I think you will be surprised how many seasoned IT guys will go with Windows other then Linux or Unix (Even if they are quite skilled with those OS's)
Factor 1: Change may be good, but you are going to take a lot of heat from it. Say you move from MS Office to OpenOffice and they get that 1 document that doesn't load in Open Office correctly, it is your fault, and business will stop until they can get that file. If they have Office 2003 and Get an Office 2007 files that they can't open. Then it is just the fact they are out of date, it is not your fault. And will ask the author to resend it in a different format.
Factor 2: Hiring staff. Sure there are tons of Linux and Unix guys who are willing to work for a good price, but they also know windows to a good extent, and there are the windows people too. Skills are only part of the picture when hiring. So s;taying on a windows environment when your company grows, means you have a better work force to choose from.
Factor 3: License Costs are really not a big deal, support costs are. Lets say a 500 person company. Now windows license will come with their PCs, and the cost of going linux preinstalled isn't proportionally smaller yet. Then say $300 for office per seat OK that is $150,000 and lets double that to $300,000 in software licenses for an average lifespan of 3 years. So license fees are an average of $100,000 a year. Going with an unfamiliar (to the general users) option over the period of time will have the following effect. 500 people paid an average of say $15 and hour, and say these people will need a minimum 40 hours of training/practicing time, to get use to the new systems (In real life this isn't unreasonable, even for the easiest to use Linux, as people will get hung up on every little difference) that makes it $300,000 then you need more resources to support all these people with problems, and requests for incompatible software (I NEED MICROSOFT PROJECT!) or whatever. So it really adds up. Yes their may be a cost savings over time. However the higher learning curve combined with turnover will always be a bit painful. Besides License Costs for software are really easy for the accountants to work with. The hidden costs are much more tricky.
Factor 4: As I eluded in Factor 3. Additional Software, these are specialty software that someone needs that the rest of the company doesn't. Microsoft Project, Adobe Photoshop (GIMP Will not cut it), Crystal Reports, GoToMeeting, or some video conference tool that your biggest client uses. Are you willing to fight for Open Source all day long against your company who pays you. Probably not.
Now you can win in some areas perhaps moving your web server to Linux (assuming you don't have ASP.NET developers), or even if you do move some of your Servers to Linux. You may be able to push Virtual Machines and Terminal Services. or even SaaS so your primary OS doesn't matter much. You can lax rules so it is OK for other people to install Linux if they want to, however they shouldn't be forced into it as it will give you a lot of headaches.
So they don't "write" the specs. The problem is described in an informal meeting or telephone call. And a simple solution with an estimated time frame is given. Bob: Well we have this Old Legacy System that we need to migrate to the Web. Bill: Well I think you probably would need someone who has experience with the legacy system and a new technology to make it web based, for the greatest success. You know Max who works for me has these skill sets, let me send you his resume just so you can understand what I am talking about. Bob: Thanks that will be very helpful for writing the bid.
Having done work for the State of NY, I am sure this happens else where. Fair and Competitive bidding work like this... You need a job to be done. You call the guys who you want to do it. They do some "Free" analysis of the problem. They give you the requirements as they would do it. They also attach the Resume of the people who they want to do the work. They make the bids to match the requirements and fit the resume of the people. They take in all the bid. Then they find the winning bid (which isn't the cheapest) but is a perfect match to the requirements. (which happens to be the company that did the free analysis)
They exist people who don't care to party all night long. I am sure after coming home from a long day of work and some dude turns your subway in to a rave, you will find someone "accidentally" smashing it.
It is a million times easier to give kids drugs with harmful side effects then face the teachers union. I am pretty sure the Teachers Union owns the rights to "Won't someone please think of the children!"
If "normal people" can sit through high-school classes without being distracted and grumpy, count me out. So you don't want to be happy and focused? When you grumpy and distracted you are in no ways focusing on learning material. And probably distracting others from learning too.
Lets also realize that Open Source isn't the only alternative to Microsoft.
You got IBM. Yea Yea IBM is a big supporter of Open Source Software (Enough to influence the FSF to add verbiage in GPL 3 to add the commercial use exception, to its anti-TiVoization clause), However not all their products are Open Source and they may not push the open source projects for the need that New Zealand needs. Perhaps a Nice AIX, Lotus, Informix combination. Or how about Oracle solution Solaris, Oracle and Star Office (The closed source version of open Office). Heck With Microsoft lost it just may mean that New Zealand will still go with Microsoft products but threw an other vendor say via a Dell or a HP.
