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Swiss Canton Abandons Linux Migration

Posted by timothy on from the eaten-employees-eh? dept.

An anonymous reader writes "The Swiss canton Solothurn has put a stop to their ongoing migration to Linux. [Original, in German.] The project started in 2001, and has been under harsh public criticism ever since. The responsible CIO resigned this summer. Solothurn plans to convert all desktop computers to Windows 7 in 2011."

2 of 442 comments (clear)

  1. RTFA, then by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    According to TFA, 80 percent of the workers were happy with the new system, 10 percent cited "temporary problems" and only ten percent were downright unhappy.

    Quoth:

    [...] it is nice to see a government who will do what the majority wants than what a niche minority lobbies for [...]

    You, Sir, have a strange notion about majorities and niche minorities.

    Or you are a Microsoft shill in disguise.

  2. Re:translation hard to understand... by Afty0r · · Score: 1, Flamebait

    If I was a boss, or it was my own company, I'd implement Linux.

    This is the reason why you are neither "a boss" nor "have your own company".

    Different tools work well for different purposes and organisations. Windows and its' ecosystem of office productivity apps are expensive and have their flaws - but they are also pretty darn useful and your training costs will be close to zero as your newer employees will already be familiar with them. Further if you're on Windows now and want to be on Linux in 3 years, the TCO has to not just be lower, but has to be lower by a large enough to account for the cost of planning, migration, training, lost productivity and risk of failure. That's *alot* cheaper.

    Your final comments about "if you really can't figure out it out, I wouldn't want that person as an employee." are a ridiculous justification, and easily debunked. In any company of significant size, you will be hiring from a pool of workers that you share with all your competitors - if you want staff with IT skills noticeably better and more flexible than the average you will have to PAY THEM MORE. So now, suddenly the TCO delta between your Windows and Linux environments needs to be larger again - this time by several thousand or more per head...

    See, while it's technically not that difficult to do, very few people who have spent their careers getting into the position to be able to competently make that judgment and to plan and carry out such a migration have also spent significant time in their careers studying business risk, TCO and all the other myriad small factors that must go into make a decision like this.

    You say you can do it, I believe you and I respect your technical skills - but claiming it can be done just anywhere and in any company (and make financial sense to do so) sounds naive to me.

    I don't mean to be rude, I hope you can see my point.