Slashdot Mirror
"Get the Facts" Campaign Working
brontus3927 writes "According to a Reseller Advocate Magazine write-up, Microsoft seems to be winning its war against Linux. Info-Tech Research Group recently ran a survey that is now being used on Microsoft's Get The Facts campaign. In it were some surprising results. 'After polling 1,400 IT managers and CIOs in SMB corporations, his group found that 48% were not interested in Linux, 15% were not sure about Linux, and only 10% plan to evaluate Linux." Despite this, two-thirds of all webservers run Linux. The disparity in these numbers comes from the fact that most smaller companies' websites are hosted by service providers running Linux servers even if the company itself isn't."
A lot of Apache webserver installations are used by hobbyists, not companies. You can't say the same for IIS.
Two thirds of web servers run Apache, but many of them would be running Apache on Windows!
Unfortunately Microsoft may be winning the war. And more scary in my opinion is Microsoft has shifted to more subtle means. What could be less intimidating than a web site dedicated to gently walking managers through the maze of technical issues ostensibly improving their (the managers) effectiveness?
For me, all I need to do to consider which platform costs less to manage is look back over the span of my career... I've managed Windows and Unix systems for over twenty years (which means I've managed Windows systems for "x" years -- you pick when you first think that might be -- I know it hasn't been twenty years). And when I weigh how much I invest to keep systems running, Unix (linux included) always wins, easily.
Of course, I found it unusual for management to ask me or any of my technical peers for recommendations, they typically get/got most of their advice gladhanding on the golf course, or from nice glossy brochures, and now, from slick benevolent web sites.
Microsoft is one of the best at PR, and their "Get the Facts" campaign may be one of their most impressive successes (oh that Microsoft would be so successful developing and creating safe and secure software). But, Microsoft knows perception is 90% of reality. What they say only has to feel true and assuage the fears of managers justifying manager's choices to stay with Microsoft. Unfortunately it has become a Nobody ever got fired for choosing Microsoft world (remember when it was IBM?), and with Microsoft's huge lead and head start in controlling the marketplace I don't see this changing any time soon.
What bugs me is when it bleeds into my area (I prefer doing my work in the Unix world...). For example, the time our team got a new member -- a new sysadmin who previously had been working and support Windows machines at our company. Our main server was a workhorse Sun Server and I had with reverence watched it chug away doing good work with an up time that had finally exceeded 550 days (not a huge record in the Unix world, but it was fun to see it go...). The Monday of week two of our new admin I was dismayed to see that our trusty Sun server now only had an uptime of less than two days. Sigh. Wasn't sure why, but reboots/crashes happen. Before I could do any more checking, "Bob" (not his real name) dropped by positively beaming and let me know he had noticed that luna (the server) had not been rebooted for a long time so over the weekend he had rebooted it for us! Universes collide! Sigh, again.
I'd love to see good technology prevail -- unfortunately today the combination of effective PR and FUD campaigns combined with Microsoft's products turns out to be good cough enough.
Was Linux ever winning this war? Microsoft's been in the lead, it's just that Linux is playing catch-up.
"GNU/linux that is thanks you very much."
No, we thank God that you do not work on marketing. Refrain of spelling such an ugly and unpronounceable name. Guh-noo slash Linux... what the fuck?
Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
what are the percentages of IT managers and CIO who were not interested in Linux, were not sure about Linux, and planned to evaluate Linux before the Get the Facts campaign started?
Singularity: a belief in the "God" idea with the "demiurge" relation inverted.
That survey only shows what people are thinking of Linux now. Suppose that before the campaign, only 5% were thinking of using linux and 90% were dead-set against it? Then the campaign would be backfiring. Without any data points on what people thought before, or what a control group of people who haven't been exposed to the campaign think, we can't tell how effective or inneffective "Get the Facts" has been. -Drachasor
This may surprise to the parent poster but quite a few Apache installations are on top of Windows simply because people don't trust IIS - ditto BIND (which people shouldn't trust either, but let's not get into that). It shouldn't come as a shock that IT managers aren't evaluating Linux for servers as much anymore when you look at what's available in Windows Server 2003 and *BSD. I'm not as big a user of Linux as I used to be, so stop me if I'm talking out my ass here, but stripping Linux down to operate strictly as a server simply isn't what it used to be (in terms of effort required if nothing else) due to kernel bloat and dependency hell. Why would you use it when there are other OSes that provide everything else a server needs with less kruft?
