I agree with you in this. I don't think most people who are looking for Cobol solutions are looking for them to develop new applications. Like us they are trying to lower costs, while providing a migration path to other systems.
For example, after our Cobol programs are ported to the unix system on Oracle we will be able to gradually replace parts of the application with another application that accesses the Oracle database (maintaining the buisness rules in the database) where both systems can operate in congunction untill we have perged all our Cobol code.
This takes time. Maybe by the time we are done doing it the language that the replacement code was written in will me legacy and need to be replaced.:) But hopefully it will be done before our cobol programmers have retired.
But if we port directly to another platform with another language ourselfs, or if we are porting to another software package, we are looking at a longer term solution where both systems will have to be maintained durring the migration (and thus more mainframe leasing costs) than we would be looking at if we just move the Cobol applications over to the Unix environment and port them from there.
It sucks but when you are a medium sized company with huge amounts of Cobol applications running on a mainframe which you are paying huge amounts of money for you have to do something.
Those Cobol applications are things that my transportation agency count on to do buisness, like the payroll system, and the parts maintence system for all the busses.
We are looking at $450,000 to renew the lease on the mainframe in two years, or we can port the applications to our Unix environment that we already have and tell IBM what they can do with their mainframe.
Its much easier and more cost effective to bring the code over nearly as-is versus migrating to a new language entirely.
Another very attractive cobol tool that runs on linux (and windows, and Solaris, and so on) is PerCobol from LegacyJ.As the name would indicate its a java solution.
http://www.legacyj.com/lgcyj_perc1.html
My agency has had a developer trying to get Merants Cobol working on a Solaris system for some time now and hasn't had any luck getting it to connect to Oracle. All the instructions we could find refer to DB2, even those where incomplete. Merant was not willing to support us since we purchased the software directly from Sun.
I couldn't find any instructions on getting Kobol to connect to Orable either, but its still a pretty new product so I will be revisiting it later. But with PerCobol it took about 1 hour to figure it out. (this is including the 30 minutes it took to download the 100mb evaluation copy).
The cost of PerCobol is MUCH higher than Kobol's $39.95. Its more like 5000 dollars per developer (if you are deploying to a Solaris server which we are). But it still looks really good compared to what we have experianced with Merant and we can redeploy the mainframe applications to java applettes on our intranet with PerCobol with little trouble.
Its a painful thing to listen to, this marketing twist. 1000 performance improvements indeed.
What does it mean? Do you list every thing that could possibly "improve" things and count that as a performance improvement? Most companies wouldn't use this line. Its a meaningless marketing statement that deserves a bit of slamming.
What this means to me is they didn't have anything they could point out as an improvement on a bulletted list.
The new 2003 Honda Accord, with 2000 performace improvements over the 2002 model.
I too when given the choice between Solaris and RedHat would go with Red Hat, except I would be uncomfortable about it.
When I pay more for the Sun Solaris system I know I can also pay (alot of money, yes) for support from Sun using their Sun Spectrum support. Their support is great. If there is anything wrong they will fix it. I don't use their support that often but when something comes up and I call them and they do.
I don't know that the support for the RedHat box would be as good. I know the support from the Dell, the hardware vendor that my agency uses for thier x86 servers, is not as good as Sun by far.
An example: I call up Sun and am attempting to find out why I'm getting some errors on my raid array. After a little troubleshooting with a technicition they have me run a utility which gathers all the relavant information about my system and I ftp it to them. (I don't remember the name of the utility as its been a long while since this happened). They call me back in 10 minutes and tell me that it has to do with the OBP firmware level. I upgrade and it works.
