Hackneyed androgenous anime figures with an emo lead wielding oversized weapons doing physics defying acrobatics in some stock fantasy world on a quest to save the world is art???
Oh and a game engine where the 'role playing'element consists of walking towards the next blinking dot on your map and pressing the dialog button??
At least its not your tolkien-esque elves orcs and dwarves.
MGS series I guess you have a partial case but FF series...
and yes I was a huge FF fan as a kid, remember playing through FF3 as a kid, FF4, FF5, FF7, but seriously could not give two ----s about any further sequels.
Its art with the same level of artistic depth as a Macross episode.
I'm telling you that more likely than not (and I guess we're all speculating here, not knowing all the facts) they'll just give the arrogant yankee the runaround. We're masters at doing this.
Of course we're used to being governed my fiat, which is why we're used to playing smoke and mirrors with everything. Rules are only guidelines. Also don't underestimate the racism / lets exploit the stupid rich foreigner / repressed cultural rage from 19th century etc. factor.
Being a chinese speaker and 100% ethnically chinese, even I cop it sometimes because from my accent its immediately obvious I'm from overseas.
Anyhow I wouldn't even bother as long as its not my a$$ on the line of MS bother to audit. If it is, I'd go the path of minimum resistance, make sure my behind is coverd without p1ssing off too many people. The loud and by the book Western approach will only antagonize.
Your advice will turn the OP's working life into a living hell. Most likely relations with the China team will go to ---- and he will only be able to make a small dent anyway.
Enforcing by fiat from several thousand miles away.... geeze I wonder how that's going to look to the Chinese staff.
Classic case of culture mismatch + geek 'how dare they trespass my domain' indignation = epic fail
The ethics aside, doing the above will surely fail and not have any impact on anything, leaving no traces. That in itself is a reason not to do so.
There's plenty of other posts here that may educate the frustrated petty bureaucrat in you so I won't even bother trying to explain how incredibly arrogant and condescending you come across as
Well if your sister is the typical 'internet word MSN' type user then yes linux has feature parity.
As soon as the user wants to do stuff like say sync their phone, play commercial games, run countless specialised 'pro' software then the issues start. Yes sometimes it can work, and the same thing happens in windows, but for most part it works in windows and usually easier for the typical end user (i.e. they understand the concept of clicking on setup.exe and going next-next-next. I know yum install X or adding a parameter in a text config file is faster).
Apologies for coming cross so aggressively, and yes I did mean academia or some other specialised environment with different needs. What I meant to say is 'have you ever tried to push linux desktop migration in a corporate environment'. custom VB apps /.net apps / activeX horrors / other apps e.g. proprietary trading system X, excel macros, Photoshop, outlook (this is more a case of users being users than features lol), auto CAD, just off the top of my head in under 10 seconds. Plus your standard MS domain controlling everything. And I'm only a network engineer LOL so I'd imagine the server guys would have a ton of stuff to add. I'm not even going to go into the retraining aspect, difficulty of sourcing enough good staff, convincing users that change is not bad, etc. etc.
Even for home use, for say a geek like myself, I tried to go full linux and it just didn't cut it not at least without windows in vmware. I couldn't flash the firmware on my phone, I couldn't edit network diagrams in visio, I couldn't play any of the games I wanted to play, and lets not get into all the issues I had to hurdle with both Ubuntu and Fedora (FYI I started tinkering in Fedora Core 4 so I am not a n00b). Oh lord knows I have had my share of windows issues too but hey, I'm no dev, and when there is NO WAY of getting accelerated 3D without video tearing to name just one example (yes I know its ATI's fault, but it doesn't help me the end user)..... the only feasible option is to run windows as well.
Believe me I would rather MS's blight be exterminated from the computing landscape but unfortunately I don't think that its feasible in that there are still too many things desktop linux does not provide, and ditto with the server infrastructure (FOR the desktop environment) if you run windows clients. For sure there are many places where linux is king.... web servers, backend servers (Dbs and such), embedded systems, netbooks, to name some... but for desktops I don't think at present, its practical.
Sorry for the longwinded reply, but I just can't agree that there is feature parity, not in the desktop space. But yes there is enough features to make it feasible if your requirements fit.