--Ryv
I don't think the article is surprising news at all...
At my job we are NOT considering Linux, and probably will not anytime in the foreseeable future.
We have 10+ years of infrastructure built on Windows. We have over a dozen servers all running Windows, talking to each other, running programs built for them.
We have 10+ years of expertise (well, 4 people with at least 6 year each)
Switching now would be insane.
It's not a choice of which one is 'better' (for one of any number of reasons) but which one works best for us.
No reason to lie.
Management isnt going to act on ethics. We need an example - a company that has clearly benefited from switching, and not just "we saved a couple bucks because our IT nerd is running a linux box for something I never knew existed". We need to convince the millions of people who sell stuff for a living that something free is the best option. It's a culture war, and either we fight that or "we had a better product but..." If we want linux to take over the business world then we need business men to do some heavy lifting.
But why should we care? Is Linus doing this for world domination? Is anybody? I'm content with thriving community we have now, I play with it, and I'm lucky enough to work with it. Fuck the boardroom.
If you do the equation above, you find that 37% of responses *AREN'T ACCOUNTED FOR*. Could it be that 37% of managers is using linux or PLANNING on using linux? Seems to be the logical conclusion to draw when 48% aren't planning on using linux, and 15% say they may evaluate it in the future.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
No, two-thirds of all publicly visible www domains found by netcraft run Apache.
And the vast majority of domains are squatters or placeholder pages that are virutal hosted by the 1000s to a box so it's largely a meaningless statistic.
The stereotypical image of Linux (smelly, overweight nerds wearing Star Trek T-shirts) compared to Microsoft (suit-wearing shmoozers with lunch budgets to burn) explains all this.
Decision makers tend to be more political and less technical in nature, that's how they got to be bosses.
Of course, this is not always true as there are companies that have tech-backgrounded managers that do a great job. Find one and work for them.
Those Apache servers are not all Linux. A lot of Apache servers are BSD or other *IX systems. A few are even Windows boxes. There's probably a MachTen box or two in the mix.
I think Linux is the cat's pajamas, the bee's knees; it does not need to steal credit from BSD and other projects in order to deserve praise.
Cool, so 52% is interested in Linux. Only 15% was unsure about Linux, the remaining 85% have already made their mind up about running Linux or not. Finally an amazing 10% of all SMB corporations is already planning to try out Linux.
I think that's pretty impressive.
How would you like to spin your statistics today?
And how much were locked-in using M$ ?
By the way, 10% seems a good start to me... When 10% would have switched, maybe 10 other percent might consider to switch.
I have discovered a truly marvelous proof of killer sig, which this margin is too narrow to contain.
Microsoft isn't really fighting war with a free product here, they are fighting a war against expensive IBM and Oracle products that are based on a free product. If you actually "Got the Facts" (read the reports), you'd see this.
I don't totally agree with the conclusions, but there's nothing really wrong with pointing out the price tag of WebSphere and Oracle.
There's a certain amount of FUD here on slashdot where MS is the expensive vendor and Linux users all run Debian & Postgres for free. The reality is that Linux is being positioned as a high-end Enterprise product and is priced accordingly. I don't see any movement from RedHat and Novell to sell Linux to Small/Medium Businesses.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
have always mentioned Linux as an option
Don't sell them "Linux"
Sell the mom and pop company a "File Server" and a "Web Server" and an "Email Server"
Don't sell them a Gentoo box with Samba, Apache and Postfix. They'll say "WTF?!?!"
MS products generate so much revenue.
MS Products would generate a lot of revenue, but free software generates a lot more income for us.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
I am willing to bet that many of these small businesses don't even have a dedicated server. Someone's desktop in a workgroup functions as a "Server" and calling one of the employees an IT Manager or CIO is probably quite a stretch.