With Dell, my latest example is a bit more recent. We have a 130T tape library. Its one of those four tape drives 1TB DLT jobbies. We have three other L1000 units in various places (and ALT library relabeled and supported by Sun as their own) but we have this one 130T library connected to two Dell servers (which are running windows, even more unfortunate). Its not working. One Dell server is connected to the robitic controller and two drives and the other server is connected to the other controller. We call Dell and they have a guy (from Unisys who subcontracts for Dell repair in Portaland Oregon) who comes out and they start replaceing stuff. They replace virtually everything, including the controller board, on the 130T. We call up Dell support while we are doing this. This is their 24x7 gold-super-important-system support line. They get wind that the 130T is connected two not one server, but two. That's it. We aren't supported. The system has worked since we installed it a year ago, and aside from a few server related issues, the library hasn't been an issue, and there certainly isn't a problem doing the same thing with any of the L1000 units. But once the technician heard that our library was connected to TWO servers, we where in an unsupported configuration. Our Techie on the phone with them was so flabbergasted that they would do that he didn't even argue, he just hung up the phone and got the library kinda working with the two tape drives he could get working.
So if I could be sure that I can get Sun Spectrum support for my linux box, even at a premium price, I would go with them. They could proclaim that they are selling Linux boxes, and they have ported Linux to Sparc or they have started using 64 bit x86 chips in a new line of servers that run Linux and they have opensourced the Solaris kernel and have people working on kernel patches for Linus. These are all just idea's which their bean counters don't see the botom line on but would get people like me announcing they are going to join the church of Sun. They could be to the unix system what Apple is to the desktop system. Well they do have a bit of that going on already with their expensive cute purple boxes.
In the mean time Sun will have a product to sell but I suspect they will be suffering from hypoxia if they don't change something quick. I hope they do, because I do like their stuff.
Their 880R servers are prices quite reasonably when configured with 8 CPU's, compared to a DELL box.
No, I'm afraid not. We will be deploying the Solaris version of 4.0. But from what I have seen with version 3.1 I would guess that since its written in java you should have no problems that you wouldn't have any more problems than me or someone deploying on windows. (fingers crossed)
ESRI seems to have a split personality. They are very much a Windows shop. (They are based in Olympia Washington, Redmonds north a ways but pretty close). But some of their software is still in Unix and at least on of their current products is based on java.
Their Spacial Database Engine (SDE) runs on many databases including Unix, but those who have had to work with it in my agency havn't had much good to say about it. It does work, but backwards compatibility doesn't seem to be a priority with ESRI and our developers have to check everything. Whenever I bring it up, even in the GIS department, there is always a groan of discontent.
ArcInfo is a windows only based product as of version 8. You can still get ArcInfo version 7.something for Solaris but last I heard they don't plan on making another Unix version. They do alot with "map objects" which is as I understand it very useful in Visual Basic and other COM based RADs but useless outside of windows.
They do have a new version of ArcIMS (Internet Mapping Server) which runs on the Struts framework from the Jakarta project. We just got version 4.0 a couple days ago but havn't opened the box yet. Hopefully it will be better than previous versions. I can say that ArcIMS 3.1 was MUCH better than ArcIMS version 3.0.
As a web developer I have been lusting over MapInfo's products but alas we already have ERSI in house and MapInfo and ESRI have never played well together.
If I wanted to deploy on a unix platform, just from what I have heard and seen thus far, I would look at MapInfo's product unless there is something you need that they can't do and ESRI can.
Will computer companies start making cases out of recycleable material? Will there be a discount if the computer is smaller or made out of recycleable material? What if I get alot of spam? (sorry couldn't help the spam bit)
I would be interested to hear how they would go about recycling the equipment. Are the companies doing the recycling required to just store the equipment somewhere that's not a dump? Would they actually need to take the lead out of my monitor?
A criminal could rent a warehouse, take as many computers as they could at 50 dollars a piece and fill the warehouse, then default on their rental payments on the warehouse. I'm sure this sort of idea isn't so new. But since computers don't cause cancer like asbestos it probably won't be as closely monitored by the government.
Now here this!.prn sites make more money! Turn your.com/.net into a.prn now! Surveys show that sites end with.prn see 50 times more hits than any other type of web site. Run a.prn NOW before your name is taken!
"I would rather see Oracle and Sun merge and split the software division."
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Oracle makes a damn fine database.
