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Windows Drives Company To OpenBSD
Barry Lyndon writes "Computerworld reports that the nightmare of windows is driving PriceWaterhouseCoopers, one of the world's largest accountancy and business consulting companies, to OpenBSD and open source in general." From the article: "'My predecessor spent too much [so] I was told not to spend any money.' When asked what argument he used to convince management to use an open source solution, Uemura said: 'They didn't have an argument because they said don't spend any money.' 'They trusted me,' he said. 'The whole office was relying on one domain controller which was dying.' Uemura said a lot of work was done 'behind the scenes'. 'My experience is that if something has to be done, just do it - don't ask! They will thank you later,' he said."
From TFA:
IT managers who want to deploy an open source solution but are worried about company politics should go ahead and do it without asking, according to PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) Japan IT manager Mark Uemura.
That sounds like a FANTASTIC idea. Just come in one weekend and change the entire network over to BSD without running it by anyone. Why bother with the pesky work of drawing up a well-structured arguement for what you want, and then run it by the people who sign your check? That would be highly irrational IMO...Screw politics, they'll thank you when it's done - With a nice pink check.
Therefore I have been experimenting with other Alternatives, such as Apple's OSX Server. OSX to my surprise is an organized way of working with Unix. So in the past months i have been learning how to use OSX Server and have polished my skills into using it in "Hybrid" Environments, with the most excellent results.
One of my clients was a Windows Shop, It took me several months to convince them to change the server into OSX. The prerogative was simple: Apple offered us the perfect growing up environment for a company of 20 something employees that could get as big as 50 in the next couple of years. How? Well Apple's Xserve and Unlimited Lic. OSX was the key. When I presented them with both investing plan's, which consisted of a Dell Server and Windows, and an Xserve and OSX, it basically came down to a 17k dollar investment to do with the Dell, Windows and all its licencing, and 4 terminal stations. In comparison with the Apple Equipment, the Xserve (2.0Ghz PowerPC, 1gb ECC, 80gb sata hdd (expandable to 3 hdd in sata raid 0)) and OSX Unlimited + Apple Remote (Unlimited), It only went up to $11,075.00. When I presented them both quotes, and told them that with the mac we could have interoperability with Windows XP pc's accessing the server as well, better security, easier configuration and other options, the company decided to take the dive and went the Apple way. Recently they had 20 more employees added, in which this would have meant an increase in licencing of over $2000, the company kept hiring and keeps growing without any problems and the IT Structure is solid. For applications, we Use Quickbooks 2005 for Mac and Quickbooks 2005 for Windows XP, Office for Mac and Office XP for Windows (althought we are going to change to Open Office 2.0 in December 2005). The reason we have a couple windows machines, is for some industry specific applications that we cannot find on mac, so we use them on windows. Everything else is run on the macs with no problems.
I want to add that the Remote Desktop of Macs is an awesome tool. I can make OSX Deployments far more easier than it is in Windows Server Environment. The next client im going to work on this week, Im going to propose the same change, in a bigger scale... I know ill be successfull because the previous client is in love with his system at work.
Nom de dieu de putain de bordel de merde de saloperie de connard d encule de ta mere.
Take the place where I'm working for example. Medium sized company in Europe. Four countries and exspansion in more. After some bad moves two years ago by one of our operations the whole company got in trouble. Management decided to fire some 20%, vut back on outside consultants and retire everyone above 60. They also orchestrated a salary freeze and a max overtime cap. So we lost many of ur most experienced people from the downsizing or from people that decided to leave. In my office I'm the only IT guy left. The CEO told us in IT to cut back on new projects and frooze IT spending at x percant of turnover. Since most of our costs are locked in service contracts, licenses and scheduled hardware upgrades it's very hard to replace aging systems. We had some legacy systems that we just HAD to replace and that almost crushed our budget. So at one of our IT-guys meetings we just decided to stop renewing some MS products and went with Debian on some DNS, file and printer-servers.
Some six months later our local management found out that we had deviated from the "Microsoft-shop policy", but what could they do? They complained for a day or so before they realised that it was the only way we could stay withn the budget. In an environment where one can get fired for failing to stay within budget as well as failing to provide "service" to other units sometimes Linux is the only way.
Sorry for the bad English.