This should not be marked as 'Troll'. It should be marked as 'Insightful'. I rarely go AC but in this case I have to or I would also be called a Troll myself.
/. follow themselves. If this community wants to improve it's own image rather than worrying about themselves then they ought to get shut of Gates the Borg. Or do the same thing for Linus, Scott and Larry ! Of course, neither of those will EVER happen.
My (multi-billion pound) employer has a stated principle that we do not denigrate the competition, but instead we should sell our products and services on their own merits. This is not a principle that many on
What's changed since this same report was discussed last month?
Unfortunately, nothing here as the editors are still letting rewrites and reposts through as news.
Making the world a better place, one psychotic episode at a time.
I disagree with the tone but not the sentiment. This is a minor set-back for Linux and OSS software in general. It indicates that Microsofts marketing is now effective and the solution is to stop complaining about Mircosofts skill in marketing and start countering it.
There is a need to redouble our evangelisation efforts, to concerntrate on pointing out the flaws in Microsoft paid for studies, to extole the vitues of our software, in particular how these virtues impact the bottom line of the CIO's we are trying to convince.
As OSS advocates we should primarily be concerned with writing good code, filling bug reports and generally producing high quality software. But those of us who engage in marketing need to learn to push the right buttons the same way Microsoft pushes the right buttons. The difference being is we don't have to mislead to market.
Many of us balked and laughed when the Microsoft FUD guns were trained on Linux TCO. This study indicates we (myself included) were wrong to laugh, and we need to appreciate that Microsoft has suceeded in changing perception with thier marketing. We should stop complaining about how good Microsoft marketing is, stop dismissing Microsoft marketing as 'just marketing', and fight back against it.
Switching to Linux for most of these companies doesn't make sense.
Now, on the front end, the websites etc, the e-mail forwarding, they probably are serving up pages using Linux and getting services from Linux and they don't even know it.
We've got an IT mindset and I think it's a bit unrealistic. Those numbers actually look pretty reasonable to me, with or without the Get the Fud campeign.
Luck favors the prepared, darling.
In other words you didn't plan a change over. You failed to train users on how to work with the system, and you wonder why it failed.
You sir are an idiot. People like you deserve windows. An OS designed from the ground up to help create better money paying idiots.
After polling 1,400 IT managers and CIOs in SMB corporations
Should this read "After polling 1,400 of Microsoft's best customers..."?
At my job we are NOT considering Linux, and probably will not anytime in the foreseeable future.
.... or anything.....
;)
It starts out small. You say to yourself - Why are we paying Microsoft $5000 just to serve files for 20 people? You dink around with a Linux/*BSD box and manage to barely get Samba working. It takes you a day, but after that it works! A year later, you notice that you haven't had to reboot it or 'fix' it, or virus scan it, service pack it, change the CAL licenceing
It starts out small.
But it is infectious.... after all it's 'viral' according to Balmer
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
"polling 1,400 IT managers and CIOs"
Polling who? Trying polling the people that actually do things. Those CIOs and managers probably don't even know what Linux and Windows are.
48% are not interested in Linux.
52% are somewhat interested in Linux.
15% are not sure about Linux.
Which leaves 37% who have deployed Linux or are testing Linux for deployment.
The company I work for sounds similar to your's. We have LOTS of server apps that will only run on Windows. Except we have more servers.
Possibly. But "now" isn't "tomorrow".
The key issue is whether you're talking about an EXISTING installation or a NEW installation.
Because you have an existing installation, your company has already spent the money to evaluate and deploy that system.
But, at some time in the future, there will be an upgrade. And you will have to spend more money on your system.
There are 3 items to consider when evaluating a system.
#1. Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) - how much does it cost to run this system day after day.
#2. Return on Investment (ROI) - How much revenue with this system allow us to generate?
#3. Migration cost - How much will it cost to deploy this system.
Now, even though Linux may have a far lower TCO and a far higher ROI, the migration cost can be too high to make a business case for it.
But when it is time to pay for the next upgrade, the migration costs need to be compared. So if it would cost $1 million to migrate today, but it would take the company 10 years to make that money back, no one would migrate.
