Midsize Businesses Not Considering Linux?

Posted by Zonk on Saturday April 9, 2005 @05:23AM from the caught-in-the-middle dept.

LukePieStalker writes "eWeek is running a piece about a research report which concludes that Linux is not even on the radar screen for midsize businesses. The survey involved over 1,400 executives of companies with annual revenue around $250 to $500 million. It seems that, while smaller companies may see the licensing savings as being significant, and larger companies have the expertise to manage it, bringing Linux into a midsize Windows shop creates a multiplatform organization which is prohibitively complicated and expensive to manage. Unfortunately, companies of this size comprise the bulk of American business. Quote: "Linux is free, but the support for it is not.""

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Re:Something to Think About by sphealey · 2005-04-09 06:25 · Score: 5, Informative

> But I find it hard to believe that they are
> not considering Linux.

We are. I would love to convert our shop to all-Linux tomorrow.

Problem is, mid-sized business use midrange apps. E.g. Forth Shift, Visual Manufacturing, etc. Which were written in the late 80s/early 90s. For the Windows API.

Changing out a business management system is no trivial task for a midsized company, and not undertaken lightly. If and when these midrange vendors compile Linux versions (web-based really doesn't work for high-volume ERP transactions), then we can look at moving to Linux. But unfortunately not before.

sPh