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34 Comments
- schestowitz, on 10/12/2007, -11/+27No surprise here. GNU/Linux has been ready for years. Only FUD tactics kept people confused.
- technophobe, on 10/12/2007, -6/+19You need to distinguish between server and client OS.
Linux is still not viable as a desktop OS in most companies - not because it can't do the job, but because of the dependency on MS legacy applications, the cost of retraining, incompatibility with servers in place and because it's hard to explain to senior management the overall rationale.
However most companies over 200 people now run some Linux servers, sometimes without knowing, as firewalls, loadbalancers etc.
Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft - even when it goes *****, but if you switch your company IT over to Linux and it goes ***** - don't forget your coat on the way out. - Phocion55, on 10/12/2007, -2/+13"but if you switch your company IT over to Linux and it goes ***** - don't forget your coat on the way out."
Don't forget about enterprise support that companies like RedHat and Canonical have.
I've found that this is the one HUGE factor that makes companies shy away from using open source tools in general. They usually don't have a 1-800 tech support number attached to it.
However, where I work (FORTUNE 500), we run Linux on mission critical systems already and have been for a long time. We have a global High Performance Grid Computing system running on it - used to crunch clinical trial data, fold proteins, and search genomes for nucleotide sequences.....just to name a few.
No big deal, right? :) - JonForTheWin, on 10/12/2007, -4/+11At my company we fire people for recommending microsoft products.
- taotehue, on 10/12/2007, -2/+8yeah one of my ignorant ex-managers got rid of our internal wiki, because "there was nobody to support it if it broke" so now we use a Microsoft Sharepoint web instead of the very functional wiki that every single user could fix if it broke. talk about FUD!!!
- Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -1/+7One thing people forget about when talking about OpenSource software is that it's very sustainable. Example: You buy accounting software from company XYZ, you do all your accounts on it. It's a fantastic bit of software. Company XYZ does an enron and sinks. You are then stuck with that software as is, and if there's a licence expiry date....
With OSS you have sustainability: the ability to hire someone to make changes as you see fit. You also dont have a licence expiry date. It's a different model, sure, but I think a better one. - calvmari, on 10/12/2007, -4/+9@Ziadoz
I use linux comfortably as my OS without Windows. I think it feels prime time now. - truck87bp, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5@schestowitz
Actually, as a Windows user checking Linux distro's for some time now, it is only recently that with Package Managers and Synaptic has Linux made it into the acceptable world of the Windows desktop user arena as far as I'm concerned. That's a very good thing considering whats coming with Windows.
One of the BEST things that these new Linux packages have, is the ability to update EVERY piece of software on your computer all at once ! This is so FANTASTIC ! On Windows you have to update each one separately and that sucks big time !
Yes, I will make the full transition To Ubuntu very soon ..... lots of gigs to migrate to a new hd then I can have my life back. :) Happy New Year. - XVampireX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+4Good idea.
- Inaeth, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5Here's the point that I think was underscoring the basis of the article: By Switching to Linux, most of the costs that are involved in the redeployment of the IT infrastructure will be recouped through lesser overall hardware costs and data management issues. Even when you factor in the "training" that you have to provide an end user in how to use the new desktop, this will be sufficiently lower than in using similar proprietary apps. With the security, and the ability to lock everything down on the desktop so the user can only use those tools that are pertinent to his/her job, productivity will go up. In Windows, there are too many ways to get around the locks that sys admins deploy for the intrepid and steadfast worker.
Also, I saw a good post somewhere in these forums yesterday about the fact that the workers need to be more concerned about the company's DATA. Not the OS. By understanding the data that the company needs to thrive on, it really doesn't matter which utility that they use, as long as the tool is closely aligned to the praxis of the data. - bias, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Oh ***** there are only 266 business worldwide!?
- WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -2/+5This makes an incredible amount of business sense. I've already moved over half the company I work at over to Firefox and Thunderbird from IE and Outlook, and I'm trying to get Open Office in the door. Once we migrate to open tools, switching the OS out will be a snap. I can't wait until the market is driven by open standards. This will foster a new age of innovation and progress in software and OS design. Once the standards are open, anyone can come up with an operating system or software solution that can compete with the big boys. This will be the true test of quality.