Gasp they have a commercial agenda. That makes it evil right. What about people who write OSS so they get a name for themselves or People who write OSS just so they can make them selfs look like they are much better or purer then everyone else (akin to a bible thumper). A lot of good and bad programs are written with different agendas and most stuff that is written isn't because, they feel the community will benefit from this code.
A lot of this snobbyness from college educated trade vs. vocational training comes from the fact that getting a college degree requires a lot of extra work and time, and the monetary payoff after you graduate is probably less then those who are vocationally trained. So they just become snobs show off their degrees just to show how smart they are.
Medical Doctors, they are the worse, they are trained to act confident, society gives them high status and recognition. However they will get fully insulated and very rude if you ask them questions to help solve the problem that they called about. Fine you studied 8 years in medical school, but I studied 4 in Computer Science and 2 In business. I may not know stuff about the human body but I can fix your problem on your computer if answer my questions truthfully, so I can diagnose your computer problem in the software.
College Professors, not as bad medical doctors but they have an issue where they think their problem is top priority. While in truth it is near the bottom of the list. In running a college the professors are a small problem if he cant check his email. vs. problems with having to operate a network that is open enough to allow enough freedom for education. But yet secure enough to protect against a rather hostile internal intranet user group.
Engineers with PHD Degrees most of them are OK, However they do get in your way. Especially Engineers who don't have degrees in your area. I am sorry I am more qualified to analysis and fix your problem with your computer then you are with you PHD in Crio-Engineering.
Well people who read a lot of book, are for the most part expanding their brains and knowledge. Unless they are reading the same book all the time or a group of very similar type of books. But for the most part the people who do a lot of reading are learning about a lot of stuff and a lot of knowledge in many topics. Also the real time aspect of MMO Addiction forces them to stay on as long as their body can handle 8am - 3am or later because there is always something going on, when you read a book or a series of books you evenutally reach the end of it. You have time to rest go out do something. But MMORPG there is stuff going on all the time non-stop. The same thing with the guy who parties all the time. Unless there exists a 24 hour 365.25 day party these parties end. Even at a college campus which is considered a party school the parties stop and most of the people there do focus on school work or other activities. So Mr. Party is either sleeping or studying or doing something other then what he normally does.
The problem people think Open Source they think GNU. It is not the case. GNU isn't the only Open Source (besides what the GNU people wants you to believe). They all really try to balance Original Developers freedom vs. End User/Supplemental Developer Freedom, based on the values of the licence creators depends where on the scale they are. Open Source Software can be Look but don't touch to Public Domain.
However,/my/ argument is the opposite. When I shoot someone in the forehead, I expect some blood (at least). I'm sorry, but when a game model simply falls down after a headshot it makes the gameplay cartoonish.
I guess the question how much blood and gore would happen in real life from these things. I mean some of these games it would seem to me that you don't need to shoot them as they would die from hyper tension in a few minutes. As the human body isn't really design to explode when it suffers an injury even a big one. Even if you get shot in an artery you will have a little stream of blood squirting up a few feet. Not a splatter of blood that consists of gallons of blood.
So you can buy a $900 PC. or a $200 thin client and a $800 server.
Ok Fine you are paying an extra hundred bucks. But if you need to you can scale thin clients are much cheaper. Or you could share your server and split the cost with other people you want to work with. For people with an open mind is can be a real cost savings.
I could see it replacing the Desktop but not the server. There will still be a market for Server Application Just not Desktop. For most people SaaS will do what they want and be much easier overall, it is not effecting their freedom because they choose to use such a service. I bet if this catches on and desktops are being replaced. I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft or Google selling a server version of such an app. So they can make money from people who wants to run their servers locally or with a select clientèle.
Probably but the department was using the same router as the Development team. Also the problem happens over time with QA vs. Development they both start to think similarity about solving problems and testing them.
So when Microsoft decides to impact a few customers with degraded QoS, they may be setting themselves up for a bigger fall later.
I bet for most users they will just think it is their internet connection. So they will stop and try to reload the page, if it takes to long to load. But that gives Microsoft the information they need without really pissing off the users, as they will blame themselves, their computer, their wireless connection, their internet connection... They may blame Microsoft web service however if they load it up the next time and things go quickly then they don't know what caused the problem. Oddly enough this type of stuff happens everywhere not just the web, being the web is very agile as you said it allows it to happen at a quicker pace but it happens slower in other sectors.
Lets take a look at Macs. back in 2002 I got a PowerBook this thing was all Metal the only plastic was on the keyboard. 2006 I got myself a MacBook Pro There is much more plastic on this model. Now the new Models coming out now use Uni-Body construction witch are more metal again. But now without a User Replaceable battery and ugly black keyboard. Now The next model we may find a nicer keyboard or a user replaceable battery again.
