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

TCO?

[ObsessiveMathsFreak]

"As soon as support ends for XP, we will look at moving to Linux [desktops]," Babhoota said, adding the back-end switch to open source had cost 17 percent of what a proprietary upgrade had been costed at, with the agency doubling the amount of business it processed in the same 12-month period.

Whither now the Yankee group with their magic statistics and Excel sheets which show that in fact Babhoota real TCO is over fives times what it would have been if he'd switched to Server 2003, with a shiny new fade in comboboxes.

Re:could these people be on collision course with

[Anonymous Coward]

You assume the public feel compelled to "trust" Microsoft. In fact, Microsoft has become the company that everyone loves to hate. They haven't released a major offering in years, and continue to depend upon new computer purchases as its main source of OS revenue (i.e. highly discounted). Meanwhile, you've got a public tired of the lock-in -- espeically when it serves no purpose other than to extract more of their hard-earned dollars. And I haven't even mentioned the lackluster attempts at beefing up security.

Meanwhile, Apple seems to be gaining market share -- based on what? A freakin' MP3 player! "Gee", folks wonder, "Are all Apple products this good?"

And last but not least, there's Microsoft's crown jewel -- Office. Who has $400 to spend on an office suite when Open Office is delivering the same value for FREE?

Which brings me back to the origainal point --- Microsoft wants us to trust them. What have they done to earn that trust?

Lower TCO using Linux

[totallygeek]

I spoke with a company about lowering TCO by moving to Citrix or Terminal Services and Linux workstations. The licensing benefits and security at the workstation was one factor, but the big kicker was the workstation OS needs were removed, giving them 1-2 extra years in their replacement rotation and depreciation.

So, the company agrees and begins to move forward. To my dismay, they put in Citrix, and proceed to replace workstations with Winterms! So, they spent a fortune replacing workstations, instead of just replacing the OS with Linux and featuring new workstations purchased without any OS.

Management types looked at the skyrocketed costs and went back to the original documentation. They actually tried to blame Linux for the costs. The board report reflected this, even though no Linux was installed. Once this was discovered, to save face, they started buying Linterms (still expensive, still replacing workstation, still with 3 year depreciation and replacement cycle).

So, I hear of companies complaining about Linux costs and have to take it with a grain of salt because I know that many people have their numbers inflated or do not really realize what they have. For example, a company buys a Linux box running Oracle for a 25-Windows-workstation network. They classify all the workstations and Oracle, the whole kit and kaboodle, as a Linux project. All associated expenses become Linux's fault, even though the Linux costs were low or none.

Now, in a few days, can you foresee...

[mr_da3m0n]

another article saying that they aren't really switching to Linux because MS made them a sweet sweet sweet deal? So many stories of big corporations switching to linux ending up being schemes to get licensing deals from MS...

Re:disagree

[ozmanjusri]

Then, with respect, most of the people you know are idiots, who'd hose their Linux installs jsut as quickly.

That's not what I'm seeing. I've set up Linux desktops for a few friends who have some specific computer needs (writing letters, budgets, email, web browsing etc), but were constantly getting spyware, viruses and other OS wrecking events.

I want to make something clear now. They're absolutely not idiots. They may not understand the computer/internet world, but they're intelligent effective people who do not deserve to be insulted because their tools are defective and put them at risk.

I set up Debian KDE (from a Knoppix install) desktops for them, cut back the KDE menus to just the apps they needed, wrote a few little scripts and OOo macros to help with MS Office compatibility, and left them to it.

Not one of the Debian installs has been hosed. I'm still getting the occasional "How do I do this?" call, but there's about 1/10th of the dramas I used to get with Windows.

Re:disagree

[drsmithy]

I set up Debian KDE (from a Knoppix install) desktops for them, cut back the KDE menus to just the apps they needed, wrote a few little scripts and OOo macros to help with MS Office compatibility, and left them to it.

Not one of the Debian installs has been hosed. I'm still getting the occasional "How do I do this?" call, but there's about 1/10th of the dramas I used to get with Windows.

Guess what ? If you spend as much time properly setting up, and restricting access to, a Windows machine, /it won't get hosed either/.

FFS, talk about apples and oranges...