Thanks for the sarcasm. It may help to remember that communication is intended for the receipient not for the gratification of your own ego. If the recipient gets a muddled message then whatever the reason, you've failed.
Anyhow its all speculation, I dont know you and don't claim to know you in any way whatsoever.
I was the pointy end of an outsourcing project for a PABX support area (levels 1 right up to level 3 i.e. able to modify LCR voice routing, restore PABX from bare metal from backups, etc.). i was there on the ground (bangalore).
The amount of resume padding I experienced was out of this world, including people just making stuff up, also the funniest was different people turning up to the job from the person that was interviewed.
In my present job the Indian devs are so hopeless that I have to explain to them why the fact that I can RDP from server X to server Y means that there is definitely network connectivity from server X to server Y. (I'm a cisco guy).
I also have to explain that the mere fact that the IIS error code they are seeing is coming from the remote server, that there must be comms as the code got from the remote end back to their screens. (oh that really blew their minds, how I could work that out simply by googling 'IIS error codes').
My boss is Indian ethnically but culturally he is Fijian/Australian, he tells me if he sees someone whos cert was done in India he assumes its a fake.
NO actually your comment and attitude (implies still in school, implies you think that good grades = capable in real life situation) brings me to same conclusion as the poster you are defending yourself against.
Also your reaction and also subsequent post (both the content and tone) suggests that you are either (or all of the below) - highly strung - highly sensitive to criticism - presenting a facade of aggressive bravado that hides some kind of self esteem issues
DISCLAIMER: I am only commenting on the impression that your on screen words are giving me. I do not know you and make no assertion that my impression is accurate.
What someone needs to do is test this theory in a full corporate environment or at least similar size/requirement environment, and have it fully documented (and publicised). Bring in admins in a blind test and sit them behind windows machines using windows tools and have them do real life admin work. You get the idea
i.e. one of the big linux majors needs to 'eat their own dogfood' so to speak (I know samba isn't written by redhat or any individual such company) and demonstrate to the rest of the world that its fully possible.
Heck, even a lab setup but of that kind of size e.g. 1000 virtualised clients running some kind of crazy script (randomised elements is a must) that hammered through all the things normal clients do - sign on and sign off, appear in different locations / subnets, change settings, move files around, duplicate sign ons, new users created, old ones deleted, things trying to access things they should not have access to). Also have a set of 'typical' 3rd party systems that plug into AD like BES and do the same.
Also they need to demo a seamless migration and have the strategy / documentation down pat.
THEN we may have a hope in hell of this getting off the ground where it matters (i.e. in corporate dilbert land).
I agree with your general theme. Most of the good stuff is on the server side with commercial factors pushing it forwards. (note most - there are a few goodies on the desktop side e.g. amarok, kate to name two off the top of my head).
I find it funny that whenever I suggest OSX as the model that the linux desktop needs to go towards - unix under the hood but hide all of it under slick GUI, keep things consistent and stop implementing a zillion backends that clash with one another, with different programs / GUI config bits hooking into different backends - I always end up getting flamed to hell and back. So what if the major distros unite behind gnome, kde or whatever, as long as nobody is stopping you from rolling your own desktop then who cares.
Even then, the achilles heel is that you cannot stay in a purely gnome or kde environment and configure everything you need in gui in an obvious manner. As soon as you need someone to open a terminal, its a FAIL. Heck most of the time some amount of under the hood tinkering is required just to get it working properly. (all major distros recent releases - if its not wireless drivers, its pulseaudio, or proprietary ATI/nvidia drivers, etc. etc.). And no its not superior to windows because 95% works out of the box, windows setup.exe hunt and peck is within the grasp of userbots. Understanding OS components and tweaking CLI appropriately is not.
I know I'm advocating a monolithic stack but hey, we're all stuck on X already as far as I'm aware right? If I don't like X what other choice do I realistically have? And unlike windows, nothing is locking out anybody from using anything else - but for heavens sake lets get some standards in place so the majority of the focus goes in a consistent manner instead of being scattergunned across the place reinventing the wheel (and never getting to suspension or rubber tyres or rack and pinion steering)
Then of course the OSS zealots start wading in with the 'i don't care about the unwashed masses linux is for l33t hax00rs like me', at which point I give up
Get someone as proficient in linux as your general MS server tech, and replicate a full AD stack with the openLDAP/kerebos/samba nightmare combo in under twice the time it would take for the MS solution and with 95% feature parity, and I'll give you a medal.