How long do you expect for that No Editing feature to change. These people do this type of stuff. It is just like me getting a computer for a job (not based on programming) and not getting me some sore of developer tools. I am a Software Engineer I think like a software engineer. If I don't have Software Engineer Tools then in the long run I will feel crippled.
These people are Media people, they may not think they need editing tools but they way they think and solve problems means they will need at least some editing tools. You are better off insuring they have the ability to do such work, then forcing yourself to be blocked off.
you have to take into account people treating business transactions like a zero-sum game. Yes you do. Guess what everyone else suffers from them too. Bad customers are actually worse then Bad Companies. Because bad customers make good companies get more and protective and may cross the line to be a bad company. However for most products and services you have a choice or replacement to fight a bad company. You don't like Microsoft you can go with Linux or Mac. You don't like the airlines you can take the train or a boat. Bad customers you can't avoid as they are too small and too agile to weed out, without making your model prohibitively expensive or such a poor experience for honest customers.
The Ice Planet seems to me a poor attempt to connect the plot. And try to keep it action pack. In older star treks Kirk would just kinda walk aimlessly until he found a cave to keep shelter in. (which would work to continue the plot too) but it would be a rather dull sequence in such a high action movie.
So in general your friends greed has killed a business model. So except for volunteering and getting paid for people to track you interests and come up with advertising for stuff you need. He created a situation where spyware needs to be installed in the background without you knowing, monitor your habits and all you get is a slower PC from it. As well as adds that do not target anything useful.
The sign of a good compromise is when both sides are unhappy. Just because you have the right to free speech, it doesn't always mean it is in your best interests to use it all the time. People are complaining about something even though it is in your rights you can always choose to back down too. Or are you the guy who never lets some one in front of you when the lanes are merging in the road.
Putting your self fully in the firing line. Espectially with "religiously-motivated censors and nanny-statists" is always a big fight. If they see that you can at least meet them half way they tend to back off a lot, so they can focus on the next big evil. Sure you not in the clear there will be some point where you need to draw the line. However to keep things running smooth it is easier to compromise.
Slashdot Mirror
I think you will be surprised how many seasoned IT guys will go with Windows other then Linux or Unix (Even if they are quite skilled with those OS's)
Factor 1: Change may be good, but you are going to take a lot of heat from it. Say you move from MS Office to OpenOffice and they get that 1 document that doesn't load in Open Office correctly, it is your fault, and business will stop until they can get that file. If they have Office 2003 and Get an Office 2007 files that they can't open. Then it is just the fact they are out of date, it is not your fault. And will ask the author to resend it in a different format.
Factor 2: Hiring staff. Sure there are tons of Linux and Unix guys who are willing to work for a good price, but they also know windows to a good extent, and there are the windows people too. Skills are only part of the picture when hiring. So s;taying on a windows environment when your company grows, means you have a better work force to choose from.
Factor 3: License Costs are really not a big deal, support costs are. Lets say a 500 person company. Now windows license will come with their PCs, and the cost of going linux preinstalled isn't proportionally smaller yet. Then say $300 for office per seat OK that is $150,000 and lets double that to $300,000 in software licenses for an average lifespan of 3 years. So license fees are an average of $100,000 a year. Going with an unfamiliar (to the general users) option over the period of time will have the following effect. 500 people paid an average of say $15 and hour, and say these people will need a minimum 40 hours of training/practicing time, to get use to the new systems (In real life this isn't unreasonable, even for the easiest to use Linux, as people will get hung up on every little difference) that makes it $300,000 then you need more resources to support all these people with problems, and requests for incompatible software (I NEED MICROSOFT PROJECT!) or whatever. So it really adds up. Yes their may be a cost savings over time. However the higher learning curve combined with turnover will always be a bit painful. Besides License Costs for software are really easy for the accountants to work with. The hidden costs are much more tricky.
Factor 4: As I eluded in Factor 3. Additional Software, these are specialty software that someone needs that the rest of the company doesn't. Microsoft Project, Adobe Photoshop (GIMP Will not cut it), Crystal Reports, GoToMeeting, or some video conference tool that your biggest client uses. Are you willing to fight for Open Source all day long against your company who pays you. Probably not.
Now you can win in some areas perhaps moving your web server to Linux (assuming you don't have ASP.NET developers), or even if you do move some of your Servers to Linux. You may be able to push Virtual Machines and Terminal Services. or even SaaS so your primary OS doesn't matter much. You can lax rules so it is OK for other people to install Linux if they want to, however they shouldn't be forced into it as it will give you a lot of headaches.
