I checked with Gartner on this point this morning and there is no report. I regularly read the reports by their senior Linux analyst, George Weiss, and have on occasions arranged teleconferences with him and technician management in my company.
It really frosts my ass to read this kind of stuff.
What a pity decent magazines like "Byte" have gone to the wall while tired old whores like "ComputerWorld" continue to ply their disinformation trade.
Adolescent scatology...what can one say about such a negative piece?
Here's Looking at You, Jon...
on
Quack!
·
· Score: 2
It was a few years ago that Patrick McGoohan created his series at Portmerion, Wales called "The Prisoner". It was an allegory of the invasive, mindnumbing influence of television.
For whatever reason the American Pediatric association have for suggesting young children do not watch T.V. (or for that matter, get involved with computers) I am sure they will be ineffective with most of the great unwashed in our great country.
Jon's outrage is neither necessary, nor thought out enough. It will probably curry some favor with the punk digerati that lurk in Slashdot and the immature who haven't the life experience to make a reasoned judgement.
Toddlers and young children need a real world with which to interact in order to create meaning. That means they work better with paints, clay and real life experience than interacting with a flat screen or worse...passively allowing someone else's interpretation of reality to impose upon their consciousness.
Meaning, and then wisdom, is created by repeated interaction with a real world, not with some conceptual fascimile. Modelling is conceptual and is a sophisticated process, games even more so as they are models which manipulate emotion.
So...throw out you TV...please...and ignore poor Jon...at least on this one...
Were you to choose an Exchange backbone you would probably need to plan for about 1,000 people per server. That would make it about 25 servers.
They would cost about $30,000 each for hardware, software and installation costs.
You may also need bridgehead servers to connect remote domains if you haven't all your people at one location. You'd certainly need one Unix box running SendMail to handle spam, spoof and all the other nasties coming at you from the net.
Your total cost will be running to around $800M and you will need support staff of about nine people to run directory, administration, servers and help desk...that's about $1MM a year.
OUTLOOK DESKTOP and LINUX BACKBONE
Using IMAP4 you can take a leaf from Unilever and run Linux and SendMail as the backbone only using Outlook for the desktop. Unilever in fact uses Solaris...but there.
Installation costs would be somewhat less, say for eighteen servers (hardware, one day installation and loading clients - say $270,000) and support costs maybe for seven staff a year, you're talking $700,000.
FULL SMTP SYSTEM:
You're installation costs would probably be the same for the backbone...but you'd save big time for the end-user desktops.
CAVEATS:
Whatever system you chose, you need good backup/recovery and need to account for that and you need to be able to manage recovery at the desktop too, so that all your expensive people don't spend all their time helping each other recover from I've-shot-myself-in-the-foot crashes.
You need to set up a system of measuring message delivery and warning of problems (SNMP-like) and publish these goodies to your management and user groups.
ADVANTAGES OF OPEN SOURCE:
It costs less...that's obvious...it's more stable and, if you get a support contract, then your risks are much minimized...
Twenty-five thousand is not small in eMail terms...you are beginning to get into stretching some of the limits...but you haven't given too much detail...
...are you intending to use X.400 for example..? ...are you intending to use LDAP for directory? ...where are your main groups located? ...what kind of calendaring will you be using?
Good Luck...I would go with Open Source, but whatever you choose, it will be an adventure!
It insults both the reader and declares the Economist as plagaristic.
2. Probably true. The Economist does stick its neck out about prediction rather than being safe in reportage...but what's your point? That your apartment is littered with old copies of right-wing porn and photos of Margaret Thatcher in congress with Reagan? Or is it that you are the true guardian of the public economic morality?
Scenarios often don't work out duckie...they are intended to stimulate thought rather than reactive theology.
3. Just wait. You're wrong. Dead wrong...and so is your business.
Finally, your rudeness, your phrases..."let's remember"...and admonitions of "keep in mind"...don't win friends...neither does your logic...albeit not all companies will need big investments in directory or infrastructure, but many (even John Birch small) could advantage themselves of cheap computers and Open Source...
Hmmm. First I assume you are neither a Jain nor a Buddhist...but there is little else of substance in your comments.
The emphasis of the survey was on reducing the cost of business and the spin off effect of Darwinian economics...a bit like Freidman's "Lexus and the Olive Tree".
It'll happen, much as they describe...the mechanisms are there. eCommerce lowers the cost of business, just as does Open Source...but...if you had payed attention to the article...the emphasis was on business to business transactions, not on personal secrecy...