Seriously, even the ubuntu walkthrough is so full of pain that I would not even touch this with a twenty foot pole in its present state. Not unless it was a small shop where I was free to throw as much of my time as I felt like at it, and tell my users to suck it whilst I figured it all out.
I wish I could buy you a drink, you've hit the nail on the head and made be burst out laughing (the laughter of a doomed man LOL).
The one thing I would point out is that the same thing also happens with Java. Even different apps from same vendor needing different libraries, which interfere with each other. (I'm looking at you Cisco)
good points, I must admit I glossed over the client side and was thinking primarily on the server side.
Having said that though I find exchange web interface perfectly adequate, although of course its tied to IE for full functionality (shakes fist at MS)
On the client side, I ask another (possibly stupid) question: how is this different from say Evolution's exchange plugin (which I have used via https and from what I could tell, it did what it said on the tin, if slow as molasses)
Well at least if its OSS then its zero cost to try it out in the lab, except for time of course.
I'd be interested to see how well it plugs into an otherwise stock MS active directory domain. If it wants to take on MS in their home turf it must get this bit absolutely right.
Also note as MS's embrace extend extinguish approach has brought us all sorts of 3rd party apps that plug into exchange e.g. voicemail to email for VOIP stacks like Cisco CCM, I can only foresee lots of pain
Another point, sure us IT types are more open to this kind of change. We are also (at least those of us in Dilbert corporate land) very wary of the consequences of messing with core systems that are working fine. Despite what Cisco QoS teaches you, email is regarded by your users as tatamount to electricity and plumbing. Until this project gets to a critical mass here like say apache or mysql its an easy sell to management, you will find it hard to justify ripping exchange out for this unknown quantity
The goal is laudable but strategically speaking: do we really want to focus more OSS efforts to replicate MS protocols and methods?
Whilst a million enterprises out there shrug their shoulders and think 'why would I want to wrestle with this when I could just go along with the AD stack that I know, trust and my MSCE admins love'
Of course they may come out with a fantastic 100% interoperable and virtually bug free product and I'll have to eat my words. But history is not on their side.... also will this have to plug into openldap/kerebos/samba nightmare?
Yeah its insane isn't it. Its become a bit prominent in my mind lately as I sit near the desktop guys at work and they give me quite a lot of feedback as to whats going on with the users in the trenches.
Anyhow they're telling me that all P4/1Gb desktops (which are still perfectly adequate for office, heck even MS project and Visio and db frontends) are being thrown out (end of lease or whatever) and being replaced with 2.4Ghz C2D, 2Gb machines. Note its a mass refresh i.e. not 'it breaks so we're replacing it with something better'. There's stacks upon stacks of these perfectly serviceable machines that are being carted to the tip, the company is so stupid they won't even put them on ebay for 200 bucks a pop or whatever. I jokingly offered the head of desktops my personal services to cart them away at half the price of the removal company and he looked at me like I had two heads. (mind you he is a twit with napelon complex, very typical desktops manager).
Anyhow a bit OTT but you get my drift, with this kind of hardware being standard for the lowliest clerk, why not virtualise the entire desktop image? My WinXP vmware build w/ 1.5G RAM on a 2Ghz macbook is blazing fast.
Of course if Citrix lower their licencing costs then the all thin client model becomes much more attractive, but like all 'paradigm shift's it will take a heck of a lot of momentum to get off the ground. I think most enterprises are happy enough to centralise their more expensive / grunt intensive apps, centralising their desktops doesn't even enter into their minds (its up there with linux migration and/or replacing our ISDN/PABX network with two SIP gateways).
I think the true 'virtualisation on desktop' revolution is going to be something like running vmware (transparently to end user) on normal desktops/laptops, have user store everything in my documents or whatever which is actually a separate partition or network storage. The cost of hardware relative to its grunt actually makes it feasible. I'm still scratching my head at how glorified typing/email machines are now sporting Core2Duo processors.
