Re:Attorney ads have done this for years
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Recycling TV Ads
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Only here in Springfield Missouri its been dubbed over with, "Corbett, Stimpch and Mustgrave"...
I am serious...the ad was just on the 10PM news.
Re:It's only tecnology research, but wise thinking
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Son of Concorde
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I hope the A380 has a better track than its predicessor
[air show video]
Re:The Desktop Is Not Important Right Now
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Linux in 2004?
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Moral reasons -- for those who think all software must be Free, period
Econ lesson #1: There is no free lunch. I don't mind paying for software is its quality. If its free, just a bonus.
Lower cost computers for everyone! (Also think schools and governments... lower taxes!)
Lowercost software ware, maybe, but as of now it takes a hefty service contract or inhouse IT staff (which costs bucks) to run Linux. TCO is the key. For many smaller shops, Apple will be cheaper because they can find programs they are used to, like Quickbooks, and still have the stablity of Unix without knowing it. Linux is not Grandma friendly yet. Also, the government will just those tax dollars saved and spend it somewhere else. Frankly no amount of computers are going to help kids that can't read and write. We really need to fix that in US public schools before worrying about whether they run Windows, Mac, or Linux.
You believe Microsoft has too much power over the computer industry. In this case, a competitor needs to attack it on all fronts.
Well, maybe, or maybe because they have crappy product. Although I have been pleased with 2000pro and XP from a stablity and usage standpoint, just not from the "worm of the week" side. Still, that's why I have an iBook at home and a PowerBook at work.
You prefer the UNIX way of doing things
Okay, I do like the Unix way. That's why I prefer FreeBSD since its actually Unix, not Unix-like. I know that's a trolling comment, but cvsup and the ports tree makes my job admining servers much easier
Competition would be possible between consumer-oriented distributors. Currently, Microsoft competes with no one. When Linux is common on the desktop, there should be fierce competition which will help everyone get a better system.
To a point. However, soon one or two giants will emerge...oh wait, RH and SuSE, and RH's out of the Desktop Market for now and SuSE is TBD.
No stupid e-mail viruses. Security is much easier in a proper UNIX environment.
Repeat after me: "People are stupid". Right now most Email viruses are targeted at M$ becuase its easier to find ill maintained boxes on everything from coporate networks to home users on Cable or DSL. I am sure if more people were trying, there would be viruses for Linux, actually there are, just not very many. Also, right now Linux users tend to be more savvy and know how to run a box. As joe six-=pack gets Linux, they aren't going to know how to secure it just as they don't Windows now. Most Security problems are human related, not code.
Level playing field for application developers. No more will folks like WordPerfect have to compete with Microsoft, where Microsoft knows a lot more about the OS than WordPerfect does.
Maybe. Again, I don't mind paying for good software. Supprisingly I use MS office V.x for Mac and love it compared to its Windows cousins. I don't mind paying for good software, and its actually a good program.
As more people use Linux on the desktop, those of us who have decided to use it no matter what will find more application software for sale and more hardware supported.
Chicken or the Egg? Software vendors often won't work on Linux apps unless there is a market there. The market won't develop unless the applications are there. This is one reason why I chose OS X for our office over Linux. We have the best of OSS land and commerical software support. Remeber, Apple damn near lost Macromedia and Adobe when they switched to OS X.
The one industry I have seen this happen as been SFX studios. I worked as a system admin at good sized architecture and Graphics design firm that was using special software written for ALPHA processors and True-6
Don't forget "OpenBSD - hey, we fixed that security hole six months ago"
Personally I loved what one guy said at one of the business we worked with that had True-64 Unix that said, "If someone knows the holes of True-64, we ain't stopping them with...their pro's".
Still 80% of intrusions are inside jobs. Someone on the inside either gives out a password to someone posing as an employee or an empolyee gives out their password because they are disgrunteled etc.
This is a really good idea for anyone running boxes. Although, I've seen some idiots do this with Windows systems like walmart that runs Solaris 8 with MS IIS 5. Forget iTunes, hell really would have to freeze over for that server combo to happen.
The easiest to cloak is apache because it runs on just about anything. I've seen some sites say they are a PlayStation 2 with apache.
We bait our honeypots with OpenBSD boxes that state they are Windows running apache (which isn't too uncommon, I know a lot that do this). Its funny to sit there and watch sometimes.
I think you got that a bit wrong, yes they don't want the EU to have depend on the US for their wellbeing anymore (and heck, why would they want that), but it is by far not the idea to become a Superpower, at least not in the sense people see the US.
Seems like you haven't really learned a lot while you were living in Germany.
This is going to get modded -1 offtopic, and be extremely long, but...
Well, from my time in Germany I only spoke before members of the Bundestag as well as Polish, Czech, British, Embassies in Berlin and had one paper published and another that should be published some time next spring at the end of a three year study in Technology Law. (Yeah, my paper is now over 2 years old and probably way out of date...but hey).
From what I gathered, there was a major discord between the man on the street and the ideals expressed by some in government. One of my professors served in the Bundesrat and was the one that organized the presentations by selected students at CDU headquaters in Berlin. Needless to say, the views of the CDU on issues are quite different from that of the current Red/Green coalition...
Now I have to admit that I grew up in the US military industrial complex, my father is a retired jr. executive from McDonnell Douglas. I also worked my first year out of college for another defense contractor for the DOD. So I have a different take than most. Also, I am working on my Masters in International Affairs and Management.
The push for the "United States of Europe" Spans back to either Monnet or Adenaur (I can't remember which at the moment but it sound more like Jean Monnet) in the 1950's with the beginnings of the European Coal and Steal Community between France and Germany and the foundation for the current EU. The principle has always been a commonmarket an economic superpower, not military.
Now there is a deep split in what member states want the EU to be. The Germans and French are pushing more towards a federalist syle government where as, especially from new members or soon to be members like Poland, they want a loose confederation with free access to goods and capital. Again, this is at a governmental level, this is what the power players are stating in Berlin and Paris, not the average man on the street.
The German people never approved of replacing the Deutsch Mark with the Euro, the Surpreme Court of Germany did. I went to Germany about a month after the switch and people were optimistic about the Euro, but by the time I had left, many had mixed feeling about the currency. I was in Germany last year on business about this time and unemployment and a poor German economy had many complaining about the Euro and the ECB because Germany could no longer set interest rates to help kick start the economy. That's was the one draw back people hated about the Euro, the loss of local control. The Economy in Ireland could be steaming along, but Germany stagnate and powerless to do anything about it. Again, a whole other topic.