Companies like Acxiom...and all the rest...have busted your personal, financial security long ago. They haven't needed eCommerce to do so.
Cost? Well of course it costs, dearie...but is it cost-effective. My conservative oil-company seems to think so and has invested it's main IT finance in eCommerce and directory/security services.
The information is there already set up in DB2 and SQL silos...and that has been the major cost. What we have to do now is to add XML processing scripts to our directory to add to digital signature and the rest...to daisy chain the silos of information with controllable web scripts (and access) to be used by our business partners. It's the fun stuff, less costly than the original silos of information and more productive in reducing the cost of doing business. This IS the payoff...but in DCF terms it's a no-brainer. I just hope we use Open Source rather than the Redmond muck.
Re your "immaturity of technology" remark, what can one say...yes XML is "early adopter" usage right now...but give us a break. The difficulty with XML and Encrytption is not in the technology itself but in the way it is organized and administered in a large corporation...that's where directory comes in.
My opinion is that the Economist is far from naive. They may not be as informed in depth as Burton, the notoriously conservative Gartner, Forrester or, come to it, maybe yourself...but they do touch all the bases.
I would prefer my management to do their research using the Economist at airport check-ins than most of the stuff available!
Saw this at Gartner Symposium in August 1997 and was impressed by Microvision. Thought at the time that even low-power laser was "psychologically" intrusive even if safe...and therefore was unsure if Microvision would have a saleable commodity.
I have noticed there is much more work being done on head-up displays (glasses) for body-worn computers and perhaps this is a better compromise.
For example, HUD projected on safety glasses would meet all requirements for hazardous working...providing eye protection and...via computer and HUD...line diagrams, method, even remote, expert help.
I can see this being of real and immediate use in the petro-chemical industry. Unions, management and people would take to it.
It's a win-win situation.
Who are the developers in the field...just Microvision? Whoever they are, watch their share prices...or even better...invest your nest-egg.
...the laser projected screen covers 130 degrees of vision, whereas HUD is more conventionally 45 degrees.
What better value for small-time users than Linux/GNOME, or whatever...and...
...Micro$oft already have the ear of the corporate world and the suits are especially sensitive to reactive ravings. Where logic isn't available they become unhinged by emotion and religion (except their own).
It's 1776 all over again. Keep your powder dry.
Old King William is rallying his troops. This is merely a skirmish.
In a world without walls...who needs Gates?
on
World Without Walls
·
· Score: 1
What an excellent writer is Jon Katz! Anyone read his "Running to the Mountain"?
He writes about the "walls" which protect institutions and the struggle that goes on between the muroclasts and reactionaries.
The advantage, I would assure him, is with the those who tear the walls down because it is they that are taking an active role in making change, the reactionaries are unable to innovate because they are too weighed down with baggage. They merely react when it is too late. The wave by then has moved on.
Even with the inertial force of social conservatavism this democratic, grass-roots change moves ahead...and that's the essence...it is a moving target.
Information, to which Jon refers, is not a static thing to be weighed and sold by the pound. What is information now tomoprrow is old hat. Consider how important Calculus (Fluctions) were to Newton, for example, but only as a secret to support his prediction of planetary motion. Once it was out, in fact subverted by Leibnitz, it was all over. There was value to the knowledge, but it was available to everyone. The wave had moved on. Information is worth something for a short while only.
Jon mentions Microsoft's ubiquitous software programs as a series of information walls, yet one could say they are bound for the trash heap like any enforced, secret, closed system...IBM's SNA, theories of genetic purity or Communism being other examples.
He says politics and media *were* slow. I say they still are! With their eyes and ears fixated on hierarchic heros, they cannot adapt fast enough and must die in their current form.
The protest of the networks are merely the gasps of dying dinasours. The web *is* commercial, but the capacity for it to meet consumer needs by directed advertising and bringing the consumer into direct contact with the vendors...and able to make much more effective shopping comparisons cannot be equalled by the tired old networks selling TV time by the age or general interest slot. Their source of revenue is drying up...and I say good...bye to Sam Donaldson, Dan Rather and the rest with dry eyes...honest, I hardly knew you.
Neither is it possible for the legislature and political system to stop the jugganaut of internet led change. Litigation is local...the web is ubiquitous!
And as far as political change, oligarchies depend on acceptance of the masses to rule. Well guys (it's mostly guys) the masses have had access to information now. You cannot roll the status back, neither can you deny the plebiscite access to referanda of direct democracy, if you will.
My heart bleeds for librarians...but who uses scribes now with universal literacy? Teachers can concentrate on tutorial work, inspiring the young, conducting the experiments dispensing wisdom. Things aren't over just because chalk boards are out!