Imagine the insanely lowered cost of support and downtime. Any kind of issues? copy over the standard vmware build and presto. Have different builds with different software pre tuned and configured. Heck have the images auto-refreshed every interval to make spyware/viruses a non-issue.
That's so blinkered I can't even begin to imagine your position on vi vs emacs or KDE vs gnome
Joking aside, how about real world considerations like cost of retraining (in time and effort as well as money) - for a non geek, if they are happy with using windows application X, why would they bother switching to linux application Y even if linux app has full feature parity.
Has anybody who claims linux has app parity with windows actually worked in the real world?!?!?!
No offence intended, but what rock have you been living under?
Photoshop Dreamweaver AutoCAD Visio Project Management software Excel (macros macros macros VB apps) Outlook (no Zimbra is not there yet + integration with rest of MS stack) Pro audio apps (pro tools, cubase etc.) Any number of proprietary 'niche' software - call centre accounting, retail POS interfaces etc.
No you self righteous twit, I'm pointing out its human nature and to try to cure it via enforcement is like trying to hold back the tides. Various factors e.g. relative pricing encourage or discourage this trend. In this case, its a big incentive.
A free ride on your purchase... HA HA HA HA - sounds like Joe the plumber moaning about having his taxes go to social security. Last time I checked MS was doing just fine... do you really think if their profits increased in China you would get lower prices... NO YOU WOULD NOT
As for manipulation - what do you think the last two centuries of western capitalism was based on, ooh I don't know, exploitation of 3rd world resources is somewhere in the mix, colonialism, now lets see US foreign policy since the second world war, IMF/world bank 'shock therapy' forced prescriptions, overthrowing south american govts so the big corporates can continue leeching, Haliburton in Iraq..... My brain explodes at your self righteousness. Soft economic warfare sounds pretty benign to me and nothing more than what the US has done to other countries for many years.
Actually its Mutually Assured Destruction in its purest form.
US owes tonnes of cash to China. China has tonnes of foreign reserves... and holds tonnes of bonds... and lends tonnes of cash... in US dollars.
Do the math (or at least high school economics) - china selling US dollar bonds would drive down the value of their own reserves and remaining bonds / loan income. Lets not even get into trade income.
You mean: many people everywhere is guilty of violating them, esp. in countries where the cost of software is a much greater proportion of income than in developed countries.
I do not know anybody that does not pirate software who is aware how to (i.e. asking someone for a copied CD). And yes I live in a developed country (Australia) that has signed on to your draconian DCMA provisions (thanks 'Free' Trade Agreement, great negotiating there boys).
People in glass houses and all that.... if there is a geek out there who has never copied a single mp3 or divx or whataever (and that includes the old fashioned tape recorder copies) then I'll be damned. All these self righteous 'i have never pirated and never will' postings are pure hot air
the basic problem is that people will pirate if its easier, cheaper and more convenient than getting the official version. Like every other form of prohibited behaviour (any of the vices etc.) you do not get at the problem by enforcement, history has conclusively demonstrated this. You need to give people a compelling reason NOT to pirate and tip the price / convenience equation so that people will not bother pirating. Making it easy and convenient e.g. 5 dollar full HD downloads with no DRM off blazing fast servers, or new physical discs - I guarantee you it will work, at least better than the current model. Observe steam, amazon and the new itunes, all growing at gangbuster rates. Or how about that all you can eat music subscription model currently doing the rounds (very profitably too) in Korea? Even far out ideas e.g. $X tax per broadband connection, download whatever you like.
As for software, we all know 1k for office is stupid, and pls do not turn this into another open source advocacy thread (and yes, I run linux at home)
Slashdot Mirror
Hackneyed androgenous anime figures with an emo lead wielding oversized weapons doing physics defying acrobatics in some stock fantasy world on a quest to save the world is art???
Oh and a game engine where the 'role playing'element consists of walking towards the next blinking dot on your map and pressing the dialog button??
At least its not your tolkien-esque elves orcs and dwarves.
