My guess is that any Australian company would only be a Novell/Redhat reseller (effectively) which would add on a margin that they could avoid by going direct - I don't know of any home-grown distros out there...
And since when do Govt departments go for Aussie suppliers of anything. It will only get worse with the Aus/US Free Trade Agreement.
An aside - Does anyone in Australia see the changes to the Patents system under the FTA doing anything positive for the local industry. Most of the changes seem to favour large companies only (are there any large Aus-based software companies - Anyone, anyone?)
SuperFetch learns which applications and bits and pieces of the OS you use most and preloads them into memory, so you don't have to wait for a bunch of hard drive paging before your apps or documents load.
Interesting... I hope they improve their methods of determining which apps are used most. I get pretty laughable results for "Frequency of Use" under my installed programs list under Windows XP...
- Microsoft Project - Used frequently (Reality - NEVER)
- Microsoft Visio - Used frequently (Reality - Once in the last year)
- QT 3.3.4 - Used rarely (Reality - Used many times a day)
- Vim 6.2 - USed rarely (Reality - Used almost continuously)
OK - So this info may be hard to figure out, but if they can't get it right, then why even try it? If my avail memory is going to have preloaded versions of all MS software that I never use, I can't see my system running faster...
How about OEM agreements...
A lot of people seem to regard difficulty of installation/setup as a big reason for non-adoption. However, most non-tech users I know would balk at the thought of having to install and set up Windows. But then they never have to, since almost all new PCs come with Windows pre-installed.
Case in point... I suggested to my wife that I install Linux on her home PC. She wasn't too keen on the idea because she would have to learn everything from scratch (and isn't Linux just for geeks?). I set it up as dual-boot so she could give it a try, and showed her how to get at email, internet, games, word processor etc. The next day I asked her if she had tried Linux. Her reply... "Yeah, its fine." I don't think she has started Windows since...
An awful lot of people I know have never installed an OS, or even any new software... Most just use what they are given.
I dunno - All of the techno geeks I work with have to do a complete re-install of Windows because the machine becomes unstable (including the really pro-Microsoft people). For some reason, IE usually seems to be one of the first things to stop working. My personal favourite was when mine started displaying all warning messages in French...
The most common excuse I hear from the MS people is "Hmmm... You must have an odd configuration." Crikey - All I did was take it out of the box, install MSDev, Office and... Crash-o-rama. In contrast, most BSD machines in the office have a longer uptime than the Wondows boxes last between re-installs.
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*hack* *cough* (chokes on his Boags) - What!!! Aussies drink Fosters??? Not bloody likely...
My guess is that any Australian company would only be a Novell/Redhat reseller (effectively) which would add on a margin that they could avoid by going direct - I don't know of any home-grown distros out there...
And since when do Govt departments go for Aussie suppliers of anything. It will only get worse with the Aus/US Free Trade Agreement.
An aside - Does anyone in Australia see the changes to the Patents system under the FTA doing anything positive for the local industry. Most of the changes seem to favour large companies only (are there any large Aus-based software companies - Anyone, anyone?)
SuperFetch learns which applications and bits and pieces of the OS you use most and preloads them into memory, so you don't have to wait for a bunch of hard drive paging before your apps or documents load.
Interesting... I hope they improve their methods of determining which apps are used most. I get pretty laughable results for "Frequency of Use" under my installed programs list under Windows XP...- Microsoft Project - Used frequently (Reality - NEVER)
- Microsoft Visio - Used frequently (Reality - Once in the last year)
- QT 3.3.4 - Used rarely (Reality - Used many times a day)
- Vim 6.2 - USed rarely (Reality - Used almost continuously)
OK - So this info may be hard to figure out, but if they can't get it right, then why even try it? If my avail memory is going to have preloaded versions of all MS software that I never use, I can't see my system running faster...
How about OEM agreements...
A lot of people seem to regard difficulty of installation/setup as a big reason for non-adoption. However, most non-tech users I know would balk at the thought of having to install and set up Windows. But then they never have to, since almost all new PCs come with Windows pre-installed.
Case in point... I suggested to my wife that I install Linux on her home PC. She wasn't too keen on the idea because she would have to learn everything from scratch (and isn't Linux just for geeks?). I set it up as dual-boot so she could give it a try, and showed her how to get at email, internet, games, word processor etc. The next day I asked her if she had tried Linux. Her reply... "Yeah, its fine." I don't think she has started Windows since...
An awful lot of people I know have never installed an OS, or even any new software... Most just use what they are given.
I dunno - All of the techno geeks I work with have to do a complete re-install of Windows because the machine becomes unstable (including the really pro-Microsoft people). For some reason, IE usually seems to be one of the first things to stop working. My personal favourite was when mine started displaying all warning messages in French...
The most common excuse I hear from the MS people is "Hmmm... You must have an odd configuration." Crikey - All I did was take it out of the box, install MSDev, Office and... Crash-o-rama. In contrast, most BSD machines in the office have a longer uptime than the Wondows boxes last between re-installs.