Other than that their software makes the dead cry. Oracle Financials is the ugliest monster I have ever seen. Their java software they provide for administering their database looks like beta code from the java 1.0.4 days.
This single sentance about Oracle and Sun merging. That's terrifying to me. IBM and SUN, ok, interesting to think about, maybe not likely, maybe not a good thing. But Oracle and Sun, gawds! Not likely either (cross my heart hope to die) but eeeeeeeeewwwwwww.
If Oracle did buy Sun I wonder how we would license our server hardware. "Well sir, you take the transfer rate of the bus and multiply that by the amount of ram and then add two point five times the disks space connected to the server and then you add the number of mega hertz of your CPU's multiplied by the number CPU's times 10. Unless you have the server in a cluster in which case you multiply this number by one point two and there are convienence fees if you ever want to put it in a rack."
According to them this is only your problem not their's. They sold you a CD you can play, but not on a "PC" or a Mac. Nowhere are they saying you can play it on any other device that is not itself able to read a CD. I don't think they even say you can have a backup copy. If it gets scratched you have to buy another one. The bastards like it that way.
I'm just making myself angry here...
When its a CD I want to listen too I'll really get angry.
"The individual that did this was dumb enough to leave the original license in one of the files,..."
Did he leave on good terms? Was he angry at anyone when he left?
I just thought of a great way to mess with a company if I'm a coder who doesn't care about references. Insert the GPL into a bunch of my source files that I spent a lot of time on. As long as I was working alone on that code they wouldn't know I didn't swipe it from a GPL project. They may evenspend a bunch of time looking for the original source. They may even post a slashdot story about it.:)
I supposed you tried calling this guy and asking him.
Seems to have been alot of really positive (overall) articles on apple and their products lately.
I used to be a Mac slammer. Nothing made me quite as happy as slamming indignant Mac die hards, unless it was slamming brainless Microsoft Bots. That was before Steve Jobs came back to apple. Then I started watching them with interest.
Now, after all these good stories lately, about the ipod, imovies, OS X and its unix environment, I have to say someone slipped me some of the Mac coolaide.
I want one! I want one now! Damn! And I'm happy about it too!
By withholding source code and the freedom to alter it I am shackling those users who use my software to the degree that they come to rely on my software. Those shackles are as difficult to break free of as my software is difficult to replace. This is at the heart of why many open source advocates dislike Microsoft software.
The reason I would want to write open source software is rooted in the basis for my wanting to use it.
When I purchase a software license for my company I get a shrink-wrapped box with some CDs inside. I install the software (after perhaps contacting the software vendor and getting a license key to unlock it). I attempt to read the documentation to learn how it works, often times the available documentation isn't very good and I need to go to a class to use it. While implementing the software package I have to figure out how I should change the way I do things so that my practices comply with the methods available from the software package. Many things I would like to get done are not possible with that software package because it doesn't provide those features. I'm locked into whatever they give me to work with and I have very few options for customizations because of this.
Now this software package comes with support that I can renew every year. If I keep renewing my support I can get upgrades as they are released. If I chose not to upgrade to the newer version eventually soon I will no longer be supported. I have to upgrade the package on the vendors schedule not my own, because they are the ones that determine when support runs out on the version I may be using. Since there software has a minimum system requirement I also have to continue to upgrade the operating system that I am running and therefore the hardware that my systems are running because the new operating system is progressive and doesn't support the older hardware.
This upgrade cycle is necessary to maintain support from the software vendor. Software contains bugs. This is true of all software (except perhaps certain "Hello world" applications). Since the vendor is the only company that has the source code they are the only ones that can support the software. They control something that I come to rely on for my business.
Now open software generally (by my experience) has better forums to discuss software problems and how it's used. You also have the option of going into the source code and making customizations that you need. All of the other people running the software also have this option. Chances are if you didn't have time or the expertise to make those changes or customizations to the software someone else might have. This is because many people have similar needs. Now if those people who made the customizations also contributed their changes back to everyone else you can use those contributions.