The US will lag behind because of things like the SCO crap (where were all the LUGs in the US when SCO started spewing their FUD? You heard some small reistance, but it seems the real big bang happened in Europe).
I was a member of a LUG here in the area while in College. Last year it folded, people lost interest. I will tell you why too: OS X. After 10.2, about 80% of the LUG purchased a mac as their next computer including myself. For me, I had the stablity and usablity of a native Unix enviroment and support from hardware and software vendors for products like Photoshop and Quark. Plus the true user base of Linux in the United States comes from corperate IT staffers in datacenters. To them, its about cost, not community. That's why I view RH's moves ending RH was a real stupid idea. To the average joe smoe, RH IS Linux and annoucing that we'll no longer see Redhat Boxes in Bestbuy will keep it out of s
I work as a tech consultant. My degrees are in German and International business. When I spent a year studying in Germany, the college had 2 SuSE linux labs and one Windows lab on their campus. Most students had dual boot Linux and Windows laptops.
The main reason why Linux was being adopted outside of the United States was because of its cost, even with $2.50 per copy for Windows XP in 3rd world nations, linux decreases in cost per unit the more machines you install it upon.
The other reason was SuSE and Mandrake, both European and not from the United States. Which plays well in the EU. There is a mentality amoung many leaders in France and Germany that want to see the "United States of Europe" superpower and waining themselves from Microsoft could give Europe a leg up in technology as Linux catches on in SE Asia and the 3rd world.
Now with SuSE in the hands of a NA company, I wonder how that will impeed linux adoption. Oh course, IBM would love to see this happen as the premiums would return to hardware, not software.
I think Linux will be catching on internationally in the next couple years on desktops big time. It probably will be longer in the United States.
I'm still using my HP 48G from circa 1993. A new set of AAA once every couple years and the onling thing it won't do is calculate IRR...had to break down and purchase an HP business calc for that...
We had one client that ran internet and media Kiosks. He had one competitor in this area. We switched him over to the Linux Based Firecast OS for kiosks and digital signage. It worked great for him and saw his service calls drop by some 70%. His competitor in the area was running software on top of Win 2k. By using the Linux only model, our client's software cost were $350 less per unit and the savings on maintaince allowed our client to under cut his competition by about 25%. His competor filed chapter 11 last week or the week before and I know he doesn't have the money to recover and can't get the capital he needs unless a VC gives him cash. In that case, Linux was a great solution and ideal for what our client was doing. He saved at least 5x's in the last 6 months what he paid us. In fact he is signing a deal on moday for us to be his outsourced CIO when he needs the expertise.
2: I've sold more businesses on apple than Linux. Why? I deal with SMB's. Most want stuff that is easy to use and really all they want is a Point of Sale system or a desktop with MS Office and Quickbooks pro. eMacs and iMacs for the small businesses can turn into a cost-effective solution. Biggest complaint we've heard is that they don't come with solitare. Businesses love not worrying as much about viruses and the stablity of OS X. For most of our clients, Macs will have a lower TCO and are more practicle because of commerically available software.
3: Yep Windows and Mac. Will loose to mac, and most of our clients are fed up with Microsoft.
4: Well, once a year. But most people I've talked don't seem like they'll be upgrading to OS X.3 anytime soon. Everything works now, why mess with it...
5: Oh we saw about $185k in profits last year mostly generated by my business unit. Our Advertising and Marketing consultancy has four time the revenue and 3 times our expenses. So long as we have computers, printers, and internet, we're pretty cost effective.
Now we had some clients that Linux was a realistic option. Several wanted to know if we could increase the EOL of their exisiting hardware. PIII 733's and 850's with 128 - 256MB of ram will run Linux and Open Office like a champ.
Sent from korean servers, but the people behind them could very well be Americans or American companies. They might be able to go after those selling the products advertised in Spam. You know the, "your a small business and we'll eat you alive in legal fees unless you tell us the name of the spammer you used".
Yeah, probably bad tactics. I applied for a trademark and copy right of one of my screennames for the express reason of maybe someday sueing some of the emails that look like their from me to me. I've always wondered if I could turn them into the FBI for identity theft? Now that would be a question worth finding out...
There is a reason why I ditched linux well over a year ago for OSX, commerical software vendors. Sorry, but having a version of MS Office (that actually works better than on Windows IMHO), Adobe products, is far more important than that of the idealism of Linux.
So what if there is a version of Linux running on the PPC 970, what's the point if I can't run the critical applications I need for my business like Office, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, and After Effects?
No, its about branding and image in the business world. The appearence of what is going on is often more important that what reality is b/c the ones with the purse strings are usually NOT the CTO/CIO's. The reality is that RH will continue on in Fedora and other releases, however to businesses, this makes linux look as though IT IS NOT VIABLE. I deal with small & medium sized business owners that might read an article here and there about how good/bad Linux is, and if Red Hat says, "Oh that's going away now, sorry" the decision makers take that as, "this is a bad product that isn't making them any money, so why should we risk it". Its about Image. Unfortantely most in the technology world frankly don't have fucking clue about marketing and appearence. That is also why I have NOT been recommending Linux to companies in the past. Linux is a big risk, especially when your talking desktop. Servers are a different beast. There Linux has proven itself, but these were not going to be server deals.
Most of my clients either go with FreeBSD if they are going to go OSS or to Apple for Unix desktops. In fact, our office is now 100% Apple on desktops and laptops. There have only been a hand full of the 30 companies I have worked with this past year that I felt could make the jump to Linux on the desktop.
Consider this, one of the clients is a rather large Architecture and Graphics design firm. They have a large need for rendering boxes and they use Maya, which happens to run on RH Linux's desktop. They liked the cheaper licensing fees of Linux since Maya is like $5k a pop. Plus, during the evening and weekends, the dual server/desktop config could be used in their render farm, which was going to run Linux. Having Linux on the desktop was the bonus that would allow them to get jobs done faster. Every 3Ghz dual processor box with 2GB of ram added would render just that many more frames allowing them to finish and move to the next project much faster. The amount in TCO they would have saved was an estimated $8,500 a month. Well, with the end of support from RH, that is about $1.5M that will be going to other vendors suppling them with Windows XP and Windows 2003 servers. They were going to spend the same amount, only it would have increased the size of their render farm by about 15%. Their IT staff have been running DEC/Compaq Alpha's since circa 1997/98. I know because I was one of the sys admins there until this past year. Unix wasn't new to them and many ran linux at home or knew enough the transition wasn't going to be that big of a hassle. About like going from Windows 95 to 2k for an average user. Some differences, but same basic idea.