Nice article Jon!
The next few years will be very interesting. My tip is wall-destroyers 23 - reactionaries 0.
I use Gartner, Foresters and Burton to help me select computer functionality of my company.
Note I said "help".
I also use Slashdot, Economist, WSJ, Industry Standard, Byte (that was), conference information, O'Reilly and whatever else I can lay my hands on.
Gartner is an interesting one. Their Symposium is worth attending - the information is very helpful...but...
They are very conservative and cannot be relied upon to recognise the breaking wave. Their coverage of Open Source in General and Linux in particular has been weak. They have represented a credible independence from what I term the BOHICA boys who greet Microsoft pronouncements with obsequious handwringing, but their caution in describing OSS when weighed against the blare of publicity from Redmond is unhelpful.
Many corporate managers, mine included are pissing in their pants when faced with this cheaper, more-reliable, better-throughput operating system than NT. It brings a real world of decision to their door. Do they want to save money? Do they trust their own staff?
Well, of course...what about support?...and who do I sue if things go wrong?
They obviously haven't hung on a line waiting for service themselves...nor have they ever sued any vendors. The technique is for managers to push the problems down to the technicians (that's why we earn the big bucks) and to hob-nob with the pretty sales-people. Those lunches are so much fun.
The problem with Gartner and Linux is that Gartner is about commerce...and Linux...and all of Open Source just doesn't seem commercial.
The message will get through, but don't rely on Gartner...as someone said, they just contribute to FUD.
Slashdot Mirror
In this case, it is.
I checked with Gartner on this point this morning and there is no report. I regularly read the reports by their senior Linux analyst, George Weiss, and have on occasions arranged teleconferences with him and technician management in my company.
It really frosts my ass to read this kind of stuff.
What a pity decent magazines like "Byte" have gone to the wall while tired old whores like "ComputerWorld" continue to ply their disinformation trade.
Adolescent scatology...what can one say about such a negative piece?
It was a few years ago that Patrick McGoohan created his series at Portmerion, Wales called "The Prisoner". It was an allegory of the invasive, mindnumbing influence of television.
For whatever reason the American Pediatric association have for suggesting young children do not watch T.V. (or for that matter, get involved with computers) I am sure they will be ineffective with most of the great unwashed in our great country.
Jon's outrage is neither necessary, nor thought out enough. It will probably curry some favor with the punk digerati that lurk in Slashdot and the immature who haven't the life experience to make a reasoned judgement.
Toddlers and young children need a real world with which to interact in order to create meaning. That means they work better with paints, clay and real life experience than interacting with a flat screen or worse...passively allowing someone else's interpretation of reality to impose upon their consciousness.
Meaning, and then wisdom, is created by repeated interaction with a real world, not with some conceptual fascimile. Modelling is conceptual and is a sophisticated process, games even more so as they are models which manipulate emotion.
So...throw out you TV...please...and ignore poor Jon...at least on this one...
Who does he think he is? Number two?
Here's looking at you, Jon.
I am not a number!
EXCHANGE BACKBONE AND DESKTOP
Were you to choose an Exchange backbone you would probably need to plan for about 1,000 people per server. That would make it about 25 servers.
They would cost about $30,000 each for hardware, software and installation costs.
You may also need bridgehead servers to connect remote domains if you haven't all your people at one location. You'd certainly need one Unix box running SendMail to handle spam, spoof and all the other nasties coming at you from the net.
Your total cost will be running to around $800M and you will need support staff of about nine people to run directory, administration, servers and help desk...that's about $1MM a year.
OUTLOOK DESKTOP and LINUX BACKBONE
Using IMAP4 you can take a leaf from Unilever and run Linux and SendMail as the backbone only using Outlook for the desktop. Unilever in fact uses Solaris...but there.
Installation costs would be somewhat less, say for eighteen servers (hardware, one day installation and loading clients - say $270,000) and support costs maybe for seven staff a year, you're talking $700,000.
FULL SMTP SYSTEM:
You're installation costs would probably be the same for the backbone...but you'd save big time for the end-user desktops.
CAVEATS:
Whatever system you chose, you need good backup/recovery and need to account for that and you need to be able to manage recovery at the desktop too, so that all your expensive people don't spend all their time helping each other recover from I've-shot-myself-in-the-foot crashes.
You need to set up a system of measuring message delivery and warning of problems (SNMP-like) and publish these goodies to your management and user groups.