MGS series I guess you have a partial case but FF series...
and yes I was a huge FF fan as a kid, remember playing through FF3 as a kid, FF4, FF5, FF7, but seriously could not give two ----s about any further sequels.
Its art with the same level of artistic depth as a Macross episode.
Being Chinese myself (and having been there LOL)
I'm telling you that more likely than not (and I guess we're all speculating here, not knowing all the facts) they'll just give the arrogant yankee the runaround. We're masters at doing this.
Of course we're used to being governed my fiat, which is why we're used to playing smoke and mirrors with everything. Rules are only guidelines. Also don't underestimate the racism / lets exploit the stupid rich foreigner / repressed cultural rage from 19th century etc. factor.
Being a chinese speaker and 100% ethnically chinese, even I cop it sometimes because from my accent its immediately obvious I'm from overseas.
Anyhow I wouldn't even bother as long as its not my a$$ on the line of MS bother to audit. If it is, I'd go the path of minimum resistance, make sure my behind is coverd without p1ssing off too many people. The loud and by the book Western approach will only antagonize.
Your advice will turn the OP's working life into a living hell. Most likely relations with the China team will go to ---- and he will only be able to make a small dent anyway.
Enforcing by fiat from several thousand miles away.... geeze I wonder how that's going to look to the Chinese staff.
Classic case of culture mismatch + geek 'how dare they trespass my domain' indignation = epic fail
The ethics aside, doing the above will surely fail and not have any impact on anything, leaving no traces. That in itself is a reason not to do so.
There's plenty of other posts here that may educate the frustrated petty bureaucrat in you so I won't even bother trying to explain how incredibly arrogant and condescending you come across as
Well if your sister is the typical 'internet word MSN' type user then yes linux has feature parity.
As soon as the user wants to do stuff like say sync their phone, play commercial games, run countless specialised 'pro' software then the issues start. Yes sometimes it can work, and the same thing happens in windows, but for most part it works in windows and usually easier for the typical end user (i.e. they understand the concept of clicking on setup.exe and going next-next-next. I know yum install X or adding a parameter in a text config file is faster).
Apologies for coming cross so aggressively, and yes I did mean academia or some other specialised environment with different needs. What I meant to say is 'have you ever tried to push linux desktop migration in a corporate environment'. custom VB apps / .net apps / activeX horrors / other apps e.g. proprietary trading system X, excel macros, Photoshop, outlook (this is more a case of users being users than features lol), auto CAD, just off the top of my head in under 10 seconds. Plus your standard MS domain controlling everything. And I'm only a network engineer LOL so I'd imagine the server guys would have a ton of stuff to add. I'm not even going to go into the retraining aspect, difficulty of sourcing enough good staff, convincing users that change is not bad, etc. etc.
Even for home use, for say a geek like myself, I tried to go full linux and it just didn't cut it not at least without windows in vmware. I couldn't flash the firmware on my phone, I couldn't edit network diagrams in visio, I couldn't play any of the games I wanted to play, and lets not get into all the issues I had to hurdle with both Ubuntu and Fedora (FYI I started tinkering in Fedora Core 4 so I am not a n00b). Oh lord knows I have had my share of windows issues too but hey, I'm no dev, and when there is NO WAY of getting accelerated 3D without video tearing to name just one example (yes I know its ATI's fault, but it doesn't help me the end user)..... the only feasible option is to run windows as well.
Believe me I would rather MS's blight be exterminated from the computing landscape but unfortunately I don't think that its feasible in that there are still too many things desktop linux does not provide, and ditto with the server infrastructure (FOR the desktop environment) if you run windows clients. For sure there are many places where linux is king.... web servers, backend servers (Dbs and such), embedded systems, netbooks, to name some... but for desktops I don't think at present, its practical.
Sorry for the longwinded reply, but I just can't agree that there is feature parity, not in the desktop space. But yes there is enough features to make it feasible if your requirements fit.
Thanks for the sarcasm. It may help to remember that communication is intended for the receipient not for the gratification of your own ego. If the recipient gets a muddled message then whatever the reason, you've failed.
Anyhow its all speculation, I dont know you and don't claim to know you in any way whatsoever.