To most non-techies, Red Hat WAS/IS Linux. To most, SuSE and Red Hat aren't similar, their like Mac Vs. Windows. It takes them a while to understand that basically the only difference is that its the same product with different corperate sponsors/support systems. (yes, yes I know there are many other differnces like Gnome vs. KDE centred, but...most that I deal with don't care).
And as far as my understanding of the world, I hold 3 BA's in German, International Business, and International Affairs. I have lived and studied in Germany where I saw first hand how Germans were learning how to use Linux unlike American students and where this was likely to lead in the next 10 years. I've taught myself Linux since Slackware 2 and yes, I wrote my own drivers back in the day. I have worked on systems ranging from Dos 3.23, to Cray's, to True64 Unix, and every type of BSD known to man (well I've probably missed one along the way). I help start one dot com as a CTO that actually had a business model and was profitable and sold to a large ISP for a nice chunk of cash. I don't mean to sound like a primadonna here, but as General Patton once said, "If you've done it, its not bragging".
At the end of the day, its about trust. This announcement by RH makes many in the business world look at RH with the eyes of mistrust. "Well with this level of EOL support, what is to stop them from changing from ES to Super ES or the alike in the future without much notice? Isn't this the same game Microsoft plays? If so, what's the big deal, same crap, just different companies".
I have to agree. I work as a technology consultant and over saw two companies that switched the bulk of their desktops from Windows to RH 9 Linux. Both had been using Linux on servers since 2000 and 2001 and therefore had the technical staff in place to handle the machines with in house support.
However, RH's move has made my business lose a lot of crediablity because RH had started to build a brand for Linux in the business market. The SMB's I work with are always looking for anything that help their bottom line. One bussiness would have saved an estimated $10,000 over the next three years in licing fees for OS's and Office Software. They are still going to use OpenOffice, only for Windows now.
I have to give kudos to M$ about one thing, they support products for 5 years and give 6 months notice its going away. People expect that after 5 years in the tech world, programs wouldn't be supported.
First off, it seemed like to me that 7.2 was around a while then 7.3, 8, and then 9 suddenly came out almost back to back. The about a year after 9 is released we get the, "This product will not be supported". The idea that Linux would have a longer support life for older versions longer than that of Windows was a selling point, and one that has turned into a myth. Ever try to find working RPM's for the latest PHP release for RH 7.3? After 3 hours of searching, I gave up and installed FreeBSD 4.8.
As a consultant, I was seeing Linux having a huge push onto corperate desktops by 2006. Especially in Europe and SE Asia. RH's choice to end the biggest brand in NA Linux was a major blow for the Linux adoptation in the US. Now with SuSE in the hands of a North American Company I wonder how much that will impeed their sucess. Part of SuSE's appeal in Europe, I studied in Germany for a year in a college that had 2 SuSE labs, and 1 Windows lab, I noticed how students were learning how to use Linux. Also, as the EU emerges as an economic giant, there was emerging this, "Use EU products" ideal going on and SuSE provided that ablity. It was a German product made in the EU that could give the Europeans a major leg up in providing leading edge software and technology to the rest of the world as the Anti-AMerican back-lash continues to grow.
Now I am not sure what direction things will go. Most people, including myself, are taking a wait and see additude with Novell. Its not clear if Novell is aiming for the Enterprise level, where they are already experts at delivering great enterprise software like eDirectory, or if they will continue the Desktop line. I am still waiting for Novell to make their Linux strategy clear. If they decide to push Linux into corperate desktops, then I beleive that will help to increase the adoptation of Linux in the business market. If not, it will set back Linux on the desktop at least another three to five years.
I had three potential clients looking at switching their desktops to Linux. These had 20 - 40 employees using computers. With one it was time to replace their AS/400 server and Desktops. Linux looked to be the way to go, but with the Linux limbo, we are looking again. They love IBM products and were going to go IBM eServers with RH Linux. However, this move has made them unwilling to trust RH. They see it has RH is either having business, ie cash flow, problems or "Well they did this, what is to keep them from being like M$ and say that six month later we'll have to use something else?".
The other client decided to ditch Linux completely and all their Linux boxes will be replaced with 2k3 servers by Jan and all new Dell desktops.
I know that I can not professionally recommend Red Hat Linux because I no longer trust them and the reputation blow I have taken has caused some personal Angst. In fact, this was the final blow for me and Linux for most applications. Those needing a kiosk solution I will recommend the linux-based FirecaseOS and needing a flexiable embedded OS will get the nod to look at Linux, but I am now recommending FreeBSD for Servers and Apple Macintosh OS X for Unix desktops.
I would have to agree with you, with SuSE becoming the "Desktop" Linux of choice in NA if Novell makes the push. However, Novell hasn't made it clear what they plan to offer. Novell has a history of making some damn good enterprise level software (ie eDirectory), but whether or not they will continue selling SuSE for Desktop hasn't been answered.
I am in the consulting business and I have to stake my reputation on being sure. What Red Hat did killed my crediablity with several people in this area and has done real harm to our business because people thought they had a brand they could trust. To the shops already using Linux, they didn't care. They knew there were other distros and had the IT Staff in place to handle in house support.
However, average joe business USA needs a brand and company they could trust. Red Hat had created a brand for Linux and just lost it in many small shops. SuSE was the "other linux" (which I personally have always liked as a desktop over RH), but with the two major vendors in the commerical world in limbo, SMB's are not going to chance it.
Fortune 500's are a different story.
Outside of the United States is where SuSE was catching on because it wasn't from the US or NA.
My majors are in International Business, German, and International Affairs (yes I have 3 BA's) and a lot of my consulting work right now is companies paying some rather big bucks to anaylize trends out side the country. Its no secert that companies that use Linux are starting to see a lower TCO over their Windows couterparts. Why else would many in the finacial sector be moving towards the platform?
Do a poll, who are the majority of CEO's? Its not large businesses, its small and medium sized businesses. Okay, you might have to expand the title race to include terms like, President or Managing Partner, et. al., but most decision makers are people running SMB's.
Most people running SMB's are either the founder, like myself, or first or second generation family that whatched daddy run the business and spent the summers with him at the shop and working learning the business.