ADVANTAGES OF OPEN SOURCE:
It costs less...that's obvious...it's more stable and, if you get a support contract, then your risks are much minimized...
Twenty-five thousand is not small in eMail terms...you are beginning to get into stretching some of the limits...but you haven't given too much detail...
...are you intending to use X.400 for example..?
...are you intending to use LDAP for directory?
...where are your main groups located?
...what kind of calendaring will you be using?
Good Luck...I would go with Open Source, but whatever you choose, it will be an adventure!
What arrogant John Bircher pap!
1."Research by Forester...Go figure!" How rude!
It insults both the reader and declares the Economist as plagaristic.
2. Probably true. The Economist does stick its neck out about prediction rather than being safe in reportage...but what's your point? That your apartment is littered with old copies of right-wing porn and photos of Margaret Thatcher in congress with Reagan? Or is it that you are the true guardian of the public economic morality?
Scenarios often don't work out duckie...they are intended to stimulate thought rather than reactive
theology.
3. Just wait. You're wrong. Dead wrong...and so is your business.
Finally, your rudeness, your phrases..."let's remember"...and admonitions of "keep in mind"...don't win friends...neither does your logic...albeit not all companies will need big investments in directory or infrastructure, but many (even John Birch small) could advantage themselves of cheap computers and Open Source...
Hmmm. First I assume you are neither a Jain nor a Buddhist...but there is little else of substance in your comments.
The emphasis of the survey was on reducing the cost of business and the spin off effect of Darwinian economics...a bit like Freidman's "Lexus and the Olive Tree".
It'll happen, much as they describe...the mechanisms are there. eCommerce lowers the cost of business, just as does Open Source...but...if you had payed attention to the article...the emphasis was on business to business transactions, not on personal secrecy...
Companies like Acxiom...and all the rest...have busted your personal, financial security long ago. They haven't needed eCommerce to do so.
Oh dear!
Cost? Well of course it costs, dearie...but is it cost-effective. My conservative oil-company seems to think so and has invested it's main IT finance in eCommerce and directory/security services.
The information is there already set up in DB2 and SQL silos...and that has been the major cost. What we have to do now is to add XML processing scripts to our directory to add to digital signature and the rest...to daisy chain the silos of information with controllable web scripts (and access) to be used by our business partners. It's the fun stuff, less costly than the original silos of information and more productive in reducing the cost of doing business. This IS the payoff...but in DCF terms it's a no-brainer. I just hope we use Open Source rather than the Redmond muck.
Re your "immaturity of technology" remark, what can one say...yes XML is "early adopter" usage right now...but give us a break. The difficulty with XML and Encrytption is not in the technology itself but in the way it is organized and administered in a large corporation...that's where directory comes in.
My opinion is that the Economist is far from naive. They may not be as informed in depth as Burton, the notoriously conservative Gartner, Forrester or, come to it, maybe yourself...but they do touch all the bases.
I would prefer my management to do their research using the Economist at airport check-ins than most of the stuff available!
Buzz.
An article in New Scientist may elucidate! See:e .html
http://www.newscientist.com/ns/19990515/papergoes
It has quite a good definition on the subject and talks about the relationships between the main protagonists too!
See the Beeb's (Auntie) write up on Psion at:
d _369000/369589.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/sci/tech/newsi
Buzz.
What does it matter?
I know...wanker!
That's it...
Wanker!
Yes I do!
buzz Lightyear doesn't know what he's taking about.
Close them all down. They ARE the Anti-Christ!
...or was it "Planet of Apes"?
...and send all our battle-hardened high-schoolers to spearhead the ground war in Kosovo.
Issue guns to ALL the citizens...we are safer that way...I saw that in the "Ten Commandments"
Bomb Redmond! Strangle Eric Raymond! Vilify Tim O'Reilly and all poseurs!
To hell with you all!
Saw this at Gartner Symposium in August 1997 and was impressed by Microvision. Thought at the time that even low-power laser was "psychologically" intrusive even if safe...and therefore was unsure if Microvision would have a saleable commodity.
I have noticed there is much more work being done on head-up displays (glasses) for body-worn computers and perhaps this is a better compromise.
For example, HUD projected on safety glasses would meet all requirements for hazardous working...providing eye protection and...via computer and HUD...line diagrams, method, even remote, expert help.
I can see this being of real and immediate use in the petro-chemical industry. Unions, management and people would take to it.
It's a win-win situation.
Who are the developers in the field...just Microvision? Whoever they are, watch their share prices...or even better...invest your nest-egg.
...the laser projected screen covers 130 degrees of vision, whereas HUD is more conventionally 45 degrees.