So they don't "write" the specs. The problem is described in an informal meeting or telephone call. And a simple solution with an estimated time frame is given.
Bob: Well we have this Old Legacy System that we need to migrate to the Web.
Bill: Well I think you probably would need someone who has experience with the legacy system and a new technology to make it web based, for the greatest success. You know Max who works for me has these skill sets, let me send you his resume just so you can understand what I am talking about.
Bob: Thanks that will be very helpful for writing the bid.
Having done work for the State of NY, I am sure this happens else where.
Fair and Competitive bidding work like this...
You need a job to be done.
You call the guys who you want to do it.
They do some "Free" analysis of the problem.
They give you the requirements as they would do it.
They also attach the Resume of the people who they want to do the work.
They make the bids to match the requirements and fit the resume of the people.
They take in all the bid.
Then they find the winning bid (which isn't the cheapest) but is a perfect match to the requirements. (which happens to be the company that did the free analysis)
They exist people who don't care to party all night long. I am sure after coming home from a long day of work and some dude turns your subway in to a rave, you will find someone "accidentally" smashing it.
I really like Notepad++ I really wish there was a Linux port for it. But it does run ok in Wine though.
I think he meant a version that works.
It is a million times easier to give kids drugs with harmful side effects then face the teachers union. I am pretty sure the Teachers Union owns the rights to "Won't someone please think of the children!"
If "normal people" can sit through high-school classes without being distracted and grumpy, count me out.
So you don't want to be happy and focused? When you grumpy and distracted you are in no ways focusing on learning material. And probably distracting others from learning too.
Lets also realize that Open Source isn't the only alternative to Microsoft.
You got IBM. Yea Yea IBM is a big supporter of Open Source Software (Enough to influence the FSF to add verbiage in GPL 3 to add the commercial use exception, to its anti-TiVoization clause), However not all their products are Open Source and they may not push the open source projects for the need that New Zealand needs. Perhaps a Nice AIX, Lotus, Informix combination. Or how about Oracle solution Solaris, Oracle and Star Office (The closed source version of open Office). Heck With Microsoft lost it just may mean that New Zealand will still go with Microsoft products but threw an other vendor say via a Dell or a HP.
Gasp they have a commercial agenda. That makes it evil right. What about people who write OSS so they get a name for themselves or People who write OSS just so they can make them selfs look like they are much better or purer then everyone else (akin to a bible thumper). A lot of good and bad programs are written with different agendas and most stuff that is written isn't because, they feel the community will benefit from this code.
A lot of this snobbyness from college educated trade vs. vocational training comes from the fact that getting a college degree requires a lot of extra work and time, and the monetary payoff after you graduate is probably less then those who are vocationally trained. So they just become snobs show off their degrees just to show how smart they are.
Medical Doctors, they are the worse, they are trained to act confident, society gives them high status and recognition. However they will get fully insulated and very rude if you ask them questions to help solve the problem that they called about. Fine you studied 8 years in medical school, but I studied 4 in Computer Science and 2 In business. I may not know stuff about the human body but I can fix your problem on your computer if answer my questions truthfully, so I can diagnose your computer problem in the software.
College Professors, not as bad medical doctors but they have an issue where they think their problem is top priority. While in truth it is near the bottom of the list. In running a college the professors are a small problem if he cant check his email. vs. problems with having to operate a network that is open enough to allow enough freedom for education. But yet secure enough to protect against a rather hostile internal intranet user group.
Engineers with PHD Degrees most of them are OK, However they do get in your way. Especially Engineers who don't have degrees in your area. I am sorry I am more qualified to analysis and fix your problem with your computer then you are with you PHD in Crio-Engineering.
Well people who read a lot of book, are for the most part expanding their brains and knowledge. Unless they are reading the same book all the time or a group of very similar type of books. But for the most part the people who do a lot of reading are learning about a lot of stuff and a lot of knowledge in many topics. Also the real time aspect of MMO Addiction forces them to stay on as long as their body can handle 8am - 3am or later because there is always something going on, when you read a book or a series of books you evenutally reach the end of it. You have time to rest go out do something. But MMORPG there is stuff going on all the time non-stop. The same thing with the guy who parties all the time. Unless there exists a 24 hour 365.25 day party these parties end. Even at a college campus which is considered a party school the parties stop and most of the people there do focus on school work or other activities. So Mr. Party is either sleeping or studying or doing something other then what he normally does.
The problem people think Open Source they think GNU. It is not the case. GNU isn't the only Open Source (besides what the GNU people wants you to believe). They all really try to balance Original Developers freedom vs. End User/Supplemental Developer Freedom, based on the values of the licence creators depends where on the scale they are. Open Source Software can be Look but don't touch to Public Domain.