My Salary, with my 30% share of the profits, was a little over $175, 000 last year. Our Fiscal Year ended Nov. 1st. Our average employee makes $38,000 with all benefits inclided. That makes my take almost 5x's more than the average employee and I deserve every penny of that as well. Now we are a small business with five full-time, three part-time, usually 2 unpaid interns each semester, my business partner, and myself. In three years we started with $15,000 in seed capital from our parents and grew our marketing and consulting business into one that should generate $1M in revenue next year. ($860k was our recevue for 2002 - 2003)
When we started the first six months, I litterly worked 20 hours a day six days a week doing everything from meeting with clients, to accounting, to a lot of the advertising design work to build our revenue to $8k a month so we could hire a full-time graphics designer and a secatary. As the "General Manager" (I run the company) and do strategy work for the company. Motiviating and managing employees is not an easy task and if I tell the company to zig and the demand market zags, we could be out of business next year. We are now in an expansion phase of our business trying to hold down our 23% annual growth rate to something more manageable. Its three years later and I have a sectary to do a majority of my dictation and bookeeping and the design work is being created by some talented individuals with my business partner's creative direction (he's the one with degrees in Journalism and writing and come December a Masters in Advertising). However I still work 60 weeks if you include all the special events I have to attend. There are weekly "local executive club" breakfasts, client's business openings, client's wife's sucky art gallery openings, etc."
At first it was cool. I enjoyed being 23 and invited to black tie events, but it gets old. Really old to where its not fun, it is work.
Chances are in 10 years if this company continues its sucess I will have made quite a nice life for myself and I don't care if people do consider me over paid. Why? I took a chance, I worked my ass off in the early days, and by god I will reap my rewards.
I used many back circa 1998- 2001. We loved them because they were easy to set-up and maintain with an excellent web-based interface and one-click software updates made the TCO of maintaining them extremely low despite their high initial cost. I've recently been shopping Ebay for a couple for general office servers to power our intranet (running phpProjeckt). However, getting one of those cubes would be cool for a generic file server...
One reason is because Wal-Mart is reaching their limit to the number of retail stores which it can open. In St, Louis, you won't find any super-centers carring groceries because of the strong unions up there. In fact the last time I visited my dad, the unions were running ads against Wal-Mart.
Wal-Mart started their neighborhood markets chain because the retail center brick wall in expantion, and with out growth, Stock price goes down.
Wal-Mart will use their buying power, aka if you don't sell us those song's invoices for $.49 each we won't carry your mp3 players or DVD's sony et. al., and then sell their song for $.89 each undercutting Apple and the other stores.
I also read an ad stating Wal-Mart was looking into used cars as well. However, Wal-Mart has had some pretty rough experiances when moving out of their element of retail or expanding into other markets. I read some pretty funny articles about Wal-Mart and Germany where the "Wal-Mart way "(the chat or song they sing at the beginning of each shift) didn't go over too well. Something about bringing back memories of how the Nazi's worked.
I mean, jumping into the Grociery business is not a far step from retail. They are related industries. So is online music downloading, they will figure out a way to undercut everyone's price. Now if the other stores get under-cut, it could be a RICO-type or anti-trust if Wal-Mart uses it muscle to force the RIAA to give them a discount and noone else.
I got ads for porn on ICQ circa 1998 along with ads for other products as well, but it seemed to be mainly porn. This is not new other than it appears to just now beginning to affect the other platforms. Also, I've had problems with MSN messanger as well. Not with AIM though. At least not yet...
I moved most of my severs to Free or Open BSD over the past 4 years just because I personally find them easier to maintain. the cvsup upgrading is the best thing since...well SSH I guess..I gave up Linux last year for OS X for my desktop. Yes its more expensive, but now I have the best of commerical and OSS software along with the stablity of a true Unix core.
We share an office suite with another business we have an alliance with...If we got $50 everytime we had to fix their windows 2000 pro boxes, our revenue would increase by like 40%...
I lived and studied last year in Germany. The Fochhochschule I was at had two Linux (SuSE) and one Windows lab. With other recent moves and papers being released, I started to foresee SuSE becoming the desktop of choice in Europe. Not do to technical reasons as much as the Franco-German EU superpower mentality. SuSE would have gained its dominance because it is a European product and help make Europe a central technology hub over that of the United States. Politics and pride made more of an impact on the Munich deal than costs and technical considerations. With the EU and China going pro-linux it became clear that businesses in the United States would have to begin to know at least how to use Linux as it became the global standard, mainly due to its cost...free.
However, the recent developments with RH and Novell has put the brakes on in my technology consulting business. SMB's don't want products that won't be supported and RH's announce made many loyal users from many years begin to look else where. The general opinion I got from businesses that already used Linux, "Oh well, we still have SuSE" only to have the next day's tech headline read, "Novell buys SuSE". Now it is wait and see with many system admins now saying and doing, "Well I think its about we go to BSD." What has happened in the last two weeks has halted Linux's chances of being adopted widely in the US by companies. Many were just now ready to get their feet wet and more willing to take the plunge. The two companies I helped migrate saw sugnifcate cost savings. They had been using Linux on their own on servers for a couple years and already had the in house staff to manage the desktops. Most SMB's don't.
I personally think of Linux as "training wheels for unix" much like AOL is training wheels for the Internet. I used it to grasp the world of *iux and then quickly make the jump to FreeBSD for a server OS and then OS X for desktop. I have my reasons: cvsup, ports tree, only 1 FreeBSD flavor, etc, but for most businesses, Linux is now on my "wait and see list". Now we do have people needed application specfic OS's, like for Kiosk systems, and Linux is perfect for that, like the Firecast OS for kiosks, and embedded devices. This is where Linux shines in my book, but as a desktop, sorry Apple beat them. As a server, FreeBSD wins in my book again.
- I also expect that the market will take off only as Free Software/Open Source (Linux in particular) moves to the mass market of the desktop, thus generating the necessary economies of scale, visibility and consumer-mass. In my idea, the target end-users of the market are not IT companies, but mainly individuals with no IT knowled (nor desire to acquire it) and Small and Medium Enterprises with small or no IT departments. "
Okay, first off I am a technology consultant that focuses on helping SMB's (I guess SME's is the new buzzword of choice to describe small businesses) intergrate opensource software into their armada of software. Sometimes its as easy as a package like phpESP, other times its Linux on the file server, and a couple times, top down use of Linux from servers to desktops.