Also if you need your open source software to support your older system (which may be doing its job just fine and would otherwise be a waste of money and resources to upgrade) you have that option. Chances are if you have this need other people do as well and you all help each other out.
These are the reasons I use open source software.
When I write software and I release it open sourced my software becomes more useful by other people (who are also using it) who contribute to it and add back to my product. I get to enjoy their improvements as well. It's a two-way road.
Actually I administer a 4500 with about a terra byte of disk space (about half of that is used) accross 6 arrays and an fsck ussually takes about 5 minutes the two times I have seen one.
The 8 gigs of Ram however takes about 10 mintues to check however.
AMD has not gotten into the multi-processor arena however. Are their 64bit CPUs going to be capable of running in a multi-processor configuration? Isn't this also the way AMD has been able to keep up with Intel on the desktop? They have not been putting their research energy towards the server end like Intel. Considering this, it wouldn't be a good idea for MS to move onto AMD's x86-64 platform while ditching IA-64. Does anyone know if AMD's x86-64 will be able to be put into a multi-processor system?
I can't imagine being able to bring this up to your boss (unless your company is a publisher of p0rn). P0rn sites require a very high level of performance, throughput and availability. They are, after all, a busy ecommerce site. This was the subject of a slashdot
article a couple of months back. As you can see here apache is clearly what most p0rn sites have found to be the best solution.
I find this very amusing, since you will never find this statistic on a DELL brochure.:)
Slashdot Mirror
I agree with you in this. I don't think most people who are looking for Cobol solutions are looking for them to develop new applications. Like us they are trying to lower costs, while providing a migration path to other systems.
:) But hopefully it will be done before our cobol programmers have retired.
For example, after our Cobol programs are ported to the unix system on Oracle we will be able to gradually replace parts of the application with another application that accesses the Oracle database (maintaining the buisness rules in the database) where both systems can operate in congunction untill we have perged all our Cobol code.
This takes time. Maybe by the time we are done doing it the language that the replacement code was written in will me legacy and need to be replaced.
But if we port directly to another platform with another language ourselfs, or if we are porting to another software package, we are looking at a longer term solution where both systems will have to be maintained durring the migration (and thus more mainframe leasing costs) than we would be looking at if we just move the Cobol applications over to the Unix environment and port them from there.
It sucks but when you are a medium sized company with huge amounts of Cobol applications running on a mainframe which you are paying huge amounts of money for you have to do something.
Those Cobol applications are things that my transportation agency count on to do buisness, like the payroll system, and the parts maintence system for all the busses.
We are looking at $450,000 to renew the lease on the mainframe in two years, or we can port the applications to our Unix environment that we already have and tell IBM what they can do with their mainframe.
Its much easier and more cost effective to bring the code over nearly as-is versus migrating to a new language entirely.
Another very attractive cobol tool that runs on linux (and windows, and Solaris, and so on) is PerCobol from LegacyJ.As the name would indicate its a java solution.
http://www.legacyj.com/lgcyj_perc1.html
My agency has had a developer trying to get Merants Cobol working on a Solaris system for some time now and hasn't had any luck getting it to connect to Oracle. All the instructions we could find refer to DB2, even those where incomplete. Merant was not willing to support us since we purchased the software directly from Sun.
I couldn't find any instructions on getting Kobol to connect to Orable either, but its still a pretty new product so I will be revisiting it later. But with PerCobol it took about 1 hour to figure it out. (this is including the 30 minutes it took to download the 100mb evaluation copy).
The cost of PerCobol is MUCH higher than Kobol's $39.95. Its more like 5000 dollars per developer (if you are deploying to a Solaris server which we are). But it still looks really good compared to what we have experianced with Merant and we can redeploy the mainframe applications to java applettes on our intranet with PerCobol with little trouble.
Its a painful thing to listen to, this marketing twist. 1000 performance improvements indeed.