However, /my/ argument is the opposite. When I shoot someone in the forehead, I expect some blood (at least). I'm sorry, but when a game model simply falls down after a headshot it makes the gameplay cartoonish.
I guess the question how much blood and gore would happen in real life from these things. I mean some of these games it would seem to me that you don't need to shoot them as they would die from hyper tension in a few minutes. As the human body isn't really design to explode when it suffers an injury even a big one. Even if you get shot in an artery you will have a little stream of blood squirting up a few feet. Not a splatter of blood that consists of gallons of blood.
So you can buy a $900 PC. or a $200 thin client and a $800 server.
Ok Fine you are paying an extra hundred bucks. But if you need to you can scale thin clients are much cheaper. Or you could share your server and split the cost with other people you want to work with. For people with an open mind is can be a real cost savings.
I could see it replacing the Desktop but not the server. There will still be a market for Server Application Just not Desktop. For most people SaaS will do what they want and be much easier overall, it is not effecting their freedom because they choose to use such a service. I bet if this catches on and desktops are being replaced. I wouldn't be surprised to see Microsoft or Google selling a server version of such an app. So they can make money from people who wants to run their servers locally or with a select clientèle.
Although I haven't use slackware in years.
But it is great when you have servers up to your ears.
New Feature! It now WORKS! Yea, that means it is a professional level product by the fact it works without crashing.
Do they even have a QA department?
Probably but the department was using the same router as the Development team. Also the problem happens over time with QA vs. Development they both start to think similarity about solving problems and testing them.
So when Microsoft decides to impact a few customers with degraded QoS, they may be setting themselves up for a bigger fall later.
I bet for most users they will just think it is their internet connection. So they will stop and try to reload the page, if it takes to long to load. But that gives Microsoft the information they need without really pissing off the users, as they will blame themselves, their computer, their wireless connection, their internet connection... They may blame Microsoft web service however if they load it up the next time and things go quickly then they don't know what caused the problem. Oddly enough this type of stuff happens everywhere not just the web, being the web is very agile as you said it allows it to happen at a quicker pace but it happens slower in other sectors.
Lets take a look at Macs. back in 2002 I got a PowerBook this thing was all Metal the only plastic was on the keyboard. 2006 I got myself a MacBook Pro There is much more plastic on this model. Now the new Models coming out now use Uni-Body construction witch are more metal again. But now without a User Replaceable battery and ugly black keyboard. Now The next model we may find a nicer keyboard or a user replaceable battery again.
How long do you expect for that No Editing feature to change. These people do this type of stuff. It is just like me getting a computer for a job (not based on programming) and not getting me some sore of developer tools. I am a Software Engineer I think like a software engineer. If I don't have Software Engineer Tools then in the long run I will feel crippled.
These people are Media people, they may not think they need editing tools but they way they think and solve problems means they will need at least some editing tools. You are better off insuring they have the ability to do such work, then forcing yourself to be blocked off.
you have to take into account people treating business transactions like a zero-sum game.
Yes you do. Guess what everyone else suffers from them too. Bad customers are actually worse then Bad Companies. Because bad customers make good companies get more and protective and may cross the line to be a bad company. However for most products and services you have a choice or replacement to fight a bad company. You don't like Microsoft you can go with Linux or Mac. You don't like the airlines you can take the train or a boat. Bad customers you can't avoid as they are too small and too agile to weed out, without making your model prohibitively expensive or such a poor experience for honest customers.
The Ice Planet seems to me a poor attempt to connect the plot. And try to keep it action pack. In older star treks Kirk would just kinda walk aimlessly until he found a cave to keep shelter in. (which would work to continue the plot too) but it would be a rather dull sequence in such a high action movie.
So in general your friends greed has killed a business model. So except for volunteering and getting paid for people to track you interests and come up with advertising for stuff you need. He created a situation where spyware needs to be installed in the background without you knowing, monitor your habits and all you get is a slower PC from it. As well as adds that do not target anything useful.
The sign of a good compromise is when both sides are unhappy. Just because you have the right to free speech, it doesn't always mean it is in your best interests to use it all the time. People are complaining about something even though it is in your rights you can always choose to back down too. Or are you the guy who never lets some one in front of you when the lanes are merging in the road.
Putting your self fully in the firing line. Espectially with "religiously-motivated censors and nanny-statists" is always a big fight. If they see that you can at least meet them half way they tend to back off a lot, so they can focus on the next big evil. Sure you not in the clear there will be some point where you need to draw the line. However to keep things running smooth it is easier to compromise.