- timalmond, on 10/12/2007, -0/+3ziadoz,
It depends what you need the tools for. I know a few people who can't manage with the spreadsheet in OpenOffice.org, but I've also worked in plenty of companies where they use little more than the features that were in Word 6.0. And OpenOffice.org meets that need. - XVampireX, on 10/12/2007, -1/+4Linux for the win, and yes, it has been ready for prime time long ago, and I don't care what you're saying, if you say it's not ready now then you'll always say that. It's a circle of FUD, people think it's not ready and others too after them. It's also the chicken and egg problem, how can linux developers know what's wrong if there aren't any people telling them what's wrong. And no we're not talking about making linux act like windows because that would ***** up the point of linux. I use linux because of the freedom, because I know that if I change hardware now to something that I think is superior or may be superior (such as powerpc) I will be able to use it, because linux supports it, unlike windows, now talk about "Linux doesn't support hardware" which is more than just FUD, it's just a plain LIE!)
You know what? Windows is not ready for the desktop, all the viruses, all the anti-viruses, all the crashes, all the retards who can't even think for themselves makes it the worst platform for the desktop. You know how much superior OpenGL is to DirectX yet DirectX is used more? The advertisements make it look like DirectX 10 is the at the bleeding edge, there's no better, it just looks so realistic, but it's *****, it's not true.
Ok, just ranting me some on that same topic: Linux is ready for the desktop and you know it, windows trolls should go suck a bull. - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -2/+4Too funny - a linux company touting that linux is ready for primetime. Imagine that. Let's see this is the 2,345,678,213,234 article I have seen in the past year.
- mutants, on 08/17/2008, -0/+2Really? Gosh, good thing. I was afraid we would have to shut down our 40-some production oracle clusters supporting customer-facing apps. (Fortune 500, blah blah. :-)
- OBKenobi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Based on my OWN study, I'd say it's ready for the enterprise, or municipal use, but definitely not as a consumer OS yet. Installation is still too difficult because of missing drivers, and software installation is a little too arcane for someone not familiar with Linux.
A noob consumer, your average Windows user, that tries to install Linux on a generic OEM machine may run into major problems if he's unfortunate enough to have hardware that's not supported. But the real problem is that they may not realize what the problem is because there isn't enough feedback/handholding in Linux yet to tell them.
Linux devs really need to work on documentation, helpfiles, and context-sensitive help. Do not expect consumers to go digging through obscure European websites to find information! You know what they will do? They will tell you to ***** off and go back to Windows. Remember that, Linux devs. - XVampireX, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2As a proof of that: OpenGL is used in Cross-Platform games, lets just say that if Unreal Tournament 2007 is ported to Linux - It's OpenGL.
- shrewduser, on 10/12/2007, -4/+5"
Linux is still not viable as a desktop OS in most companies - not because it can't do the job, but because of the dependency on MS legacy applications, the cost of retraining, incompatibility with servers in place and because it's hard to explain to senior management the overall rationale."
you've summed it up there, there will be that initial cost in time and effort (effectively money) when employing linux on a wide (ie, desktop) scale, but as business warms to the idea of linux... and as one company after the other switch and gain that competitive advantage over their rivals.... well you know where i'm going...
the important thing is that linux is in there and people are warming to it.... - inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1CTOs at various levels in the IT and management consulting company Capgemini have a blog on which they regularly touch on industry trends like moves to OSS, SOA, innovation, etc. The link below is on a post that is specific to this thread for France. http://www.capgemini.com/ctoblog/2006/11/french_revolution.php#more
- Promantarius, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Even better, they interviewed 133 companies and discovered that was enough to determine that 50% of businesses world wide (there's millions of em) would miraculously switch to Linux because of it? Personally, I'd actually love to see some decent competition for Microsoft (they obviously already have it with Linux in the server department, but the rest is slightly lacking.) That said, I don't think a single company forecasting good results for themselves based upon a very small sample is actually going to change anything.