What does it mean? Do you list every thing that could possibly "improve" things and count that as a performance improvement? Most companies wouldn't use this line. Its a meaningless marketing statement that deserves a bit of slamming.
What this means to me is they didn't have anything they could point out as an improvement on a bulletted list.
The new 2003 Honda Accord, with 2000 performace improvements over the 2002 model.
I too when given the choice between Solaris and RedHat would go with Red Hat, except I would be uncomfortable about it.
When I pay more for the Sun Solaris system I know I can also pay (alot of money, yes) for support from Sun using their Sun Spectrum support. Their support is great. If there is anything wrong they will fix it. I don't use their support that often but when something comes up and I call them and they do.
I don't know that the support for the RedHat box would be as good. I know the support from the Dell, the hardware vendor that my agency uses for thier x86 servers, is not as good as Sun by far.
An example: I call up Sun and am attempting to find out why I'm getting some errors on my raid array. After a little troubleshooting with a technicition they have me run a utility which gathers all the relavant information about my system and I ftp it to them. (I don't remember the name of the utility as its been a long while since this happened). They call me back in 10 minutes and tell me that it has to do with the OBP firmware level. I upgrade and it works.
With Dell, my latest example is a bit more recent. We have a 130T tape library. Its one of those four tape drives 1TB DLT jobbies. We have three other L1000 units in various places (and ALT library relabeled and supported by Sun as their own) but we have this one 130T library connected to two Dell servers (which are running windows, even more unfortunate). Its not working. One Dell server is connected to the robitic controller and two drives and the other server is connected to the other controller. We call Dell and they have a guy (from Unisys who subcontracts for Dell repair in Portaland Oregon) who comes out and they start replaceing stuff. They replace virtually everything, including the controller board, on the 130T. We call up Dell support while we are doing this. This is their 24x7 gold-super-important-system support line. They get wind that the 130T is connected two not one server, but two. That's it. We aren't supported. The system has worked since we installed it a year ago, and aside from a few server related issues, the library hasn't been an issue, and there certainly isn't a problem doing the same thing with any of the L1000 units. But once the technician heard that our library was connected to TWO servers, we where in an unsupported configuration. Our Techie on the phone with them was so flabbergasted that they would do that he didn't even argue, he just hung up the phone and got the library kinda working with the two tape drives he could get working.
So if I could be sure that I can get Sun Spectrum support for my linux box, even at a premium price, I would go with them. They could proclaim that they are selling Linux boxes, and they have ported Linux to Sparc or they have started using 64 bit x86 chips in a new line of servers that run Linux and they have opensourced the Solaris kernel and have people working on kernel patches for Linus. These are all just idea's which their bean counters don't see the botom line on but would get people like me announcing they are going to join the church of Sun. They could be to the unix system what Apple is to the desktop system. Well they do have a bit of that going on already with their expensive cute purple boxes.
In the mean time Sun will have a product to sell but I suspect they will be suffering from hypoxia if they don't change something quick. I hope they do, because I do like their stuff.
Their 880R servers are prices quite reasonably when configured with 8 CPU's, compared to a DELL box.
"you should have no problems that you wouldn't have any more problems than me or someone deploying on windows. (fingers crossed)"
(that's fingers crossed and evidently not reading his posts before he clicks submit).
No, I'm afraid not. We will be deploying the Solaris version of 4.0. But from what I have seen with version 3.1 I would guess that since its written in java you should have no problems that you wouldn't have any more problems than me or someone deploying on windows. (fingers crossed)
Oops! You are right. They have an office in Olympia which is the office my agency deals with. (We are in Portland Oregon).
Their Spacial Database Engine (SDE) runs on many databases including Unix, but those who have had to work with it in my agency havn't had much good to say about it. It does work, but backwards compatibility doesn't seem to be a priority with ESRI and our developers have to check everything. Whenever I bring it up, even in the GIS department, there is always a groan of discontent.
ArcInfo is a windows only based product as of version 8. You can still get ArcInfo version 7.something for Solaris but last I heard they don't plan on making another Unix version. They do alot with "map objects" which is as I understand it very useful in Visual Basic and other COM based RADs but useless outside of windows.
