Midsize Businesses Not Considering Linux?

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.""

Comments

Something to Think About

[soniCron88]

FTA: "But, in the midsized companies, adding Linux would create a multiplatform company where a Microsoft-only shop existed previously."

Keep in mind, while medium sized businesses may "comprise the bulk of American business", this is only the current situation. As smaller businesses grow, there will be an influx of Linux based organizations in the medium-sized business world. Adding Linux to a Windows based infrastructure is inherintly more expensive (because you have to pay for the upkeep of two systems). But a computing infrastructure based entirely on Linux is, as far as I know, cheaper in the long run.

Also, as Linux becomes a better candidate for a desktop platform, its adoption as a viable computing platform will only increase. The state of Linux is, now, significantly more advanced than it was just 2 years ago. 2 years from now, even more so.

Re:Something to Think About

[sphealey]

> 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

Firewalls

[TimeTraveler1884]

I once worked for a smaller company that had this exact viewpoint. They would not even consider Linux for issues that would have actually had cost savings.

One particular scenario was a firewall. I suggested a Linux firewall due to the lower upfront cost. Now, there were a Microsoft shop, but a firewall is not something that has to be administered everyday (when it is working properly). Instead they decided to go with a Checkpoint firewall that cost them a hell of a lot more than what the support costs would have been for a Linux firewall. The interesting thing was they did not need all the features that were provided by a Checkpoint firewall.

Re:Firewalls

[Ogerman]

One particular scenario was a firewall. I suggested a Linux firewall due to the lower upfront cost. Now, there were a Microsoft shop, but a firewall is not something that has to be administered everyday (when it is working properly). Instead they decided to go with a Checkpoint firewall that cost them a hell of a lot more.

Here's the problem: A firewall today is not just about "Linux kernel + iptables." Those Checkpoint boxes (and others) are full featured "security appliances" as they call them. They have features such as:

- application proxies to filter / virus-scan / monitor content: HTTP, FTP, SMTP, etc. (so you can say.. stop employees in the sales dept. from playing games on Pogo during 9-5.. to give an example of the granularity of control available)

- network monitors and various intrusion detection / prevention methods

- complete mobile VPN services, including dynamic firewalling rules

- user authentication services (used for VPN, proxies, replication to other network services, etc.)

- very complete GUI admin tool / management console. (and multiple security devices can be linked together throughout the company..)

- daily automated security updates (virus updates, IDS signatures, firewall software updates, etc.)

Can you do that all with free Linux distros and available OSS tools.. Mostly. Will you be saving any money by the time you've got all the raw materials kludged together into a working solution? Nope.

The Open Source community has failed miserably at producing real-world solutions. It has produced an enourmous amount of quality raw material. (And if you examine the commercial firewall solutions, you'll find much OSS being used internally!)

I think there is a good solution to this: The major free Linux/BSD distros need to have subprojects focused on specific needs. For example, there should be a "Debian/Firewall" sub-distro. (note: not a fork) It should provide a more or less ready-out-of-the-box firewall solution using pre-integrated "best of breed" components from the base Debian distro. If there are shortcomings discovered, the improvements can be fed back into the base distro using standard processes. If there are flaws found in the raw materials, this is a perfect way to make sure that OSS meets real world needs through user feedback.

Now apply this principle to all major areas of network services.. mail servers, file servers, web servers, etc. As long as there is a decent web based admin interface, there will be no problem getting organizations full of Windows-only IT staff to use more OSS. (And meanwhile all the old-school Unix folks are squirming in their seats.. Sorry folks, I don't like it either, but sometimes pragmatism is required. There simply aren't enough smart Unix people to go around. So we either compromise or we let proprietary software continue to dominate the industry.)

They even tossed in calendaring.... in a survey...

[Cylix]

Are they really sure they are not using linux?

Probably not in some major capacity, but I suspect it's there. All in all, maybe that is why they are in the mid sized category! [Think outside the box] Just kidding... mostly.

However, one thing about the article really annoyed me and that was the calendaring functions.

Not to go crazy on this one, but what is the big deal is requiring your calendar and address book be tied to your email client. I guess somewhere along the line everyone got mixed up and decided this is the way life should be.

It's not difficult to seperate the three and it is certainly not difficult to use them together (ie, mailto link, ldap interface for address). Then if you are really slick your address book ldap elements for your email clients are meta tables based on an extended set of data available... so you get to squeeze tons more information into a relatively organized space.