Linux will not be making it onto many desktops down here anytime soon. Why? RH's ending support and SuSE's future is at best wait and see. SMB's want to have a number to call for support and know that there are experts out there besides myself. With no corperate support for the desktop, they will choose Windows over Linux everytime. Why? Well all the software they often needs is written for Windows and they don't mind to pay so long as it works.
As you said, you would expect the market to increase as OSS moves into the mass market. Without the commerical support, its not going to happend. RH's move last week has impeeded adoptation of Linux by SMB's on the desktop by several years. Our company had been making a large push towards the platform, and the moves last week has undermined our credablity. SMB's want something that is supported and not "here today, gone tomorrow" which is what, in their eyes, has happened.
OS X from Apple has been the real killer of Linux on the desktop. A great many of us that switched from Windows to Linux made the switch to Apple. Why? We have our native *iux development enviroment, access to a great many of the OSS applications we liked, AND have the commerical support from vendors like Adobe and Macromedia.
I recently oversaw the coversion of two offices migrating from Windows to RH 9 Linux. I had three other companies sold on using Linux on the desktop up until this past week. The two offices I set up with RH9 were unquie as they had been using RH linux on servers for years and were able to offer internal support. The Annoucement last week hasn't phased their plans as their current hardware is expected to last another 2 - 3 years. However, now with the future of the other major commercial distro, I have been forced to advice the three clients looking into Linux to purchase new Windows machines and their IT staff decided to replace their Linux boxes with windows server 2003 for a totally intergrated solution.
Before, it looked as though Linux was poised to make a major push onto corperate desktops within the next two years. Now without any firm support, many companies I have spoken with are ruling out Linux all together and going to other *iux vendors such as *BSD, Apple, and even Sun. With the sudden EOL for RH products, how are company's to trust RH's commitment to their products and services?
I lived in Germany last year and not all is grand. Unemployement is still overing at a national average of 10% and as high as 20% in some parts of the former east Germany. Their high social program costs are also a problem. I was living in Lueneburg southwest of Hamburg and up until mid december last year, it cost me 10,40 Euro to ride the train round trip with a youth ticket. Then they did away with the youth fare, much to the dismay of all of the students at the Fochhochschule.
The only reason that Germany has maintained its manufacturing sector is through the use of technology and robotics. Otherwise, the cost of labor would be prohibitive. Same reason why Japan and German companies have car factories in the United States, we're their Mexico so to speak because its cheaper here in the United States.
Also, Voicestream (now T-Mobile) here in the United States has been nothing but a loser for the telecom giant. But that's okay because of the German 15-year outlook in business. American businesses, as a result of our finicial markets, are too focused on next quarter results. Let's say a company spends a large amount on R&D or marketing that will not see results for months if not even years and looses a bunch of money for a few quarters, the CEO is at a high risk of being fired. That is why many choose to cut R&D and marketing. The first move will shoot themselves in the foot, often not apparent for a number of years, the other might hurt them if they were spending more than was necessary on marketing, which is easy to do. Even as a small business owner, a $5000 marketing budget can go rather quickly for a quarter. However, with a 15 year goal of x, if there are some off years to reach that goal, its not a big of a deal.
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I am serious...the ad was just on the 10PM news.
I hope the A380 has a better track than its predicessor [air show video]
Econ lesson #1: There is no free lunch. I don't mind paying for software is its quality. If its free, just a bonus.
Lowercost software ware, maybe, but as of now it takes a hefty service contract or inhouse IT staff (which costs bucks) to run Linux. TCO is the key. For many smaller shops, Apple will be cheaper because they can find programs they are used to, like Quickbooks, and still have the stablity of Unix without knowing it. Linux is not Grandma friendly yet. Also, the government will just those tax dollars saved and spend it somewhere else. Frankly no amount of computers are going to help kids that can't read and write. We really need to fix that in US public schools before worrying about whether they run Windows, Mac, or Linux.
Well, maybe, or maybe because they have crappy product. Although I have been pleased with 2000pro and XP from a stablity and usage standpoint, just not from the "worm of the week" side. Still, that's why I have an iBook at home and a PowerBook at work.
Okay, I do like the Unix way. That's why I prefer FreeBSD since its actually Unix, not Unix-like. I know that's a trolling comment, but cvsup and the ports tree makes my job admining servers much easier
To a point. However, soon one or two giants will emerge...oh wait, RH and SuSE, and RH's out of the Desktop Market for now and SuSE is TBD.
Repeat after me: "People are stupid". Right now most Email viruses are targeted at M$ becuase its easier to find ill maintained boxes on everything from coporate networks to home users on Cable or DSL. I am sure if more people were trying, there would be viruses for Linux, actually there are, just not very many. Also, right now Linux users tend to be more savvy and know how to run a box. As joe six-=pack gets Linux, they aren't going to know how to secure it just as they don't Windows now. Most Security problems are human related, not code.
Maybe. Again, I don't mind paying for good software. Supprisingly I use MS office V.x for Mac and love it compared to its Windows cousins. I don't mind paying for good software, and its actually a good program.
Chicken or the Egg? Software vendors often won't work on Linux apps unless there is a market there. The market won't develop unless the applications are there. This is one reason why I chose OS X for our office over Linux. We have the best of OSS land and commerical software support. Remeber, Apple damn near lost Macromedia and Adobe when they switched to OS X.
The one industry I have seen this happen as been SFX studios. I worked as a system admin at good sized architecture and Graphics design firm that was using special software written for ALPHA processors and True-6
Personally I loved what one guy said at one of the business we worked with that had True-64 Unix that said, "If someone knows the holes of True-64, we ain't stopping them with...their pro's".
Still 80% of intrusions are inside jobs. Someone on the inside either gives out a password to someone posing as an employee or an empolyee gives out their password because they are disgrunteled etc.
The easiest to cloak is apache because it runs on just about anything. I've seen some sites say they are a PlayStation 2 with apache.
We bait our honeypots with OpenBSD boxes that state they are Windows running apache (which isn't too uncommon, I know a lot that do this). Its funny to sit there and watch sometimes.
This is going to get modded -1 offtopic, and be extremely long, but...
Well, from my time in Germany I only spoke before members of the Bundestag as well as Polish, Czech, British, Embassies in Berlin and had one paper published and another that should be published some time next spring at the end of a three year study in Technology Law. (Yeah, my paper is now over 2 years old and probably way out of date...but hey).