They do have a new version of ArcIMS (Internet Mapping Server) which runs on the Struts framework from the Jakarta project. We just got version 4.0 a couple days ago but havn't opened the box yet. Hopefully it will be better than previous versions. I can say that ArcIMS 3.1 was MUCH better than ArcIMS version 3.0.
As a web developer I have been lusting over MapInfo's products but alas we already have ERSI in house and MapInfo and ESRI have never played well together.
If I wanted to deploy on a unix platform, just from what I have heard and seen thus far, I would look at MapInfo's product unless there is something you need that they can't do and ESRI can.
Does the money help my monitor decompose?
Will computer companies start making cases out of recycleable material? Will there be a discount if the computer is smaller or made out of recycleable material? What if I get alot of spam? (sorry couldn't help the spam bit)
I would be interested to hear how they would go about recycling the equipment. Are the companies doing the recycling required to just store the equipment somewhere that's not a dump? Would they actually need to take the lead out of my monitor?
A criminal could rent a warehouse, take as many computers as they could at 50 dollars a piece and fill the warehouse, then default on their rental payments on the warehouse. I'm sure this sort of idea isn't so new. But since computers don't cause cancer like asbestos it probably won't be as closely monitored by the government.
"I thought Apple was dead. Hm!"
:)
-1 Troll.
Now here this! .prn sites make more money! Turn your .com/.net into a .prn now! Surveys show that sites end with .prn see 50 times more hits than any other type of web site. Run a .prn NOW before your name is taken!
"I would rather see Oracle and Sun merge and split the software division."
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Oracle makes a damn fine database.
Other than that their software makes the dead cry. Oracle Financials is the ugliest monster I have ever seen. Their java software they provide for administering their database looks like beta code from the java 1.0.4 days.
This single sentance about Oracle and Sun merging. That's terrifying to me. IBM and SUN, ok, interesting to think about, maybe not likely, maybe not a good thing. But Oracle and Sun, gawds! Not likely either (cross my heart hope to die) but eeeeeeeeewwwwwww.
If Oracle did buy Sun I wonder how we would license our server hardware. "Well sir, you take the transfer rate of the bus and multiply that by the amount of ram and then add two point five times the disks space connected to the server and then you add the number of mega hertz of your CPU's multiplied by the number CPU's times 10. Unless you have the server in a cluster in which case you multiply this number by one point two and there are convienence fees if you ever want to put it in a rack."
At the top of the license page there is an option to "Rate this page" The score is from 1 to 5. Right now its at 1.5 with 230 votes and growing.
I had to give them my 2 cents. I voted a 1.
According to them this is only your problem not their's. They sold you a CD you can play, but not on a "PC" or a Mac. Nowhere are they saying you can play it on any other device that is not itself able to read a CD. I don't think they even say you can have a backup copy. If it gets scratched you have to buy another one. The bastards like it that way.
I'm just making myself angry here...
When its a CD I want to listen too I'll really get angry.
"The individual that did this was dumb enough to leave the original license in one of the files,..."
:)
Did he leave on good terms? Was he angry at anyone when he left?
I just thought of a great way to mess with a company if I'm a coder who doesn't care about references. Insert the GPL into a bunch of my source files that I spent a lot of time on. As long as I was working alone on that code they wouldn't know I didn't swipe it from a GPL project. They may evenspend a bunch of time looking for the original source. They may even post a slashdot story about it.
I supposed you tried calling this guy and asking him.
Seems to have been alot of really positive (overall) articles on apple and their products lately.
I used to be a Mac slammer. Nothing made me quite as happy as slamming indignant Mac die hards, unless it was slamming brainless Microsoft Bots. That was before Steve Jobs came back to apple. Then I started watching them with interest.
Now, after all these good stories lately, about the ipod, imovies, OS X and its unix environment, I have to say someone slipped me some of the Mac coolaide.