I assume they're talking about server Linux hitting the businesses anyway though, as I honestly believe desktop Linux is not quite there yet. Perhaps in five years it will be better, but at the moment the overwhelming majority of people working on Linux would be programmers or tech gurus, not interface designers or artists. I'm a firm believer that the presentation of the information is equally as important as the accuracy when it comes to end users; not many people read a document that lacks any form of grammar or punctuation regardless of how informative it is.
People will continue to use Windows so long as Linux doesn't present a clear upgrade over it. Sure, all of the people who are up with technology might understand how a piece of the code is superior to that of Windows, but I'm fairly sure you'll find the end user doesn't actually care at all. Something will have to provide massive benefits to get them to relearn how to use their computer when it works fine as it is. That and a little less competition over the varieties, if all of the people creating different Linux distributions worked together on a single project they'd be able to create something phenomenal, instead there's a lot of people "recreating the wheel" for each version.
Those are just my thoughts anyway, if you've read this far feel free to enlighten me if you happen to disagree. I'm not too stubborn, but I'm certainly not convinced by someone saying stuff without backing it up (if I did that I'd be a fan boy for Microsoft/Sony/EA/etc.) - geronimo, on 10/12/2007, -2/+3I worked at a place that did more traffic than yahoo and it was all linux-based. Yahoo uses linux mostly. Google too. I would say the majority of the top 10 sites on the web use linux. If that's not 'mainstream' I don't know what is. I guess if you're talking about desktop then yes, swap people's XP machines out for Linux and you'll create a commotion.
- ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@sirhomer
It depends how much you value your business. If you want the best tools you pay for them, if you want average tools you can get them free. Open Office does not compare to Microsoft Office in a business environment. - sirhomer, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2When you can save $500 per machine by switching to OpenOffice, that can put alot of extra money in your yearly bonus check.
- ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2@calvmari
Linux is a good desktop operating system for a power user or computer geek. Like I say, its not ready for prime time, no amount of zealots and online petitions will ever change that. Linux needs tons more work before it will ever make it prime time. - ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -2/+2I can agree with moving from IE to Firefox, that makes a lot of sense in some respects. But moving from Outlook to Thunderbird and Office to Open Office is just absurd. It makes no 'business sense' as you put it, to move to inferior products. Thunderbird is a great email client (I use it on my home machine), but it not cut out for corporations or businesses like Outlook is. The same applies to Open Office too. Yeah yeah, digg me down because I'm recommending good products over open source freeware etc...
- aahpandasrun, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1This is like a job reference from a person's mom. Of course they're going to say great things.
- WiseWeasel, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@ziadoz: It's getting very close... and closer every month. IBM, Sun, Novell, Google and others are pouring a lot of time and money into Open Office. As for Outlook, that's a security hazard.
- jman8888, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Finally, Now just move into the home makret and we can get rid of Microsoft all together (And Microsoft Make word for linux..)
- ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -4/+2Linux is not ready for the desktop, because if it were it would be on every ones desktop. Its not some uber secret Microsoft conspiracy, or the lack of advertising (the zealots seem to do that for free) its quite simply not ready for the casual user. As for gaming, its good that Epic support Linux, and I agree more developers should, but as it stands for casual users and gamers Windows is the operating system of choice.
- danfuturo, on 10/12/2007, -6/+1Ack. Disregard this comment. Digg me down!
- technophobe, on 10/12/2007, -9/+3I wasn't saying nobody uses it for critical systems or that people shouldn't use it. I've chosen to use Linux based networking hardware in very critical roles.
I was pointing out the fact that mainstream isn't ready for Linux, even if Linux is ready for mainstream. If you decide to swim against the tide and use Linux in a mainstream environment you will likely be *****-canned if it goes wrong, if your Microsoft installs go wrong everyone expects that anyway and it's business as usual - why would any IT manager want to put their head above the trench? - ziadoz, on 10/12/2007, -12/+4Linux is the king of servers, but its still not ready for the desktop, anyone who thinks otherwise it deluded.
- bias, on 10/12/2007, -20/+6This is FUD too, but from Linux Fanboys instead of Microsoft.
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