That said, I have to get around to configure Open-Xchange for work and setting up the outlook clients with the connector plugin. The suits really love that stuff... me... I just want them to use the ticket system more.

It would be nice if Evolution had a win32 port.

Use your knowledge.

[PornMaster]

You and I know that administration of a firewall doesn't take much of your time, but lots of businesses don't. So what do you do? Start a business providing managed firewall services for a flat fee per month. Use free tools and provide services on top of them, and even RMS is happy.

Talk about spin

[Anonymous Coward]

"- Only 27 percent of respondents currently have Linux installed.

- Almost half of respondents said they had "no interest" in Linux.

- Of the companies where Linux is not already installed, 48 percent have no interest and an additional 15 percent are not sure."

So to sum it up, 27 percent already use Linux and of those who don't more than half are interested in it, while an other 15 percent are not sure.

How someone can conclude that this means midsize bussinesses are not considering Linux is beyond me.

From TFA

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The just-released report includes results of a survey of more than 1,400 IT executives ... (emphasis mine)

I.e., not sysadmins or developers. I think it's quite reasonable to assume that in many cases, the people actually doing the work are using whatever tool best fits the task -- unless they're hamstrung by stupid company policies, of course -- and not bothering to tell the PHBs, either because they don't think it's worth mentioning or because they're afraid of being shut down.

Re:From TFA

[bonch]

Reading the replies so far, I can't help but wonder, why do people try so hard to spin any survey results that look bad for Linux? You don't see this in Windows articles or other topics regarding other competing operating systems. But when an article is posted that reveals that the Linux movement isn't 100% full-steam-ahead in all ways, everyone starts splitting hairs. "It said IT executives, not sysadmins!" Well, who do you think the sysadmins are working for?

A lot of these places have systems they have been using for a decade or more. It's going to take a while for them to "see the light" so to speak and just convert everything over to Linux when whatever works for them...still works for them. Seriously, why should they switch if they are happy with what they've got?

I suspect most of the disinterest in Linux stems from the fact they already have systems in place that work for them. However, small businesses would be more interested in Linux because of price, and large businesses because of price and platform. Mid-size businesses don't have the resources to switch everything over, but have enough to have already chosen a system previously that still works fine.

I imagine if you did this same survey with other operating systems like, say, Windows Longhorn, you'd find that mid-sized businesses are pretty much disinterested in it too--why switch from what they've got? In other words, not necessarily anything to do with Linux specifically. Any switch of systems is going to require a support cost, not just Linux.

I get free (except my time) support on the Net

[antispam_ben]

Quote: "Linux is free, but the support for it is not."

A couple years ago, not knowing anything about Linux, I bought a boxed Linux release at the Big Computer Store and proceeded installing it on an older P200 machine. There's a place where it stalled during installation. I googled and group.googled for a while (searching on release version, looking for hints on install problems) and found a Usenet post complaining about my very problem, a respnse spelled out how it wouldn't install on a Pentium 1 because something was compiled for a later processor. The responder pointed to a fix: put this file on a floppy inserted into the floppy drive when installing. I did, it worked.

On most products it's just as easy to presume they are orphaned, and the only support is unofficial, outside the product's maker. This often gets me better support than going to the manufacturer.

Clearing something up

[gexen]

Before any more people go and post about how calling Microsoft for support costs money, please remember the following:

1) If the place is a Microsoft shop with a bunch of servers 10-20+, they're most likely a Microsoft Certified Partner who get X amount of free trouble support requests per year. And if YOU solve the trouble shooting or if you bring a question to them that there is NO way you could know or find the answer to, they do not charge/deduct credits. As long as you've done your research and have tried everything to fix the problem, you're most likely not going to be charged.

2) "Support" isn't just calling Microsoft. It also consists of paying on-staff administrators to support everything. The admin(s) that are currently there, if it's a Microsoft shop, are probably MCSA/MCSE's and most likely not that well trained in Linux. For a mid-size business, a salary of 40-60K for another admin is probably a very prohibitive expense.

Re:More like this...

[ExtraT]

Having worked in MS Support (MS Word), I can tell you that you are 100% correct. Microsoft goes out of it's way to ignore ANY kind of input from users. THey even have a fake bug submitting system, which is directed to /dev/null at all times. They are de facto conning their own support agents.

All the bug fixes they put out are a result of corporate support packages (we're talking millions here). An ordinary Joe that calles MS tech support has ZERO influence.