But then you have to pay $500,000 for the next upgrade. Suddenly, the Linux system doesn't look so bad. Particularly if you're looking at ANOTHER upgrade within the next 5 years.
So you (being the pro-active guy you are) get in touch with the people working on the Linux systems. You have the time and they have the incentive. Can they cut the migration costs to $250,000 within the next 5 years (estimated time to your next upgrade)?
After all, it's just 0's and 1's.
If they can do that, then the next upgrade will cost MORE than the migration.
It's called a "migration plan". Only idiots or people with an agenda try to migrate ALL of their systems at once.
Start by learning Linux and seeing where it can be deployed, reasonably, in your existing network. We're running it for DNS/DHCP/backup/webpages/etc. I also have it protecting an old GroupWise system. I'm also trying to establish OpenLDAP as our standard directory service.
The longer you wait to start, the more proprietary infra-structure you'll have to migrate.
Your IT department needs a plan. Otherwise, you'll be driven by the vendors. And the vendors are only interested in getting more of your money into their pockets.
And "staying with Microsoft" is not a plan.
Umm yes, they do. That's the whole point. The vast majority of people are not computer literate, and they need to be told what to think and what to buy. Therefore if you tell them the same thing often enough and loud enough and with enough pretty pictures, they will believe that message 'til their dying day.
Most people I know are aghast when they see yet another Microsoft sponsored "research" paper proclaim (yet again) Microsoft's superiority. But it works! If you keep feeding and feeding and feeding this to the public they will believe it!
And that is why it's working - they are believing it. The people that see through this and correctly label it as FUD are a tiny, voiceless minority.
Problem with this model is while it almost always works, businesses structuring their IT around a solution usually require a concrete guarantee that if it breaks, they *will* be able to obtain support from a vendor on very short notice, preferably with some liability attached to the prospect of the vendor failing. Also, they want they vendor to be on very strong footing in terms of staying power. That means most independent linux consulting agencies are out (this applies to MS as well, few stable consulting companies are around that offer support). The few that are stable and do service arbitrary linux distros are prohibitively expensive. Again, same applies to MS folk.
So it comes down to the hardware and software vendor being the primary source of comfortable support for SMB. Unless you have a significantly large deployment, or could possibly have one (not a possibility for most SMBs), even the Tier I vendors will tell you to take a hike and take up a problem with your linux distribution vendor, while under MS they offer even to individual users first-level support, since they pretty much have to and economies of scale allow them to do this for the customer base drawn by this feature.
Now, putting the Tier one vendor's direct support of MS aside, it would come down to the cost of buying a linux distribution with reputable enterprise support, or MS. Currently, Red Hat and SuSE/Novell are essentially the only options there. SMBs would be comparing MS licensing/support costs to RedHat/SuSE/Novell costs and up front it at least appears MS provides better enterprise support than the linux distros, and so SMBs have little incentive to move.
Other details of the MS support structure vs RedHat/SuSE/Novell and the nature of the platform may change the true support cost picture, but few SMBs will ever have a good way of seeing anything but the up front costs.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
At my job we are NOT considering Linux
I really dont understand attitudes like this. Sure if Linux cost big money (like Windows) and had all sorts of licensing restrictions (like Windows) then there would be significant hurdles to adoption, BUT, for basically zero cost you can get all sorts of really useful network services like DNS, NTP, HTTP, DHCP, SQUID, SMB, IPTABLES (for NAT, firewalls, firewalling bridges, etc), SMTP gateways/forwarders, great spam filters like spamassassin, MRTG, LDAP, BACKUP-PC, and much, much more. And these services aren't flaky but are basically best of breed. If you cant afford reasonable hardware but feel these services are somewhat critical then you can use the built in RAID, and clustering/redundancy which is available for no extra cost. And if your Windows boxes crap out then you can use Linux to do recovery on them - Knoppix is great for this. Why wouldn't you be considering Linux - is there a downside here?