From what I gathered, there was a major discord between the man on the street and the ideals expressed by some in government. One of my professors served in the Bundesrat and was the one that organized the presentations by selected students at CDU headquaters in Berlin. Needless to say, the views of the CDU on issues are quite different from that of the current Red/Green coalition...
Now I have to admit that I grew up in the US military industrial complex, my father is a retired jr. executive from McDonnell Douglas. I also worked my first year out of college for another defense contractor for the DOD. So I have a different take than most. Also, I am working on my Masters in International Affairs and Management.
The push for the "United States of Europe" Spans back to either Monnet or Adenaur (I can't remember which at the moment but it sound more like Jean Monnet) in the 1950's with the beginnings of the European Coal and Steal Community between France and Germany and the foundation for the current EU. The principle has always been a commonmarket an economic superpower, not military.
Now there is a deep split in what member states want the EU to be. The Germans and French are pushing more towards a federalist syle government where as, especially from new members or soon to be members like Poland, they want a loose confederation with free access to goods and capital. Again, this is at a governmental level, this is what the power players are stating in Berlin and Paris, not the average man on the street.
The German people never approved of replacing the Deutsch Mark with the Euro, the Surpreme Court of Germany did. I went to Germany about a month after the switch and people were optimistic about the Euro, but by the time I had left, many had mixed feeling about the currency. I was in Germany last year on business about this time and unemployment and a poor German economy had many complaining about the Euro and the ECB because Germany could no longer set interest rates to help kick start the economy. That's was the one draw back people hated about the Euro, the loss of local control. The Economy in Ireland could be steaming along, but Germany stagnate and powerless to do anything about it. Again, a whole other topic.
I was a member of a LUG here in the area while in College. Last year it folded, people lost interest. I will tell you why too: OS X. After 10.2, about 80% of the LUG purchased a mac as their next computer including myself. For me, I had the stablity and usablity of a native Unix enviroment and support from hardware and software vendors for products like Photoshop and Quark. Plus the true user base of Linux in the United States comes from corperate IT staffers in datacenters. To them, its about cost, not community. That's why I view RH's moves ending RH was a real stupid idea. To the average joe smoe, RH IS Linux and annoucing that we'll no longer see Redhat Boxes in Bestbuy will keep it out of s
The main reason why Linux was being adopted outside of the United States was because of its cost, even with $2.50 per copy for Windows XP in 3rd world nations, linux decreases in cost per unit the more machines you install it upon.
The other reason was SuSE and Mandrake, both European and not from the United States. Which plays well in the EU. There is a mentality amoung many leaders in France and Germany that want to see the "United States of Europe" superpower and waining themselves from Microsoft could give Europe a leg up in technology as Linux catches on in SE Asia and the 3rd world.
Now with SuSE in the hands of a NA company, I wonder how that will impeed linux adoption. Oh course, IBM would love to see this happen as the premiums would return to hardware, not software.
I think Linux will be catching on internationally in the next couple years on desktops big time. It probably will be longer in the United States.
I'm still using my HP 48G from circa 1993. A new set of AAA once every couple years and the onling thing it won't do is calculate IRR...had to break down and purchase an HP business calc for that...
We had one client that ran internet and media Kiosks. He had one competitor in this area. We switched him over to the Linux Based Firecast OS for kiosks and digital signage. It worked great for him and saw his service calls drop by some 70%. His competitor in the area was running software on top of Win 2k. By using the Linux only model, our client's software cost were $350 less per unit and the savings on maintaince allowed our client to under cut his competition by about 25%. His competor filed chapter 11 last week or the week before and I know he doesn't have the money to recover and can't get the capital he needs unless a VC gives him cash. In that case, Linux was a great solution and ideal for what our client was doing. He saved at least 5x's in the last 6 months what he paid us. In fact he is signing a deal on moday for us to be his outsourced CIO when he needs the expertise.
2: I've sold more businesses on apple than Linux. Why? I deal with SMB's. Most want stuff that is easy to use and really all they want is a Point of Sale system or a desktop with MS Office and Quickbooks pro. eMacs and iMacs for the small businesses can turn into a cost-effective solution. Biggest complaint we've heard is that they don't come with solitare. Businesses love not worrying as much about viruses and the stablity of OS X. For most of our clients, Macs will have a lower TCO and are more practicle because of commerically available software.
3: Yep Windows and Mac. Will loose to mac, and most of our clients are fed up with Microsoft.
4: Well, once a year. But most people I've talked don't seem like they'll be upgrading to OS X.3 anytime soon. Everything works now, why mess with it...
5: Oh we saw about $185k in profits last year mostly generated by my business unit. Our Advertising and Marketing consultancy has four time the revenue and 3 times our expenses. So long as we have computers, printers, and internet, we're pretty cost effective.
Now we had some clients that Linux was a realistic option. Several wanted to know if we could increase the EOL of their exisiting hardware. PIII 733's and 850's with 128 - 256MB of ram will run Linux and Open Office like a champ.
Yeah, probably bad tactics. I applied for a trademark and copy right of one of my screennames for the express reason of maybe someday sueing some of the emails that look like their from me to me. I've always wondered if I could turn them into the FBI for identity theft? Now that would be a question worth finding out...
So what if there is a version of Linux running on the PPC 970, what's the point if I can't run the critical applications I need for my business like Office, Final Cut Pro, Photoshop, and After Effects?
Most of my clients either go with FreeBSD if they are going to go OSS or to Apple for Unix desktops. In fact, our office is now 100% Apple on desktops and laptops. There have only been a hand full of the 30 companies I have worked with this past year that I felt could make the jump to Linux on the desktop.
Consider this, one of the clients is a rather large Architecture and Graphics design firm. They have a large need for rendering boxes and they use Maya, which happens to run on RH Linux's desktop. They liked the cheaper licensing fees of Linux since Maya is like $5k a pop. Plus, during the evening and weekends, the dual server/desktop config could be used in their render farm, which was going to run Linux. Having Linux on the desktop was the bonus that would allow them to get jobs done faster. Every 3Ghz dual processor box with 2GB of ram added would render just that many more frames allowing them to finish and move to the next project much faster. The amount in TCO they would have saved was an estimated $8,500 a month. Well, with the end of support from RH, that is about $1.5M that will be going to other vendors suppling them with Windows XP and Windows 2003 servers. They were going to spend the same amount, only it would have increased the size of their render farm by about 15%. Their IT staff have been running DEC/Compaq Alpha's since circa 1997/98. I know because I was one of the sys admins there until this past year. Unix wasn't new to them and many ran linux at home or knew enough the transition wasn't going to be that big of a hassle. About like going from Windows 95 to 2k for an average user. Some differences, but same basic idea.