I want one! I want one now! Damn! And I'm happy about it too!
Gimme a mac!
I don't know where you got this idea from.
Here is a list of supported hardware I just got off Sun's early access page titled "Solaris 9 (Intel Platform Edition) Hardware Compatility List"
Intel Pentium,Intel Pentium Pro,Intel Pentium with MMX,Intel Pentium II,Intel Pentium II Xeon,Intel Celeron,Intel Pentium III,Intel Pentium III Xeon, Intel Pentium 4, AMD-K5, AMD-K6, AMD-K6-2, AMD-K6-3, AMD Athlon (formerly Athlon K7), AMD Duron
Maybe you have more information than I do but it sounds like they are planning on having a Solaris 9 for Intel to me.
By withholding source code and the freedom to alter it I am shackling those users who use my software to the degree that they come to rely on my software. Those shackles are as difficult to break free of as my software is difficult to replace. This is at the heart of why many open source advocates dislike Microsoft software.
The reason I would want to write open source software is rooted in the basis for my wanting to use it.
When I purchase a software license for my company I get a shrink-wrapped box with some CDs inside. I install the software (after perhaps contacting the software vendor and getting a license key to unlock it). I attempt to read the documentation to learn how it works, often times the available documentation isn't very good and I need to go to a class to use it. While implementing the software package I have to figure out how I should change the way I do things so that my practices comply with the methods available from the software package. Many things I would like to get done are not possible with that software package because it doesn't provide those features. I'm locked into whatever they give me to work with and I have very few options for customizations because of this.
Now this software package comes with support that I can renew every year. If I keep renewing my support I can get upgrades as they are released. If I chose not to upgrade to the newer version eventually soon I will no longer be supported. I have to upgrade the package on the vendors schedule not my own, because they are the ones that determine when support runs out on the version I may be using. Since there software has a minimum system requirement I also have to continue to upgrade the operating system that I am running and therefore the hardware that my systems are running because the new operating system is progressive and doesn't support the older hardware.
This upgrade cycle is necessary to maintain support from the software vendor. Software contains bugs. This is true of all software (except perhaps certain "Hello world" applications). Since the vendor is the only company that has the source code they are the only ones that can support the software. They control something that I come to rely on for my business.
Now open software generally (by my experience) has better forums to discuss software problems and how it's used. You also have the option of going into the source code and making customizations that you need. All of the other people running the software also have this option. Chances are if you didn't have time or the expertise to make those changes or customizations to the software someone else might have. This is because many people have similar needs. Now if those people who made the customizations also contributed their changes back to everyone else you can use those contributions.
Also if you need your open source software to support your older system (which may be doing its job just fine and would otherwise be a waste of money and resources to upgrade) you have that option. Chances are if you have this need other people do as well and you all help each other out.
These are the reasons I use open source software.
When I write software and I release it open sourced my software becomes more useful by other people (who are also using it) who contribute to it and add back to my product. I get to enjoy their improvements as well. It's a two-way road.
Actually I administer a 4500 with about a terra byte of disk space (about half of that is used) accross 6 arrays and an fsck ussually takes about 5 minutes the two times I have seen one. The 8 gigs of Ram however takes about 10 mintues to check however.
AMD has not gotten into the multi-processor arena however. Are their 64bit CPUs going to be capable of running in a multi-processor configuration? Isn't this also the way AMD has been able to keep up with Intel on the desktop? They have not been putting their research energy towards the server end like Intel. Considering this, it wouldn't be a good idea for MS to move onto AMD's x86-64 platform while ditching IA-64. Does anyone know if AMD's x86-64 will be able to be put into a multi-processor system?
I can't imagine being able to bring this up to your boss (unless your company is a publisher of p0rn). P0rn sites require a very high level of performance, throughput and availability. They are, after all, a busy ecommerce site. This was the subject of a slashdot article a couple of months back. As you can see here apache is clearly what most p0rn sites have found to be the best solution. I find this very amusing, since you will never find this statistic on a DELL brochure. :)