Your claim to XP and Tiger are highly opinionated, but hardly reasonable. Bare in mind that Open Source desktop systems generally keep a different requirment set than that of XP or Tiger. Some functions overlap, and others do not. Frankly, I can change all that anyway, as I have more options for change on the Open Source system. You see, that *is* the open source requirement, to be able to change anything concievable. This only means that more abstract tools are bound to come later, and rightly so. I suspect that when they do mature, they will be quality tools.
Not when the skillset is itself ignorance. That works equally well on them all.
Sure, NT 3.5, 4.0, 2000, XP, 2003 are all different, and so the skills needed to administer and use each is slightly different. Which means that your statement of `exact same skill set' is technically accurate, though extremely misleading.
In reality, people install NT 3.5, then upgraded to NT 4.0, and updated their skill sets somewhat to add any needed NT 4.0 knowledge. Then Windows 2000 comes out, they upgrade, and upgrade their skill sets. The incremental knowledge upgrades are relatively minor. And while somebody who knew everything there was to know about NT 3.5 would be somewhat lost with Windows 2003, he'd pick it up quickly enough. (And while I'm mostly a *nix guy, I know enough about Windows here to know what I'm talking about, even going back to NT 3.5 and even earlier.)
The same is true with Linux, or any other OS. If somebody who was familiar with Redhat 1.0 suddenly was confronted with Fedora Core 3, they'd be lost ... for a little while. Then they'd be OK as things started falling into place. (And remember, NT 3.5 came out slightly before Redhat 1.0 (both in 1994.))
It takes 4 people to run 12+ servers (each probably dedicated to a single task, as usually recommended for Windows)? Glad it's your company's money, not mine. I guess it helps the unemployment picture though.
"For a great example of infighting, read the latest colomn on pcmag.com by John C. Dvorak. but it doesnt dtop there, ask any linux geek what distro they like and then mention that you like a differant one, that is the quickest way to start a petty-ass flamewar that I have ever seen."
I agree with you, there are a lot of FOSS zealots quite vocal in Slashdot and other community forums, but you have to keep in mind that Linux didn't get where it is because of them but because of a tech-savvy silent majority, which is way more helpful and way more involved in the real issues than those guys. The zealots have more time and more energy to waste in sterile discussions, but what can we do? Should we spend hours modding down those morons or typing coherent arguments that get ignored or mod down by them anyways?
"OSS evangalist that you like GIMP, but preder photoshop, stand back on this one, lest rabid drool fall on your shoe as their eyes get bloodshot with anger and they shout "THE GIMP CAN DO ANYTHING PS CAN!" the same can be said for any number of titles. Untill the greater linux community stops acting like all closed source software is rooted in pure evil, this will be a barrier to entry as well."
True, but you're talking with an evangelist, what were you expecting? I mean, do you get objective, facts-based analysis when you speak with MS Office evangelists or Mac evangelists? The problem is not the community but a very specific type of guy within the community. Just talk to different people and you'll see the difference.
Don't sell them "Linux"
Sell the mom and pop company a "File Server" and a "Web Server" and an "Email Server"
But that's not what they want - so they won't buy it!
The point isn't that people are frightened of nasty scary technologies and just want a little box that whirrs and goes "beep" occasionally. This is a battle of brands, not technologies.
Your average mom-and-pop, the ones that don't want Linux because they've heard it's too complicated, certainly don't want a generic white-box product. They want genuine Microsoft(r) Windows(r), because that's a brand they feel they know and can trust. The only way they will ever choose anything other than genuine Microsoft(r) Windows(r) is if they can be trained to experience the same positive reaction to another brand. Like Linux(r).
The desktop Linux distros are making exactly the same mistake, incidentally. They try to make their distros look nice and friendly by having, for example, an icon that says "Word processor" instead of one that says "Abiword" or "OpenOffice.org Writer". It doesn't work - because Grandma doesn't know what a "word processor" is. But she has heard of something called "Microsoft Word" that you use to write letters in. So when she can't see that, or any other brand she's heard of, she gets confused and thinks, gee, this is difficult, maybe my grandson was wrong and I should have gotten Windows after all. Only when the brands of alternatives gain widespread recognition will it seem natural to use them.
