FAA May Ditch Vista For Linux

An anonymous reader writes "Another straw in the wind: following last week's news that the US Department of Transportation is putting a halt on upgrades to Windows Vista, Office 2007, and Internet Explorer 7, today comes word that the Federal Aviation Administration may ditch Vista and Office in favor of Google's new online business applications running on Linux-based hardware. (The FAA is part of the DOT.) The FAA's CIO David Bowen told InformationWeek he's taking a close look at the Premier Edition of Google Apps as he mulls replacements for the agency's Windows XP-based desktop computers. Bowen cited several reasons why he finds Google Apps attractive. 'From a security and management standpoint that would have some advantages,' he said."

Comments

training

[Bizzeh]

this isnt going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month. training staff to use an entirly new system takes a lot of time and money. i will be supprised if we see this take effect before this time next year

Re:training

[Anonymous Coward]

Can't they just employ immigrants who learned to use computers in order to get a job? We're not talking complex applications here like 3D or compositing apps, those who can't use generic email, word processor or spreadsheet don't deserve to have a desk job.

Re:training

[linguizic]

What's interesting though is that the FAA seems to think that the costs associated with training will in the end be cheaper than an upgrade to Vista.

Re:training

[0123456]

"What's interesting though is that the FAA seems to think that the costs associated with training will in the end be cheaper than an upgrade to Vista."

Don't forget that they'll need to retrain people for Vista and Office-whatever anyway. So it's not like one option is free and the other costs money.

Re:training

[greenguy]

Maybe I'm just a quick learner, but I can't see how Google Apps would require all that much training. Like everything of Google's that I've tried (with the exception of Google Ads, whose pricing structure remains mysterious), I found it had almost no learning curve whatsoever.

Am I really that much smarter than the people who work at the FAA?

Re:training

[Cadallin]

Exactly, it isn't just the costs of upgrading to Vista, its the cost of upgrading to Vista + Deployment + Retraining. I would also suspect that the FAA probably pays for some kind of actual support contract. They will still want to pay somebody like Redhat for a support contract (and probably Google as well), and they will still incur Deployment and Retraining Costs no matter what. The question really starts to become, who do they believe provides a product with the best productivity/TCO ratio.

Everybody's been through the Microsoft cycle multiple times now. Microsoft promises the world during development, but by the time a product actually ships, its years late, hugely over budget, and still has only 10% of the features originally promised (Remember Microsoft's database file system? The one that would revolutionize searches and data management and do away with folders? They've been promising that one since 1994 at least. It was supposed to be part of Windows 95!) And Microsoft's products End up having severe support issues during their lifetime (Business Crippling Worms anyone?) It heartens me that Organizations are really starting to think about going with other options.

Re:training

[Kennon]

90% of the training argument is pure FUD. I personally have converted many windows users to Linux who had never even touched it before and they are up and productive within a day. Your average office worker (at least in my place of work) uses a word processor, web browser, email client, and one or two propriatary apps specific for their department which are almost all web based and are browser friendly. There have been a few time in which people have some app that cannot be a web app, or will only run in IE or something and we will deploy it to them via Citrix until either a Linux version is written or it is converted to a web based app.

Funny enough, the hardest Linux converts are the Windows "Power users" because they no long know how to tweak...aka fuck up their new desktop. But for a large majority of office staff Linux either already is or could easily be working perfectly for them in almost no transition time.

I personally believe that if all the over protective MCSE's in the world woke up tomorrow with a decent level of knowledge about the Linux desktop within a couple months Linux and Windows in the corporate workplace would trade places for market share.

Re:training

[Daniel Dvorkin]

The FAA keeps what is by far the world's busiest civil air transportation system running with a remarkably good safety record. Every time you go to the airport, get on your plane, fly to your destination, get off your plane, and nothing else happens, you have the FAA to thank for it.

Re:training

[Anonymous Coward]

Shh, don't question the mindless libertarian bullshit. If everyone realized that government employees as just as human as private employees, it would cause CHAOS around here.

Google Apps Appliance

[codepunk]

They need to bundle that up in a appliance so they can sell it to enterprises that do not wish to
store their data out of house.

Hunting for a discount?

[Anonymous Coward]

From the article: If Microsoft can satisfy his concerns over compatibility with the agency's existing applications and demonstrate why such a move would make financial sense given Google Apps's low price

Sound familiar? It seems like the tried-and-true tactic of publicly looking into Linux so Microsoft will rush in and offer support and discounts. Hopefully, they are seriously considering Linux regardless.

I hate to step back a second

[bconway]

But the article fails to mention why the XP systems need replacement. Any organization as conservative as the FAA no doubt waited a year or two before rolling out XP, so even the earlier systems are only a few years old, and probably far from slouches. Why does the release of Vista necessitate an upgrade, especially if you aren't going to be upgrading to Vista?

Well, Compare it to Vista

[eldavojohn]

this isnt going to happen tomorrow, or next week, or next month. training staff to use an entirly new system takes a lot of time and money. i will be supprised if we see this take effect before this time next year

Well, I'm not a systems integrator in real life but I've taken classes. One of the big things to consider here is the potential for an intermediary stage. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe Google's Apps are largely platform independent. What this means is that I can think of an instantly perfect intermediary stage--instruct the employees to use Google Apps while they still have XP and old Office applications on their machines. But, you know, give them a hard date by which everyone should be using Google Apps (oh, there's always problem workers but leave that to middle management). I assume the large thing these people rely on their computers for is simply these editing suites so once that barrier is broken, install Linux and give them quick 8 hour orientation classes in how to do the same things in Linux that you used to do in Windows (pretty minimal, I assume).

