com/Article3992.phtml
You buy a machine it does not matter what comes on it since every single corporate environment images machines when the come in the door anyhow, so the price is still the same.
Besides no Linux administrator worth a grain of salt is gonna install linux on anything anyhow. Everyone I know that runs real desktop installations does so using thin client.
Got Code?
While the writer is making a fair point, one counter-argument is that a Linux corporate desktop installation would quite likely use thin clients like they did in Largo in order to make the system easier to manage for system administrators.
Good point, but... Most businesses actually do make their own image of Windows and deploy it throughout the company (at least this has been the case for all the large companies I've been involved with). Usually it's easier to just reimage the hard drive than to install all the company's software on the default windows install (besides that, the image is updated with all the latest service packs and the version that came with the machine may not be).
So, Linux and Windows are dead even in this area.
I think the real problem is that hardware companies (Dell, Gateway, even IBM) don't have the guts to stand up to Microsoft and offer a real alternative.
Here's some corroborating evidence.. Reports/rep ort5.html
http://ceb.unsystem.org/documents/ISCC
This is a William Mcdonald Buck talking to the United Nations Information Systems Coordinating Committee on behalf of the IBRD, which is one of the main divisions of the World Bank.
There's also a William Mcdonald Buck who had difficulty booting his 2.5 kernel on the LKML (but wasn't subscribed) and a William Mcdonald Buck who's apparently done some sort of instructing at the CS department of George Mason University.
Yes, it's now. :)
I use Evolution at work to communicate with the Exchange server. The only problem with it is the lacking support for outlook forms stuff and it's painfully slow.
The slowness could be that I have mail folders with 5000+ mail objects in but hey they are all very important
Let's be entirely fair on the other side.
I worked for a company that regularly ordered Dell's. After 4 years of it, I finally adopted the practice of completely reloading the systems from a clean hard disk with a standard Windows install CD before using. Why? Because of all the "crapware" that Dell installs! The machines were routinely more stable (and, yes, we are talking win2k and XP here) and more responsive without Dell's custom software on them. From talking with others in similar situations at other companies, HP/Compaq's have the same problem.
Now, ostensibly, the reason for all this extra software is to make diagnosing problems easier for techs when you call in for service. Realistically, the only solution they really offer when you call in is to reload with the "restore" CD. This, of course, wipes out any custom settings or software installed after the machine was delivered. Add to this the fact that the last 2 systems we ordered had the video drivers borked and would not even display correctly after registering (and I had to reload the "restore" CD twice to prove this to them) but worked fine after I installed from the vanilla Windows install CD and you gotta assume that Dell doesn't always ship working software!
There isn't any real bargain in getting systems preloaded.
Check out here. It shows him as the World Bank (IBRD) representative to the UN Information Systems Coordination Committee. So afaict he is what they say he is.
The author is a former CTO for the world bank: an international organization with about ten thousand employees spread around the world, not including on-site consultants. He has looked at the TCO question and provided a part one of a TCO comparison. The Organization will not be purchasing 2K computers from Bob's bargain hut, or me. They will be purchasing them from a top tier manufacturer. As a Former TCO, he does not have the clout to get a rep on the line to order 2K machines and is doing a summary closer to a small business. As that, he is checking out the web prices for computers which have a windows tax on them. Saying that he should create 2K computers from parts is not reasonable. I am personally curious to see what he looks for in parts to follow. Especially knowing that the help monkies at the bank are not that helpful.