The point I'm making is that we will never gain mindshare by trying to make everything bland and generic. People don't want brand X, they want the "real" product. We have to build on the growing mindshare behind the Linux(r) and other free/open-source brands, not try to "protect" people from the only thing that will ever persuade them to consider our products!
And you expected it to work?
I now systematically install Firefox as the default browser on all machines, but I first used it myself for several months (started with v. 0.7 I think, called Phoenix), and only recommended it to computer-savvy friends. Then I set it up for a few users (it was at version 0.9 by then), and waited a couple more months. Then I asked for their feedback, before deploying it to normal users. (The feedback was positive).
And that's for a simple web browser.
I understand why your employee isn't at that company anymore, but I don't understand why you didn't leave with him
Only one remote hole in the default install, in more than 8 years!
Hm, motto should be "secure, until you install a few daemons".
This is the Post Hoc Ergo Propter Hoc fallacy. Namely, the poster believed that since this survey occured after the "Get the Facts" campaign, then the "Get the Facts" campaign is responsible for the survey results. This may or may not be true.
Personally, I found the "Get the Facts" campaign as anything but factual.
We have two eyes and ten fingers so we will type five times as much as we read. http://www.shlomifish.org/
The fact that you make a blanket statement like this shows you put absolutely no thought into your...thoughts.
Because we are running the same software that 85% of the world is running, and about 99% of our industry is running...we are dinosaurs.
We should move over the the software that runs about 8% of the world's computers (being generous here) even though in our industry that would make us the only ones incompatible with everyone else.
Good thinking- I would love to hire you as a consultant..because as you see it, one solution works for everybody...
No reason to lie.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
Freedom has a business case.
Many businesses have a policy that require no single vendor products in business critical areas. This policy seems to have been forgotten in IT.
This type of policy is about securing the future of the company by guaranteeing its freedom to change vendors.
Freedom is good business.
Most of the statistics are pulled from Netcraft surveys, so unless "the gods chosen few" who run BSD lie in their server string, Linux has a huge numerical advantage.
What normal small or medium sized business has, or can even afford, a fucking CIO?! What planet are Microsoft on if they think that?
The vast majority of SMBs do their IT on an ad-hoc basis, and mostly rely on local IT businesses and individuals that they know to produce cost-effective solutions. There are a lot of local IT businesses out there that use Linux and open source software to give them the flexibility and cost savings they need. The running theme for small businesses when looking to expand their network and server infrastructure is that it is simply too expensive, particularly with Windows at the back-end.
I don't doubt that the vast majority of SMBs use Windows desktops, but as for server and network infrastructure - small businesses just cannot afford Windows 2003, CALs and all the other paraphenalia. Microsoft is in a dream world if they think that this is some sort of untapped source of gold.
If I'm looking to the real future of computing, I'd rather know what a bunch of geeks in high school think about technology than some random group of CIOs. They'll have the greatest degree of influence over it in the long haul.
Adolecents are very bad at determining anything that is going to last a long time. There's a lot of quick, off the cuff, rebel without a cause, I just want to be different attitude. High schoolers may determine fads, but not long term statistics. As for the other group, the over the hill stuffy antiques that occupy the highest ranks in companies, they too have problems. They are most likely to stick with what they know too stongly and never change. Many of them did go down with the mainframe. No, I'll take the middle ground on this one, as the guassian curve of change requires. Many of the people now working in the trenches know most what's going on.
I agree with you about technology becoming a commodity, but the problem is I don't see how there is an equivalent between something actually new, and Linux/FOSS. An OS is an OS, and Microsoft's OS isn't technologically different from Linux as say PCs were to mainframes. Even so, I'm still unsure about whether another "revolution" is going to take place in our industry. It would be nice to have a free and open OS, as well as applications to run on it, but development does have a cost in terms of time, as well as money. I'm assuming Microsoft will "eventually" lower their prices enough that makes it pointless to actually check Linux out. The problem is, do we still want them to "control" us?
I would love to see a technologically new, free, and open OS, that is actually different from the OSs we are familliar with, but somehow I don't see this happening. And since it may not happen, I don't know how any CIO (or app vendor) is going to choose between two OSs that basically have the same function, except on price, especially since one of them has 90 percent of the market.