Other option is just Vista & the new Office. Where at some point you just have to install the new Office (I don't think old & new can be installed at the same time) and make them use it. Now, while I'm sure Vista is more similar to XP than Linux and the Office applications are probably similar also, you know there's going to be bumps.

That said, I don't think the transition to Google Apps on Linux would be any more painful than the transition to Vista running Office. I suppose time will tell though. Hopefully my assumptions are correct and this sparks interest on this huge cost savings?

I guess if you really wanted to promote Linux, you would write tutorials on how to take advantage of this switch to Vista/Office and how to put your workers on Linux/Google Apps. When you make cheap and extremely convenient, they will come.

I think I've seen this movie before.

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Some CIO flirts with the idea of migrating to a different platform in order to get a better deal on licenses.
2. Vendor with monopoly rushes in with truckloads of licenses at "discount rates" to secure their position.
3. CIO returns with whitepaper indicating a TCO in favor of monopoly.
4. ???

If the "ditch" occurs, then that would be news.

Outsourcing Responsibility

[tomstdenis]

You can't outsource security [e.g. oh look google is so much better at keeping our documents secure] any more than you can outsource responsibility. Why isn't this guy simply looking at Open Office, or hell the other free tools like AbiWord, Gnumeric, etc.

Ah, to be ignorant of technology, but rife with enough buzzwords to be dangerous.

Not only are the google versions of the tools not nearly feature complete, but they're over the internet. Thus guaranteed to be sucktastically slow (especially when a lot of people use it) and very likely insecure in the end (hint: gmail has already had a few goofs). I'm all for ditching Windows, but using online office tools is just short sighted. Within a year or two of the switch they'll be climbing back into bed with MS Office [no doubt].

Also, if you're just going to use AJAX based web tools, what does it matter what OS you run?

Tom

It's a bargaining chip

[thatjavaguy]

The guy is just trying to get his MS license costs down - sensible enough.

Whats the betting that after his Microsoft trip they will come up with a vastly reduced price?

Re:Oh yeah, another nail in the coffin

[vivaoporto]

At least with Microsoft Products i can still sell my services, support, licensing, hardware and services.

Boo-fucking-hoo. That proves that not everything that is good for the customer is good for you. Let the old business model die, long live new business model.

In the meantime, Free Software and co. will continue as if nothing had changed, their product continues free, revenue (for whoever is aiming for it) continues coming from the same sources.

I agree. This is a _HORRIBLE_ idea

[encoderer]

We're talking about US Government documents being stored on non-government servers. First, I'd be really surprised if something like that was even legal. Second, I have real issues even if it IS legal.

If the "ditch" office/windows they're going to have to use GMail for ALL DOCUMENTS. Anything else would have to be like .txt or .pdf that's emailed around (probably using google servers again, so it's moot).

Furthermore, tell me this slashdot: Why is it better to be locked-in to Googles proprietary software instead of Microsofts?

As others have said, this would only be a good idea, IMO, as a "GApps Appliance" that can be properly audited and approved by US Government security experts.

All options require training

[WebCowboy]

training staff to use an entirely new system takes a lot of time and money.

Technical similarities to XP aside, Vista basically IS an "entirely new system" as well, from an end-user and administrative perspective. The UI has been messed with. Security, right from the user prompts down to alterations in driver architecture, has been altered significantly. Applications released roughly in conjunction with Vista (IE7 and Office 2007) have significant changes (new XML file formats in office, more strict compliance with XHTML and CSS in IE7...). Compounding that the benefits to business are minimal compared to XP in its current state. The business case to upgrade vs migrate is less convincing than ever before.

It is nearly that case with my employer as well--we almost might as well move to macs or Linux vs. XP--the impact of Vista on the enterprise thereis nearly that big. Almost all of the intranet apps are designed and tested against IE6. Running them on Firefox is glitchy but it works, but using IE7 often completely BREAKS the app. Over three quarters of the products we sell will not function under Vista and never will ("next generation" replacements are being developed for release over the next couple of years). Fully half of the hardware we have is not "Vista capable". We have XP and it (mostly) works (good enough anyways). Why risk breaking what is essentially unbroken? Do we really need eye candy? We are already firewalled and antivirused to high heaven so is there any REAL benefit to Vista's largely unproven security enhancements? Which brings up the fact that our corporate antivirus stuff apparently breaks in Vista...

FAA's serious consideration of Google's apps really looks VERY compelling and makes a lot of sense, even if adoption would be over a couple of years. The architecture of Linux is more proven and more secure by far than Windows XP OR Vista. The price per client is significantly less. Google's application-server-thin-client model is much less burdensome. Open and Free systems have much better "real" support (MS makes the argument that closed software gets better support because it is backed by a big, rich vendor but I think most people in the know realise that in practice thereis WAY MORE help and support for Linux because of backing by many vendors and a huge developer community, whereas only MS can offer certain levelsof support).

I do thing that Vista is STILL very much on the FAA's horizon though. Government agencies as well as big corporations are coming under more scrutiny and are being more compelled to do due diligence and put as much up for competitive bid as possible--and get the best deal possible. MS' standard prices and offerings are VERY FAR from competitive since they've gone a long time without competing. Governmental agencies around the world are, as often as not, playing low cost Linux-based alternatives against Microsoft to "force Bill's hand" as it were. Even if Google's software suite falls short of requirements in the end, the FAA could very likely get a special sub-$100-per-user offer from Microsoft for Office upgrades.

I'd hate to seeit turnout that way, but anything that cuts down MS (either inmarket share or insane profit margins) is good in my book.