Vista Licensing Speeds Linux Move

Stephen Samuel writes "Australia's NSW Office of State Revenue is speeding it's transition to a Linux desktop due in part to a lackluster interest in Microsoft's attempt to lock them into the Software Assurance Program, reports LinuxWorld. The agency's CIO and manager of client services both confirmed they would start scoping for a move to a Linux desktop within six months. Manager Pravash Babhoota seemed satisfied with a Linux move in their back office, citing Linux costs as being just over 1/6 the projected cost of a Windows upgrade, while processing doubled."

Comments

Re:I can see it now...

[NickFortune]

Linux is *not* user friendly, and until it is linux will stay with >1% marketshare.

You know, it strikes me that saying "Linux is not user friendly" is like saying "computers are not user friendly". I mean, I can see where you'd get such an idea, and in some cases it is certainly true. On the other hand, when I think of all possible environments on offer, it seems to me that such statements say more about the speaker's inexperience in the area than anything else.

I mean Linux embraces everything from pure command line distros to virtual windows clones of the windows interface. You have ubergeek distros like gentoo, and you have ones where people have spent some serious time and money making it simple, like Ubuntu and Linspire. To say nothing of Knoppix which you don't even need to install, and famously Just Works.

User: "How do I get Quake 3 to run in Linux?"

OK you got me. It's a bit of a pain getting programs written for windows to run under Linux. I expect there are Mac apps that give similar problems when you try to make them work under windows. If getting windows games to run on your computer is your highest priority, then it makes sense to have windows installed. You can even dual boot Linux and youse the windows partition as a gaming environment.

On the other hand, the New South Wales Office of State Revenue maybe have more important priorities than Far Cry compatibility. But, hey! the way game studios are ignoring the PC in favour of consoles these days, it's going to be a moot point before too much longer anyway.

So, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that what seems easy and natural to Linux geeks is definitely not what regular people consider easy and natural.

Oh definitely. It's a mistake made by highly skilled people in all fields - to assume that just because something is everyday and routine to them, it can be glossed over for others.

Hence, the preference towards Windows.

I don't agree with yout "hence" nor with your assumption of a preference. Winodws' widespread deployment has more to do with the fact that MS make it damn near impossible to buy a linux box from an OEM channel, and the fact that most people never having tried anything else, tend to think windows is the way things ought to work.

This is not necessarily an endorsement of Windows, just human nature. People tend to think what they're used to is they way things ought to be. For myself, I came to windows from Unix in 1990 and thought Unix was they way things ought to be, purely because that was what I was used to.

Of course, fifteen years later, I still do, and with rather more basis for comparison.