Working in the trenches as I have however has given me good perspective on how a company like Microsoft exercises control over its customer. Microsoft doesn't seem to (or hasn't up to now) actually wanted a stable core that can be built upon as time progresses. They know that if they can get you to "whole hog upgrade" every few years then they can be on the gravy train for life. They know that selling the whole hog is more profitable than selling the pieces "componentized". This kind of thinking yanks my chain, and you can bet our CIO will eventually hear about such problems from the trenches.
How come nobody is looking at it the other way. The desire here is to focus on some imagined learyness of Linux. I would like to see a survey that came back and asked if Linux users were considering jumping ship to Windows. I think you would find a LOT higher percentage would say they are NOT considering Windows.
What lala land do you live in where unpatched linux boxes don't get viruses?
Show me a virus for OpenBSD on Sparc and we'll talk.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
What mom and pop want is Quickbooks. Try and sell them on GNUCash, and they'll respond "That's nice, where's Quickbooks"? And they'll have a reason for that question, believe me.
Mom and pop pay some nice people $20 a month for their business's webserver and email, and they're more than willing to eat that cost if it means someone else looks after the computer (which includes the hardware and the net connectivity as well).
Linux is a fine desktop, and does great on the server. Web surfing, check, email, check, web serving check, databases, check. It does lousy on the mid-end. Appointments? Billing? Bookkeeping? Where do you start? Freshmeat?
I am no longer wasting my time with slashdot
What if you had some piece of software, say with a codebase of half a million lines of code, that had been tested and debugged to hell and back. Alas, it's in some slightly older programming language. Then a bunch of consultants come along and tell you that you need to rewrite it all in some flashy new programming language, for basically no other reason than they think flashy new language is much cooler than slightly older language. That would be pretty stupid, right? Well, that's what nearly all of the responses to this guy sound like.
I use Linux quite a bit at work and at home, and have been instrumental in getting OSS tools more widely used at work. Along the way I've had to do a lot of serious thinking about what the best tool for the job was, and debate all kinds of people (with a lot more years of experience than me) about why we should go one way and not the other. I recommend some open source solution and the hardcore MS people resist the crap out of it. I recommend a proprietary solution and a bunch of other people think I've gone insane. In all cases I did boatloads of research and suggested what looked to be the best tool for the job. The main conclusion I drew from all of this is, the more black and white someone thinks these issues are, the less clueful they are. Your Linux advocacy is the product of just as much of a herd mentality as those with MS-only blinders (which is definitely not the original poster, but you flamed him anyway).
This is exactly the point. People don't see that they have choices but if they see that they have a choice in one area of technology, they begin to check to see if their are other choices that they can make as well.
Microsoft's big plus is in making consumers think that there are no choices. It is scared of people getting the chance to make a choice and even more scared of consumers making an INFORMED choice.
Just because you use Windows and have always used Windows does not mean that is the best choice for you. It means that you have not taken the time to investigate if there are better choices and have just accepted the fate handed to you by the Microsoft corporation.
One day these other Windows people will wake up abnd learn that they have a choice whether it be a different browser, a different OS, a different Office app, a different web server, a different database or whatever.
One day they will realize that they have choices and that is what Microsoft fears the most. They want to convince you that even if you do have a choice, that it isn't a REAL choice. And they are losing.
This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
The campaigns against Linux seem to treat it as if it's something that used to be widely used but is now dwindling. We all know that this isn't true.
Linux has really jumped up out of nowhere, and is now being considered by quite a large percentage of businesses.
The 'facts' seem to show that Linux is growing in popularity at a phenomenal rate, and is battling extremely well against Microsoft's considering the lock-in/lock-out situation.
The world complained about stability, and Microsoft made Windows more stable.
The world complained about security, and Microsoft... well, it seems to be having a good try.
Now, the world is complaining about lock-in, and Microsoft... oh dear. Is Microsoft going to open its protocols, APIs and file formats? I think not.
Linux/Open Source/Anti Microsoft News
"Why are we paying Microsoft $5000 just to serve files for 20 people?"