To most non-techies, Red Hat WAS/IS Linux. To most, SuSE and Red Hat aren't similar, their like Mac Vs. Windows. It takes them a while to understand that basically the only difference is that its the same product with different corperate sponsors/support systems. (yes, yes I know there are many other differnces like Gnome vs. KDE centred, but...most that I deal with don't care).
And as far as my understanding of the world, I hold 3 BA's in German, International Business, and International Affairs. I have lived and studied in Germany where I saw first hand how Germans were learning how to use Linux unlike American students and where this was likely to lead in the next 10 years. I've taught myself Linux since Slackware 2 and yes, I wrote my own drivers back in the day. I have worked on systems ranging from Dos 3.23, to Cray's, to True64 Unix, and every type of BSD known to man (well I've probably missed one along the way). I help start one dot com as a CTO that actually had a business model and was profitable and sold to a large ISP for a nice chunk of cash. I don't mean to sound like a primadonna here, but as General Patton once said, "If you've done it, its not bragging".
At the end of the day, its about trust. This announcement by RH makes many in the business world look at RH with the eyes of mistrust. "Well with this level of EOL support, what is to stop them from changing from ES to Super ES or the alike in the future without much notice? Isn't this the same game Microsoft plays? If so, what's the big deal, same crap, just different companies".
It's firecast os, I mistyped. and it can be found at Wirespring.com[wirespring.com].
It's called Apple Macintosh with OS X.
However, RH's move has made my business lose a lot of crediablity because RH had started to build a brand for Linux in the business market. The SMB's I work with are always looking for anything that help their bottom line. One bussiness would have saved an estimated $10,000 over the next three years in licing fees for OS's and Office Software. They are still going to use OpenOffice, only for Windows now.
I have to give kudos to M$ about one thing, they support products for 5 years and give 6 months notice its going away. People expect that after 5 years in the tech world, programs wouldn't be supported.
First off, it seemed like to me that 7.2 was around a while then 7.3, 8, and then 9 suddenly came out almost back to back. The about a year after 9 is released we get the, "This product will not be supported". The idea that Linux would have a longer support life for older versions longer than that of Windows was a selling point, and one that has turned into a myth. Ever try to find working RPM's for the latest PHP release for RH 7.3? After 3 hours of searching, I gave up and installed FreeBSD 4.8.
As a consultant, I was seeing Linux having a huge push onto corperate desktops by 2006. Especially in Europe and SE Asia. RH's choice to end the biggest brand in NA Linux was a major blow for the Linux adoptation in the US. Now with SuSE in the hands of a North American Company I wonder how much that will impeed their sucess. Part of SuSE's appeal in Europe, I studied in Germany for a year in a college that had 2 SuSE labs, and 1 Windows lab, I noticed how students were learning how to use Linux. Also, as the EU emerges as an economic giant, there was emerging this, "Use EU products" ideal going on and SuSE provided that ablity. It was a German product made in the EU that could give the Europeans a major leg up in providing leading edge software and technology to the rest of the world as the Anti-AMerican back-lash continues to grow.
Now I am not sure what direction things will go. Most people, including myself, are taking a wait and see additude with Novell. Its not clear if Novell is aiming for the Enterprise level, where they are already experts at delivering great enterprise software like eDirectory, or if they will continue the Desktop line. I am still waiting for Novell to make their Linux strategy clear. If they decide to push Linux into corperate desktops, then I beleive that will help to increase the adoptation of Linux in the business market. If not, it will set back Linux on the desktop at least another three to five years.
I had three potential clients looking at switching their desktops to Linux. These had 20 - 40 employees using computers. With one it was time to replace their AS/400 server and Desktops. Linux looked to be the way to go, but with the Linux limbo, we are looking again. They love IBM products and were going to go IBM eServers with RH Linux. However, this move has made them unwilling to trust RH. They see it has RH is either having business, ie cash flow, problems or "Well they did this, what is to keep them from being like M$ and say that six month later we'll have to use something else?". The other client decided to ditch Linux completely and all their Linux boxes will be replaced with 2k3 servers by Jan and all new Dell desktops.
I know that I can not professionally recommend Red Hat Linux because I no longer trust them and the reputation blow I have taken has caused some personal Angst. In fact, this was the final blow for me and Linux for most applications. Those needing a kiosk solution I will recommend the linux-based FirecaseOS and needing a flexiable embedded OS will get the nod to look at Linux, but I am now recommending FreeBSD for Servers and Apple Macintosh OS X for Unix desktops.
I am in the consulting business and I have to stake my reputation on being sure. What Red Hat did killed my crediablity with several people in this area and has done real harm to our business because people thought they had a brand they could trust. To the shops already using Linux, they didn't care. They knew there were other distros and had the IT Staff in place to handle in house support.
However, average joe business USA needs a brand and company they could trust. Red Hat had created a brand for Linux and just lost it in many small shops. SuSE was the "other linux" (which I personally have always liked as a desktop over RH), but with the two major vendors in the commerical world in limbo, SMB's are not going to chance it. Fortune 500's are a different story.
Outside of the United States is where SuSE was catching on because it wasn't from the US or NA. My majors are in International Business, German, and International Affairs (yes I have 3 BA's) and a lot of my consulting work right now is companies paying some rather big bucks to anaylize trends out side the country. Its no secert that companies that use Linux are starting to see a lower TCO over their Windows couterparts. Why else would many in the finacial sector be moving towards the platform?
Most people running SMB's are either the founder, like myself, or first or second generation family that whatched daddy run the business and spent the summers with him at the shop and working learning the business.
My Salary, with my 30% share of the profits, was a little over $175, 000 last year. Our Fiscal Year ended Nov. 1st. Our average employee makes $38,000 with all benefits inclided. That makes my take almost 5x's more than the average employee and I deserve every penny of that as well. Now we are a small business with five full-time, three part-time, usually 2 unpaid interns each semester, my business partner, and myself. In three years we started with $15,000 in seed capital from our parents and grew our marketing and consulting business into one that should generate $1M in revenue next year. ($860k was our recevue for 2002 - 2003)
When we started the first six months, I litterly worked 20 hours a day six days a week doing everything from meeting with clients, to accounting, to a lot of the advertising design work to build our revenue to $8k a month so we could hire a full-time graphics designer and a secatary. As the "General Manager" (I run the company) and do strategy work for the company. Motiviating and managing employees is not an easy task and if I tell the company to zig and the demand market zags, we could be out of business next year. We are now in an expansion phase of our business trying to hold down our 23% annual growth rate to something more manageable. Its three years later and I have a sectary to do a majority of my dictation and bookeeping and the design work is being created by some talented individuals with my business partner's creative direction (he's the one with degrees in Journalism and writing and come December a Masters in Advertising). However I still work 60 weeks if you include all the special events I have to attend. There are weekly "local executive club" breakfasts, client's business openings, client's wife's sucky art gallery openings, etc."
