While I make a living from M$ software I'm always looking at the Linux alternative, I've just begun installing and maintaining both Linux and Windows servers for a hosting company. The OSes are split about 50/50 all on Intel hardware.
High profile decisions attracting media attention like this could cause a snowball that crushes all over M$ at a speed never before seen in the business world. I'll even sum the reasons up for you:
1. Microsoft has just pissed of all of it's largest customers who will want to know why they don't get breaks like this.
2. The public will begin to see that hundreds of M$ programmers can't possibly compete with thousands of OS developers.
3. Every company that reads about deals like this will also be expecting huge discounts from M$.
4. Forcing companies to upgrade every 5 years means that each company must also evaluate their IT needs, this continually forces a company to reevaluate their IT infrastructure which means a regular comparison against OS products.
5. What sort of a company allows details like this to leak? Now all of their customers are going to expect huge price breaks.
6. OS might be more expensive to support now but as soon as the huge shortage of OS network engineers is resolved support costs will come down - forget the desktop argument, Linux isn't getting very far now because there's so few people that can install it for small to mid sized businesses for less than $100 an hour.
7. Did I mention how every company is going to start threatening to go OS to get increased benefits and discounts?
8. Even though there is a shortage of qualified OS network engineers the ones that there are know their beans, they know their hardware and software a whole lot better than an equilavent M$ engineer.
9. M$ has a terrible market name and security history. The whole of the IT industry has monumentally changed over the past 7 or 8 years. Windows 98 and Windows NT were never made with the internet in mind, every "update" and "add on" to Windows is another patch to make Windows do something it was never designed to do. It's little wonder there's been so many bugs introduced over the years.
10. My God! M$ customers are being given the green light to hold out and bargain hard because M$ will cave in the end.
There's a few other reasons that this could happen too. M$ OSes have gotten more mature and gotten exponentially better with every revision (discount Windows ME).
The basic trade off between OSes for companies to consider now is this:
With Linux you are locked in with your support company (small businesses especially) and there are far fewer qualified people to work on your network
M$ offers standardized systems and a tried and true support methodology. Real world performance with the history to prove it.
I consider M$ products to be the superior when competing with other OSes. Windows 2000 always installs on standard hardware and I know that if M$ says a product will do something then I know it will do it (maybe not well or as well but that's moot).
Anyway that's my take on this, I hope everyone has bookmarked this story and emailed it to their managers.
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While I make a living from M$ software I'm always looking at the Linux alternative, I've just begun installing and maintaining both Linux and Windows servers for a hosting company. The OSes are split about 50/50 all on Intel hardware.
High profile decisions attracting media attention like this could cause a snowball that crushes all over M$ at a speed never before seen in the business world. I'll even sum the reasons up for you:
1. Microsoft has just pissed of all of it's largest customers who will want to know why they don't get breaks like this.
2. The public will begin to see that hundreds of M$ programmers can't possibly compete with thousands of OS developers.
3. Every company that reads about deals like this will also be expecting huge discounts from M$.
4. Forcing companies to upgrade every 5 years means that each company must also evaluate their IT needs, this continually forces a company to reevaluate their IT infrastructure which means a regular comparison against OS products.
5. What sort of a company allows details like this to leak? Now all of their customers are going to expect huge price breaks.
6. OS might be more expensive to support now but as soon as the huge shortage of OS network engineers is resolved support costs will come down - forget the desktop argument, Linux isn't getting very far now because there's so few people that can install it for small to mid sized businesses for less than $100 an hour.
7. Did I mention how every company is going to start threatening to go OS to get increased benefits and discounts?
8. Even though there is a shortage of qualified OS network engineers the ones that there are know their beans, they know their hardware and software a whole lot better than an equilavent M$ engineer.
9. M$ has a terrible market name and security history. The whole of the IT industry has monumentally changed over the past 7 or 8 years. Windows 98 and Windows NT were never made with the internet in mind, every "update" and "add on" to Windows is another patch to make Windows do something it was never designed to do. It's little wonder there's been so many bugs introduced over the years.
10. My God! M$ customers are being given the green light to hold out and bargain hard because M$ will cave in the end.
There's a few other reasons that this could happen too. M$ OSes have gotten more mature and gotten exponentially better with every revision (discount Windows ME).
The basic trade off between OSes for companies to consider now is this:
With Linux you are locked in with your support company (small businesses especially) and there are far fewer qualified people to work on your network
M$ offers standardized systems and a tried and true support methodology. Real world performance with the history to prove it.
I consider M$ products to be the superior when competing with other OSes. Windows 2000 always installs on standard hardware and I know that if M$ says a product will do something then I know it will do it (maybe not well or as well but that's moot).
Anyway that's my take on this, I hope everyone has bookmarked this story and emailed it to their managers.
John the Kiwi
Email Office Depot. I'm sure 250,000 Slashdot readers can't all be wrong.
John the Kiwi