I was the pointy end of an outsourcing project for a PABX support area (levels 1 right up to level 3 i.e. able to modify LCR voice routing, restore PABX from bare metal from backups, etc.). i was there on the ground (bangalore).
The amount of resume padding I experienced was out of this world, including people just making stuff up, also the funniest was different people turning up to the job from the person that was interviewed.
In my present job the Indian devs are so hopeless that I have to explain to them why the fact that I can RDP from server X to server Y means that there is definitely network connectivity from server X to server Y. (I'm a cisco guy).
I also have to explain that the mere fact that the IIS error code they are seeing is coming from the remote server, that there must be comms as the code got from the remote end back to their screens. (oh that really blew their minds, how I could work that out simply by googling 'IIS error codes').
My boss is Indian ethnically but culturally he is Fijian/Australian, he tells me if he sees someone whos cert was done in India he assumes its a fake.
thats probably the best summary I've read anywhere on that theme. Kudos to you.
Kind of helps that you seem to be from the same political spectrum as me LOL but still my thanks for a succint and balanced summary
NO actually your comment and attitude (implies still in school, implies you think that good grades = capable in real life situation) brings me to same conclusion as the poster you are defending yourself against.
Also your reaction and also subsequent post (both the content and tone) suggests that you are either (or all of the below)
- highly strung
- highly sensitive to criticism
- presenting a facade of aggressive bravado that hides some kind of self esteem issues
DISCLAIMER: I am only commenting on the impression that your on screen words are giving me. I do not know you and make no assertion that my impression is accurate.
What someone needs to do is test this theory in a full corporate environment or at least similar size/requirement environment, and have it fully documented (and publicised). Bring in admins in a blind test and sit them behind windows machines using windows tools and have them do real life admin work. You get the idea
i.e. one of the big linux majors needs to 'eat their own dogfood' so to speak (I know samba isn't written by redhat or any individual such company) and demonstrate to the rest of the world that its fully possible.
Heck, even a lab setup but of that kind of size e.g. 1000 virtualised clients running some kind of crazy script (randomised elements is a must) that hammered through all the things normal clients do - sign on and sign off, appear in different locations / subnets, change settings, move files around, duplicate sign ons, new users created, old ones deleted, things trying to access things they should not have access to). Also have a set of 'typical' 3rd party systems that plug into AD like BES and do the same.
Also they need to demo a seamless migration and have the strategy / documentation down pat.
THEN we may have a hope in hell of this getting off the ground where it matters (i.e. in corporate dilbert land).
No, not what I said at all.
Pointing out that its near impossible do deploy such project in corporate enterprise environment - its a goddamned fact not a statement of intent.
And no, I never said above by itself is a reason not to put resources into this project. But not taking this into account is just plain foolish.
I agree with your general theme. Most of the good stuff is on the server side with commercial factors pushing it forwards. (note most - there are a few goodies on the desktop side e.g. amarok, kate to name two off the top of my head).
I find it funny that whenever I suggest OSX as the model that the linux desktop needs to go towards - unix under the hood but hide all of it under slick GUI, keep things consistent and stop implementing a zillion backends that clash with one another, with different programs / GUI config bits hooking into different backends - I always end up getting flamed to hell and back. So what if the major distros unite behind gnome, kde or whatever, as long as nobody is stopping you from rolling your own desktop then who cares.
Even then, the achilles heel is that you cannot stay in a purely gnome or kde environment and configure everything you need in gui in an obvious manner. As soon as you need someone to open a terminal, its a FAIL. Heck most of the time some amount of under the hood tinkering is required just to get it working properly. (all major distros recent releases - if its not wireless drivers, its pulseaudio, or proprietary ATI/nvidia drivers, etc. etc.). And no its not superior to windows because 95% works out of the box, windows setup.exe hunt and peck is within the grasp of userbots. Understanding OS components and tweaking CLI appropriately is not.
I know I'm advocating a monolithic stack but hey, we're all stuck on X already as far as I'm aware right? If I don't like X what other choice do I realistically have? And unlike windows, nothing is locking out anybody from using anything else - but for heavens sake lets get some standards in place so the majority of the focus goes in a consistent manner instead of being scattergunned across the place reinventing the wheel (and never getting to suspension or rubber tyres or rack and pinion steering)
Then of course the OSS zealots start wading in with the 'i don't care about the unwashed masses linux is for l33t hax00rs like me', at which point I give up
Get someone as proficient in linux as your general MS server tech, and replicate a full AD stack with the openLDAP/kerebos/samba nightmare combo in under twice the time it would take for the MS solution and with 95% feature parity, and I'll give you a medal.