I don't know, because Windows Server 2003, standard edition, with 10 CALs, is around $500.
"A year later, you notice that you haven't had to reboot it or 'fix' it, or virus scan it, service pack it"
Bullshit. Patching is a necessary part of any OS. Hell, there have been major holes in SSH, the kernel, Apache, and Samba in the last year. Windows is not unique in this regard.
We run Windows because it integrates well with our systems. IIS and Exchange use Active Directory for authentication. So do our file servers. Our file servers respond to our group policy changes.
It means less manual work and less scripting. WS2003 integrates "out of the box". No Linux distro can offer that.
$500 is a small price to pay for that.
You can certainly demand that your current staff learn Linux. I have to agree with the other poster on this thread; the idea that your people should only need to know one platform is ludicrous in this day and age. You'll probably be doing them a favor; my background is UNIX-focused and when recently looking for a job, most firms wanted people who knew both Windows and Linux.
Furthermore, there's this thing called interoperability that is afforded to a large extent by TCP/IP. You ignore this when you mention "stupid little fanboys" and then spout off the same line as MS when you talk about the costs of fully transitioning to a Linux infrastructure. The fact is, the larger organizations that MS is targeting have such large infrastructures that they can run their proxy servers or mail servers on Linux, maybe even run their public-facing web site on Apache/Linux, but keep the rest of their infrastructures intact. There are areas where Windows is unbeatable, but there are also areas where Linux excels. A good technologist will know the correct applications for each platform and act in a way that maximizes the value of their systems. If your technologists can only see the value of Windows, I hope for your sake that you have a good consultant on hand. Maybe I'll be hearing from you someday.
Now with open source software there's not much free support
You have GOT to be smoking crack with this one. Nothing the size and scope of the linux user community exists in windows. If you recall, the linux user community has won AWARDS for its support.
You can say a lot about linux, but you cannot say it doesn't contain free support. Linux is the epitome of free support.
You are missing the other point: Reboot if you do something that affects the boot process. Normally you don't have to do anything to the boot process or the software involved in the boot process. Only if you patch kernel and loadable modules, you have to reboot. /etc/init.d/ directory (or /etc/rc.d/init.d or /etc/system/init.d or whatever...) where all the scripts are to be used to start and stop services.
If you patch software that is started at boot time it should be enough to just restart the services. That's why you have the
The one who screwed up his firewall was actually recompiling the kernel without testing if it runs. That's bad. The one with 550days uptime didn't have any kernel patches to test. So no reboot.
If you look at the patch descriptions they actually tell you if a reboot is necessary after applying. And no. You don't fiddle around in the boot scripts of a working server. You have a second server where you can happily reboot as you like to test necessary changes to boot scripts. And even then above said still applies: Restarting the service using the changed boot script should be a sufficient test. UNIX is designed to have as much as possible independent of each other. And a vendor changing a boot script in a way that it requires to change the sequence the boot scripts should be called will always put BIG WARNING SIGNs at this patch. As does the free and open source community.
You are going to find your company at a competitive disadvantage when the bulk of computer users eventually migrate to cheaper equally-capable open systems, such as Linux and Solaris running GNOME. Your company will be left with huge licensing contracts with Microsoft, while your competitors are cutting their infrastructure costs tremendously.
Good luck.
Be afraid, Gates, ... be VERY afraid.
GrowLaw [www.groklaw.net] tore up a similar artilce a few months ago.
Let's see.....
15% got there ass stuck on the fence == 15% still there
10% plan to evaluate == 10% still "evaluating"
48% not intereset == 52% ARE interested
You also have to know the questions asked as they can be just as "loaded" as the answeres.
I also helps to know who was surveyed.
But these will never be released.
Survey - Dr. Bob do you think Crest toothpaste is better than the other.
Dr. Bob - Never used Crest
Survey - Thank you.....[dial tone]
Dr. Tom/Jim/John/Mary/Dave/Sally/Adam/Carl/Doolittle - [same question]
[answer from all] - Yea, it tastes better.
Results == 9/10 dentist recommend Crest
Nothing new here.................