At first it was cool. I enjoyed being 23 and invited to black tie events, but it gets old. Really old to where its not fun, it is work.
Chances are in 10 years if this company continues its sucess I will have made quite a nice life for myself and I don't care if people do consider me over paid. Why? I took a chance, I worked my ass off in the early days, and by god I will reap my rewards.
I used many back circa 1998- 2001. We loved them because they were easy to set-up and maintain with an excellent web-based interface and one-click software updates made the TCO of maintaining them extremely low despite their high initial cost. I've recently been shopping Ebay for a couple for general office servers to power our intranet (running phpProjeckt). However, getting one of those cubes would be cool for a generic file server...
Wal-Mart started their neighborhood markets chain because the retail center brick wall in expantion, and with out growth, Stock price goes down.
Wal-Mart will use their buying power, aka if you don't sell us those song's invoices for $.49 each we won't carry your mp3 players or DVD's sony et. al., and then sell their song for $.89 each undercutting Apple and the other stores.
I also read an ad stating Wal-Mart was looking into used cars as well. However, Wal-Mart has had some pretty rough experiances when moving out of their element of retail or expanding into other markets. I read some pretty funny articles about Wal-Mart and Germany where the "Wal-Mart way "(the chat or song they sing at the beginning of each shift) didn't go over too well. Something about bringing back memories of how the Nazi's worked.
I mean, jumping into the Grociery business is not a far step from retail. They are related industries. So is online music downloading, they will figure out a way to undercut everyone's price. Now if the other stores get under-cut, it could be a RICO-type or anti-trust if Wal-Mart uses it muscle to force the RIAA to give them a discount and noone else.
I got ads for porn on ICQ circa 1998 along with ads for other products as well, but it seemed to be mainly porn. This is not new other than it appears to just now beginning to affect the other platforms. Also, I've had problems with MSN messanger as well. Not with AIM though. At least not yet...
We share an office suite with another business we have an alliance with...If we got $50 everytime we had to fix their windows 2000 pro boxes, our revenue would increase by like 40%...
However, the recent developments with RH and Novell has put the brakes on in my technology consulting business. SMB's don't want products that won't be supported and RH's announce made many loyal users from many years begin to look else where. The general opinion I got from businesses that already used Linux, "Oh well, we still have SuSE" only to have the next day's tech headline read, "Novell buys SuSE". Now it is wait and see with many system admins now saying and doing, "Well I think its about we go to BSD." What has happened in the last two weeks has halted Linux's chances of being adopted widely in the US by companies. Many were just now ready to get their feet wet and more willing to take the plunge. The two companies I helped migrate saw sugnifcate cost savings. They had been using Linux on their own on servers for a couple years and already had the in house staff to manage the desktops. Most SMB's don't.
I personally think of Linux as "training wheels for unix" much like AOL is training wheels for the Internet. I used it to grasp the world of *iux and then quickly make the jump to FreeBSD for a server OS and then OS X for desktop. I have my reasons: cvsup, ports tree, only 1 FreeBSD flavor, etc, but for most businesses, Linux is now on my "wait and see list". Now we do have people needed application specfic OS's, like for Kiosk systems, and Linux is perfect for that, like the Firecast OS for kiosks, and embedded devices. This is where Linux shines in my book, but as a desktop, sorry Apple beat them. As a server, FreeBSD wins in my book again.
Okay, first off I am a technology consultant that focuses on helping SMB's (I guess SME's is the new buzzword of choice to describe small businesses) intergrate opensource software into their armada of software. Sometimes its as easy as a package like phpESP, other times its Linux on the file server, and a couple times, top down use of Linux from servers to desktops.
Linux will not be making it onto many desktops down here anytime soon. Why? RH's ending support and SuSE's future is at best wait and see. SMB's want to have a number to call for support and know that there are experts out there besides myself. With no corperate support for the desktop, they will choose Windows over Linux everytime. Why? Well all the software they often needs is written for Windows and they don't mind to pay so long as it works.
As you said, you would expect the market to increase as OSS moves into the mass market. Without the commerical support, its not going to happend. RH's move last week has impeeded adoptation of Linux by SMB's on the desktop by several years. Our company had been making a large push towards the platform, and the moves last week has undermined our credablity. SMB's want something that is supported and not "here today, gone tomorrow" which is what, in their eyes, has happened.
OS X from Apple has been the real killer of Linux on the desktop. A great many of us that switched from Windows to Linux made the switch to Apple. Why? We have our native *iux development enviroment, access to a great many of the OSS applications we liked, AND have the commerical support from vendors like Adobe and Macromedia.
Before, it looked as though Linux was poised to make a major push onto corperate desktops within the next two years. Now without any firm support, many companies I have spoken with are ruling out Linux all together and going to other *iux vendors such as *BSD, Apple, and even Sun. With the sudden EOL for RH products, how are company's to trust RH's commitment to their products and services?
The only reason that Germany has maintained its manufacturing sector is through the use of technology and robotics. Otherwise, the cost of labor would be prohibitive. Same reason why Japan and German companies have car factories in the United States, we're their Mexico so to speak because its cheaper here in the United States.
Also, Voicestream (now T-Mobile) here in the United States has been nothing but a loser for the telecom giant. But that's okay because of the German 15-year outlook in business. American businesses, as a result of our finicial markets, are too focused on next quarter results. Let's say a company spends a large amount on R&D or marketing that will not see results for months if not even years and looses a bunch of money for a few quarters, the CEO is at a high risk of being fired. That is why many choose to cut R&D and marketing. The first move will shoot themselves in the foot, often not apparent for a number of years, the other might hurt them if they were spending more than was necessary on marketing, which is easy to do. Even as a small business owner, a $5000 marketing budget can go rather quickly for a quarter. However, with a 15 year goal of x, if there are some off years to reach that goal, its not a big of a deal.