Seriously, even the ubuntu walkthrough is so full of pain that I would not even touch this with a twenty foot pole in its present state. Not unless it was a small shop where I was free to throw as much of my time as I felt like at it, and tell my users to suck it whilst I figured it all out.
I wish I could buy you a drink, you've hit the nail on the head and made be burst out laughing (the laughter of a doomed man LOL).
The one thing I would point out is that the same thing also happens with Java. Even different apps from same vendor needing different libraries, which interfere with each other. (I'm looking at you Cisco)
Lack of need to install yet another app X and no more troubleshooting that specific application's issues on specific desktops.
When app X is upgraded no need to roll it out on all your users machines.
good points, I must admit I glossed over the client side and was thinking primarily on the server side.
Having said that though I find exchange web interface perfectly adequate, although of course its tied to IE for full functionality (shakes fist at MS)
On the client side, I ask another (possibly stupid) question: how is this different from say Evolution's exchange plugin (which I have used via https and from what I could tell, it did what it said on the tin, if slow as molasses)
Well at least if its OSS then its zero cost to try it out in the lab, except for time of course.
I'd be interested to see how well it plugs into an otherwise stock MS active directory domain. If it wants to take on MS in their home turf it must get this bit absolutely right.
Also note as MS's embrace extend extinguish approach has brought us all sorts of 3rd party apps that plug into exchange e.g. voicemail to email for VOIP stacks like Cisco CCM, I can only foresee lots of pain
Another point, sure us IT types are more open to this kind of change. We are also (at least those of us in Dilbert corporate land) very wary of the consequences of messing with core systems that are working fine. Despite what Cisco QoS teaches you, email is regarded by your users as tatamount to electricity and plumbing. Until this project gets to a critical mass here like say apache or mysql its an easy sell to management, you will find it hard to justify ripping exchange out for this unknown quantity
The goal is laudable but strategically speaking: do we really want to focus more OSS efforts to replicate MS protocols and methods?
Whilst a million enterprises out there shrug their shoulders and think 'why would I want to wrestle with this when I could just go along with the AD stack that I know, trust and my MSCE admins love'
Of course they may come out with a fantastic 100% interoperable and virtually bug free product and I'll have to eat my words. But history is not on their side.... also will this have to plug into openldap/kerebos/samba nightmare?
Yeah its insane isn't it. Its become a bit prominent in my mind lately as I sit near the desktop guys at work and they give me quite a lot of feedback as to whats going on with the users in the trenches.
Anyhow they're telling me that all P4/1Gb desktops (which are still perfectly adequate for office, heck even MS project and Visio and db frontends) are being thrown out (end of lease or whatever) and being replaced with 2.4Ghz C2D, 2Gb machines. Note its a mass refresh i.e. not 'it breaks so we're replacing it with something better'. There's stacks upon stacks of these perfectly serviceable machines that are being carted to the tip, the company is so stupid they won't even put them on ebay for 200 bucks a pop or whatever. I jokingly offered the head of desktops my personal services to cart them away at half the price of the removal company and he looked at me like I had two heads. (mind you he is a twit with napelon complex, very typical desktops manager).
Anyhow a bit OTT but you get my drift, with this kind of hardware being standard for the lowliest clerk, why not virtualise the entire desktop image? My WinXP vmware build w/ 1.5G RAM on a 2Ghz macbook is blazing fast.
Of course if Citrix lower their licencing costs then the all thin client model becomes much more attractive, but like all 'paradigm shift's it will take a heck of a lot of momentum to get off the ground. I think most enterprises are happy enough to centralise their more expensive / grunt intensive apps, centralising their desktops doesn't even enter into their minds (its up there with linux migration and/or replacing our ISDN/PABX network with two SIP gateways).
hear, hear
I think the true 'virtualisation on desktop' revolution is going to be something like running vmware (transparently to end user) on normal desktops/laptops, have user store everything in my documents or whatever which is actually a separate partition or network storage. The cost of hardware relative to its grunt actually makes it feasible. I'm still scratching my head at how glorified typing/email machines are now sporting Core2Duo processors.
