Winemaker Drinks To Linux

An anonymous reader writes "Australian winemaker De Bortoli is a firm believer in Linux. CIO Bill Robertson says he's 'bemused by any notion that Linux is poorly supported in the enterprise since he has never had any trouble finding support for De Bortoli's open-source systems', and says that those IT managers having trouble simply 'aren't looking hard enough.' There are also some other good case studies here -- telecommuncations provider TransACT, online hotel booking service Wotif, engineering contractor Coates and investment and funds management group Aviva."

Comments

Support is overrated

[totallygeek]

Ten years ago, the biggest trouble I was having selling Linux solutions was the support issue. My rebuttal then was, "How often do you call Sun, Microsoft, or Novell?" Now, there are tons of company support outlets, and Linux is much more accepted by businesses. But, the focus has now shifted to, "Who can I get to support this?" Quality support people can be difficult to find. Of course, I hate always hearing that I might get hit by a Mack truck...

Re:Support is overrated

[bigtallmofo]

Ten years ago, the biggest trouble I was having selling Linux solutions was the support issue. My rebuttal then was, "How often do you call Sun, Microsoft, or Novell?"

Unfortunately, perception is and always has been reality to a certain extent. Remember the old adage, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."? It's getting better, but to a certain extent it's true of Microsoft now.

Going Linux might be considered a radical idea with big risks. If the slightest thing goes wrong, you might be looking for another job.

If you go Microsoft which is perceived as "the natural choice" by some, if something goes wrong, not many bosses would blame you.

This doesn't make it right, but it is reality for many.

Re:Support is overrated

[BrokenHalo]

Remember the old adage, "Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM."? It's getting better, but to a certain extent it's true of Microsoft now.

Well, I'm old enough now (42) to remember a certain site in London, which had what was then a significant investment in Burroughs kit.

A certain newly recruited IT manager did indeed get the chop for recommending switching to IBM. I was contracting there at the time, and I remember thinking it served him right.

Re:Support is overrated

[superpulpsicle]

The quality of support in linux land really varies. I have called Redhat for some really steep issues deep in the kernel.

The support was mediocre at best. I can tell the support guy was swamped beyond belief. I truely felt bad for him. If I had no urgency to call, I wouldn't even bother.

At the same time, Redhat support is supposedly one of the more established services out there. So I wonder... quantity over quality...

Not looking hard enough?

[HangingChad]

and says that those IT managers having trouble simply 'aren't looking hard enough.'

I would argue that they're not looking at all. Not only are they not looking, they're not taking sales calls from companies that do support and customize OSS apps. They're making an effort not to know.

Re:Isn't this EXACTLY the point?!?

[WinterSolstice]

Well, considering the support we have had from IBM Tivoli, I'd rather rely on OSS. We have been unable to take reliable backups for 4 months, and had a "critsit" ticket for 3 months. IBM couldn't care less, and couldn't be providing worse service if they tried.

For the money, just as easy to go OSS.

-WS

Re:"Looking hard enough" for support

[morgan_greywolf]

There is plenty of support for Linux in the enterprise, though. Novell/SuSE, Red Hat and IBM all have various support offerings. HP supports much of their enterprise hardware on Linux. And let's not knock Google. As a support professional, Google is often one of my *first* resources should I encounter something I don't have an immediate answer for -- for ANY platform (Unix, Linux, Apple, Windows). Even if I don't find the answer immediately, I'll often find useful reminders or sparks of inspiration of things to check which usually results in my finding the solution on my own.

Re:Isn't this EXACTLY the point?!?

[SenFo]

"Isn't that EXACTLY the point of buying from a vendor? So that I can EASILY and QUICKLY get the support I need WITHOUT HAVING TO LOOK FOR IT?!?>"

You have a valid argument. However, I must point out that once you've started to gain experience, you really don't have to look too far. In fact, I have better luck receiving help from the open source community for free than I do some companies that I've bought software from (e.g. Veritas). Perhaps surprising is that I actually prefer to use the Microsoft newsgroups when I have issues with their products. They have a great response team that can usually answer my questions within a very reasonable time. I have very similar reactions from the open source community and newsgroups. Provided I have given an indication that I've at least tried to solve the problem on my own, I rarely, if ever, run across a situation where nobody is willing to give me a hand.

People still think Linux isn't Enterprise class?

[tnk1]

The problem with Linux isn't it's ability to run as a server in the enterprise and hasn't been for years. While it could probably use some very high-end work, the fact is that Linux will soon completely own the datacenter unless players like Sun really step up.

The Linux issue is business desktops and client applications. If we manage to finally make a good desktop Linux distro with good standardization of interface and ease of use, Linux will finally knock that joke of a server OS (Windows) out of the water and finally start making some inroads for general usership share. Windows only has it's semi-simple GUI administration and it's tie in to the installed Windows desktop base going for it. That's a huge advantage, make no mistake, but it *should* be surmountable.

Re:ergah

[Flamesplash]

Well the ease I was discussing was between GUIs and cml. Not OS Foo that is GUI driven and OS Bar that is cml driven.

A particular GUI may be harder to use than a particular cml.

Is windows harder to admin servers than Unix? perhaps. does it have to be? no. It's just how 'they' are.

Imagine two scenarios. You are told to lock down two server networks. One is windows one is unix. You got to the windows machine, see an icon on the desktop or in the start menu called 'Manage My Network' and click it to run the app. You look around and see something called 'lock down the network' maybe even in red font. you click it, network locked down.

You go to the Unix machine find a prompt and think 'uhhh' you types 'man -k network' get about 80 entries and start sifting through them... you get the idea.

Now rehash, this time the network app doesn't have a big Lock the network button and you just kinda give up.

GUI's lock you into what the gui developer gives you access too and into the 'control paths' they decide are best. While a well designed GUI could give you easily discoverable ( hci buzzword) and usable ( just click a button) access it also potentially prevents you from doing a number of other things the software is capable of but the interface is not.

With cml, you more or less have acess to every combination, but finding the right one for your regular tasks is not obvious or easily discoverable.

That's all I'm saying :)

I'll amend this with the fact that I'm an OS whore, I use them all for various different things.