Spell it right!
Even the great plagarist, Noah Webster, spells it with an "e"...or is this some new variant of the American (tee hee) language you are now employing?
Best not even ignore Mouth of Micro$oft.
What better value for small-time users than Linux/GNOME, or whatever...and...
...Micro$oft already have the ear of the corporate world and the suits are especially sensitive to reactive ravings. Where logic isn't available they become unhinged by emotion and religion (except their own).
It's 1776 all over again. Keep your powder dry.
Old King William is rallying his troops. This is merely a skirmish.
What an excellent writer is Jon Katz! Anyone read his "Running to the Mountain"?
He writes about the "walls" which protect institutions and the struggle that goes on between the muroclasts and reactionaries.
The advantage, I would assure him, is with the those who tear the walls down because it is they that are taking an active role in making change, the reactionaries are unable to innovate because they are too weighed down with baggage. They merely react when it is too late. The wave by then has moved on.
Even with the inertial force of social conservatavism this democratic, grass-roots change moves ahead...and that's the essence...it is a moving target.
Information, to which Jon refers, is not a static thing to be weighed and sold by the pound. What is information now tomoprrow is old hat. Consider how important Calculus (Fluctions) were to Newton, for example, but only as a secret to support his prediction of planetary motion. Once it was out, in fact subverted by Leibnitz, it was all over. There was value to the knowledge, but it was available to everyone. The wave had moved on. Information is worth something for a short while only.
Jon mentions Microsoft's ubiquitous software programs as a series of information walls, yet one could say they are bound for the trash heap like any enforced, secret, closed system...IBM's SNA, theories of genetic purity or Communism being other examples.
He says politics and media *were* slow. I say they still are! With their eyes and ears fixated on hierarchic heros, they cannot adapt fast enough and must die in their current form.
The protest of the networks are merely the gasps of dying dinasours. The web *is* commercial, but the capacity for it to meet consumer needs by directed advertising and bringing the consumer into direct contact with the vendors...and able to make much more effective shopping comparisons cannot be equalled by the tired old networks selling TV time by the age or general interest slot. Their source of revenue is drying up...and I say good...bye to Sam Donaldson, Dan Rather and the rest with dry eyes...honest, I hardly knew you.
Neither is it possible for the legislature and political system to stop the jugganaut of internet led change. Litigation is local...the web is ubiquitous!
And as far as political change, oligarchies depend on acceptance of the masses to rule. Well guys (it's mostly guys) the masses have had access to information now. You cannot roll the status back, neither can you deny the plebiscite access to referanda of direct democracy, if you will.
My heart bleeds for librarians...but who uses scribes now with universal literacy? Teachers can concentrate on tutorial work, inspiring the young, conducting the experiments dispensing wisdom. Things aren't over just because chalk boards are out!
Nice article Jon!
The next few years will be very interesting. My tip is wall-destroyers 23 - reactionaries 0.
I just noticed, there's a special free membership sign-on for the full Economist this week...no credit card stuff...just sign on.
I haven't got shares in the E., Honest!
There's an excellent Special this week on Innovation in Industry...should appeal to futurists...and avaiable only for members.
Buzz.
I use Gartner, Foresters and Burton to help me select computer functionality of my company.
...and who do I sue if things go wrong?
Note I said "help".
I also use Slashdot, Economist, WSJ, Industry Standard, Byte (that was), conference information, O'Reilly and whatever else I can lay my hands on.
Gartner is an interesting one. Their Symposium is worth attending - the information is very helpful...but...
They are very conservative and cannot be relied upon to recognise the breaking wave. Their coverage of Open Source in General and Linux in particular has been weak. They have represented a credible independence from what I term the BOHICA boys who greet Microsoft pronouncements with obsequious handwringing, but their caution in describing OSS when weighed against the blare of publicity from Redmond is unhelpful.
Many corporate managers, mine included are pissing in their pants when faced with this cheaper, more-reliable, better-throughput operating system than NT. It brings a real world of decision to their door. Do they want to save money? Do they trust their own staff?
Well, of course...what about support?
They obviously haven't hung on a line waiting for service themselves...nor have they ever sued any vendors. The technique is for managers to push the problems down to the technicians (that's why we earn the big bucks) and to hob-nob with the pretty sales-people. Those lunches are so much fun.
The problem with Gartner and Linux is that Gartner is about commerce...and Linux...and all of Open Source just doesn't seem commercial.
The message will get through, but don't rely on Gartner...as someone said, they just contribute to FUD.