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IBM Launches Microsoft-Free Linux Virtual Desktop
VorlonFog writes "According to Information Week, IBM has introduced a line of business computers that avoid Microsoft's desktop environment in favor of open source software. IBM worked with Canonical and Virtual Bridges to create the platform, which IBM claims saves businesses $500 to $800 per user on software licenses and an additional $258 per user 'since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Vista and Office.'"
What do we do about Powerpoint, Xcel, Visio, and the other MS utilities? Please don't act like OO is a feasible alternative for these programs. Other than that I would be a huge fan of this.
Install the alternative application of your choice. I work with and collaborate with a Microsoft world 100% from linux and/or BSD. The only thing that's ever hung me up was creating Visio diagrams. Reading them is no problem. I read/create Powerpoint presentations, read/create/share Excel spreadsheets, Word, you name it. Oops, I forgot Access... I just never have to deal with it (I make it clear that I won't have anything to do with Access).
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
You're welcome. I hate those damned advertisement screens that pop up before you ever see the first page of the article. I also hate how they break a small article like this into multiple pages to increase the volume of adverts they can cram around the page. (I really wondered if anyone would notice or care.)
Well, the Open Software programmers have done a great job of providing a very capable platform. But it is not the technical excellence that is keeping MSFT well entrenched. From barely legal tactics forcing the vendors to do things, playing with device drivers, many many marketing and business practices help MSFT maintain its hold. No matter how good the OS codes are, it is going to take significant investment to pry the users from proprietary MSFT format. Let IBM match MSFT in these tactics. The fall out would be good for the general community.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Wow, this sounds fantastic! Instead of using Ubuntu with OpenOffice from the repos, and paying Canonical for support, or, say, being able to pay *ANYONE* for support, since I have the full source...
I can be locked into paying IBM for support for all the proprietary binaries! What a great idea!
...except not.
Free clue: People are moving away from Microsoft for a whole bunch of reasons.
"It's expensive" is a common one.
"We're being pressured into upgrades we don't want to make" is another.
"It's proprietary and only Micosoft can support it" is very rare indeed. Go look in the Yellow Pages and you'll find hundreds of companies prepared to support Windows. Obviously they're a bit stuck if you hit a problem that's caused by a bug which cannot easily be worked around, but these are seldom enough that it's not really a big problem.
I would say you're spot-on. Not that any of this is really technically accurate. But rather, the perception is accurate. Many managers really do believe this.
Such is the nature of IT. I've seen pre-packaged, supported software completely screwed up and ineffective in practice. I've seen Uber-admins roll together some scripts that just did amazing things for years and nobody ever really had to worry about it. I've seen amazing stuff completely fall apart when the guy who knew how it all worked moved on to other things. I've seen people say something is "impossible" while ignoring the fact that not only can it be done in-house, but there's also several supported solutions being offered by big IT houses.
But at the end of the day, IT decisions are made on comfort alone. Sometimes that comfort comes from due diligence (experience and research). Often it comes from simple familiarity and a skewed perspective.
Effective? Hah.
I just left a company which was a big IBM shop. I had never worked in an IBM shop before. That was eye opening. We spent more time fighting the software that we did working. It was the most frustrating experience I have ever had to deal with in the workplace. I think on all future job interviews, I'll ask straighaway if the place is an IBM shop and if they say yes I'll thank them for their time.
IBM doesn't provide support, unless by support you mean allowing their you to hire their overpriced consultants. IBM takes what should be open source products and strips them of useful features, loads them with cruft, and then sells them for exorbitant prices (looking at you, Rational Application Developer).
There's a reason the definition for fear and loathing references IBM. As a former co-worker once put it: "Nobody was ever fired for choosing IBM."
I'd argue that an IBM issued linux desktop is just as bad as Windows. Leave it to IBM to find *some* way to lock you in. You'd expect that from proprietary software. But using F/OSS to accomplish vendor lock-in? That's a complete abomination.
blah blah blah
$$$$, and less risk --- that is how.
Most shops don't have the desire to do this themselves...they would rather farm it out to a vendor who they can hold to the fire (via contractual obligation) when things go wrong.
This saves money -- because the Microsoft tax is avoided, and centralized management doesn't require as much resources.
This is less risky because IBM will be around a lot longer than Biff the system admin (who would have built your system by hand in your example).
Lodragan Draoidh
The more you explain it, the more I don't understand it. - Mark Twain
One of my former companies was taking in cost-cutting ideas during the 90s recesssion. One idea was to replace our problematic Window NT floor machines with Linux. The manufacturing software ran on X Windows and so these machines needed an X Windows emulator. Cost wise we would replace 2 licenses with one license and machines would work much better because the X Windows emulator and NT was taking all system resources. Besides that the NT machines needed constant software support with constant reboots. The CIO axed this down because "there was no support" Someone pointed out that you could pay for support via RedHat and that despite the claims of MS support, the only support we got from MS we ever got was to tell us to reboot. That and sell us an enterprise application that would allow us to reboot the machines remotely. Still the CIO was much comfortable with this solution than using Linux.
Well, there's spam egg sausage and spam, that's not got much spam in it.
Chances are good that IBM isn't really targeting your desktop with this plan. IBM knows that every large business (and most smaller businesses) have tons of desktops where Windows and MS Office are overkill. In these situations thin-client or virtualized Linux desktops make perfectly good sense, and there really is a great deal of money that can be saved by going this route.
Some employees, on the other hand, really do need their Windows machines, and that's fine, as IBM's Lotus Software also runs on Windows.
You see, this may appear to be an attack on Windows, but that's not really the case at all. The real attack is on MS Office as the default business document format for the business. IBM is happy to let some power users still use Excel, Visio, and PowerPoint, as long as Lotus software is installed as well (to work with the non-power users). Heck, it wasn't that long ago that Microsoft used the same tactic to supplant Lotus 1-2-3.
If you drink Microsoft's Kool-Aid then you have little choice but to deploy PCs running Windows and MS Office everywhere. Licensing fees quickly add up, as does the cost of maintaining that many PCs. IBM is simply offering a lower-cost alternative for the least demanding of your users. The catch is that if you want your power users to be able to communicate with your non-power users you are going to have to adopt Lotus software across the board.
For some of IBM's customers this arrangement is likely to be compelling. For others, not so much.
The only program for most businesses that's missing is a full featured and multi-user accounting package like Quickbooks.
Really?
Have you seen MyBooks/MyBooksPro from Appgen?
Server runs on Linux, and they have Linux, Windows and OSX clients.
Been using it here for years.
It will even IMPORT your Quickbooks data!
PLUS, unlike the ubiquitous Quickbooks, MyBooks is a double-entry, fully audited accounting system that conforms to the standards of GAAP.
Windows is not the answer.
Windows is the question.
The answer is "NO."