I work at one of the major government research councils here in the UK. We are still trying to make a claim for removing all the Windows 95 machines left in the buliding. Problems with budgets, politics etc means we will be supporting all flavours of Windows for quite a few more years yet (we are still rolling out W2K where required).
Secondly most of the important scientific applications such as GIS are only just recently functional under W2K with some third party applications (such as machines driving lab equipment) never likely to be. We still have some old 486 computers running DOS 6.22 for some applications.
Rolling out W2K was bad enough I can't think of the problems we will expereince if we have to change over so soon.
Linux and Windows my 2 cents on the war
on
Microsoft's Future
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· Score: 2, Insightful
Being a recent convert to Linux I have to see that for front end desktops windows has the edge for now.
The problem is that Linux has reached the 90% syndrome, that is Linux has 90% of the features required for it to be a front end desktop. As we all know it takes 90% of the development time for these final 10% of features. KDE and GNOME are almost ready, Star Office 6.0 will be a competitor for Microsoft office in a few months. Microsoft have always taken existing technology and made it easy to use (legal and moral issues aside). Would you teach your mother Linux or Windows.
Linux is a tool that now can be used in specific requirements in a back office role and for obtaining a cheap UNIX environment where required. It is not ready for the desktop yet (for technical people yes, for ordinary computer phobic users no). The problem is with the Open Source and most Linux companies cannot make money from their products (just look at what can be achieved with Star Office when a large company does get behind Linux).
With Windows 2000 and XP we have finally got rid of that huge mess the 9X product line gave us, and I am considering upgrading (but only to the PRO version and not until XP SP1).
Issues such as Microsoft FUD and support issues for Linux have now been resolved. Based simply on the products Windows has the edge in a few areas for now. Give it another year and I feel Linux will be able to compete (when things like Star Office, Mozilla, and many other projects finally hit a 1.0 release).
I use Linux and Solaris at work and I want to see Linux succeed.
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I work at one of the major government research councils here in the UK. We are still trying to make a claim for removing all the Windows 95 machines left in the buliding. Problems with budgets, politics etc means we will be supporting all flavours of Windows for quite a few more years yet (we are still rolling out W2K where required).
Secondly most of the important scientific applications such as GIS are only just recently functional under W2K with some third party applications (such as machines driving lab equipment) never likely to be. We still have some old 486 computers running DOS 6.22 for some applications.
Rolling out W2K was bad enough I can't think of the problems we will expereince if we have to change over so soon.
Being a recent convert to Linux I have to see that for front end desktops windows has the edge for now.
The problem is that Linux has reached the 90% syndrome, that is Linux has 90% of the features required for it to be a front end desktop. As we all know it takes 90% of the development time for these final 10% of features. KDE and GNOME are almost ready, Star Office 6.0 will be a competitor for Microsoft office in a few months. Microsoft have always taken existing technology and made it easy to use (legal and moral issues aside). Would you teach your mother Linux or Windows.
Linux is a tool that now can be used in specific requirements in a back office role and for obtaining a cheap UNIX environment where required. It is not ready for the desktop yet (for technical people yes, for ordinary computer phobic users no). The problem is with the Open Source and most Linux companies cannot make money from their products (just look at what can be achieved with Star Office when a large company does get behind Linux).
With Windows 2000 and XP we have finally got rid of that huge mess the 9X product line gave us, and I am considering upgrading (but only to the PRO version and not until XP SP1).
Issues such as Microsoft FUD and support issues for Linux have now been resolved. Based simply on the products Windows has the edge in a few areas for now. Give it another year and I feel Linux will be able to compete (when things like Star Office, Mozilla, and many other projects finally hit a 1.0 release).
I use Linux and Solaris at work and I want to see Linux succeed.