Imagine the insanely lowered cost of support and downtime. Any kind of issues? copy over the standard vmware build and presto. Have different builds with different software pre tuned and configured. Heck have the images auto-refreshed every interval to make spyware/viruses a non-issue.
That's so blinkered I can't even begin to imagine your position on vi vs emacs or KDE vs gnome
Joking aside, how about real world considerations like cost of retraining (in time and effort as well as money) - for a non geek, if they are happy with using windows application X, why would they bother switching to linux application Y even if linux app has full feature parity.
Has anybody who claims linux has app parity with windows actually worked in the real world?!?!?!
No offence intended, but what rock have you been living under?
Photoshop
Dreamweaver
AutoCAD
Visio
Project Management software
Excel (macros macros macros VB apps)
Outlook (no Zimbra is not there yet + integration with rest of MS stack)
Pro audio apps (pro tools, cubase etc.)
Any number of proprietary 'niche' software - call centre accounting, retail POS interfaces etc.
That took all of 30 seconds to think of and type
vmware to the rescue, esp. with multi monitor setups
works for pretty much any office type app no worries
No you self righteous twit, I'm pointing out its human nature and to try to cure it via enforcement is like trying to hold back the tides. Various factors e.g. relative pricing encourage or discourage this trend. In this case, its a big incentive.
A free ride on your purchase... HA HA HA HA - sounds like Joe the plumber moaning about having his taxes go to social security. Last time I checked MS was doing just fine... do you really think if their profits increased in China you would get lower prices... NO YOU WOULD NOT
As for manipulation - what do you think the last two centuries of western capitalism was based on, ooh I don't know, exploitation of 3rd world resources is somewhere in the mix, colonialism, now lets see US foreign policy since the second world war, IMF/world bank 'shock therapy' forced prescriptions, overthrowing south american govts so the big corporates can continue leeching, Haliburton in Iraq..... My brain explodes at your self righteousness. Soft economic warfare sounds pretty benign to me and nothing more than what the US has done to other countries for many years.
Actually its Mutually Assured Destruction in its purest form.
US owes tonnes of cash to China.
China has tonnes of foreign reserves... and holds tonnes of bonds... and lends tonnes of cash... in US dollars.
Do the math (or at least high school economics) - china selling US dollar bonds would drive down the value of their own reserves and remaining bonds / loan income. Lets not even get into trade income.
Here is a good primer
http://www.foreignpolicy.com/story/cms.php?story_id=4646
You mean: many people everywhere is guilty of violating them, esp. in countries where the cost of software is a much greater proportion of income than in developed countries.
I do not know anybody that does not pirate software who is aware how to (i.e. asking someone for a copied CD). And yes I live in a developed country (Australia) that has signed on to your draconian DCMA provisions (thanks 'Free' Trade Agreement, great negotiating there boys).
People in glass houses and all that.... if there is a geek out there who has never copied a single mp3 or divx or whataever (and that includes the old fashioned tape recorder copies) then I'll be damned. All these self righteous 'i have never pirated and never will' postings are pure hot air
the basic problem is that people will pirate if its easier, cheaper and more convenient than getting the official version. Like every other form of prohibited behaviour (any of the vices etc.) you do not get at the problem by enforcement, history has conclusively demonstrated this. You need to give people a compelling reason NOT to pirate and tip the price / convenience equation so that people will not bother pirating. Making it easy and convenient e.g. 5 dollar full HD downloads with no DRM off blazing fast servers, or new physical discs - I guarantee you it will work, at least better than the current model. Observe steam, amazon and the new itunes, all growing at gangbuster rates. Or how about that all you can eat music subscription model currently doing the rounds (very profitably too) in Korea? Even far out ideas e.g. $X tax per broadband connection, download whatever you like.
As for software, we all know 1k for office is stupid, and pls do not turn this into another open source advocacy thread (and yes, I run linux at home)