Linux gets reseller friendly

Take a breath

Gosh guy. Relax, Go for a walk. Smell the flowers.

Converting from anything to anything else is never easy. Sometimes, it's justified. After all, you're not still using CP/M, MS-DOS, Windows 95, etc. etc. right?

Steven

You're wrong

I wanted to start by replying to this with, Why are you so angry about this? you sound stark raving mad in your post as though somehow the perceived absurdity of such an idea causes you personal harm. Really I don't see why that causes you such anger. Also I think a lot of your fundamental assumptions are wrong, and as such, I'm writing this point by point refutation for the sake of exposing these assumptions as just the cries of another chicken little that haven't been really thought out.

"THE BOTTOM LINE!!! Let me quote right from your post: "For business users, especially those with small in-house IT staffs, this means they can just go to their local channel partner and get their pick of some of the top commercially-supported open-source programs."

OK, now let me ask you this question: Who is going to foot the bill for this? Tens of thousands (if not more) SMBs have Windows desktops, Windows servers, and, MOST IMPORTANTLY, Windows-based, CUSTOM-written applications that are geared to their particular business, be it manufacturing, service, healthcare, you name it. You make it sound as though I could just rip out my old (and very effective, thank you!) software, convert it with a few clicks, boom, I'm done, easy as pie!"

You're correct that Tens of Thousands of SMB's have windows desktops and servers and custom written apps. But first of all, who said that this change was meant to happen all at once? (talk about disaster, trying to suddenly change everything all at once) and while the change happens, it seems that you assume that the change will have to be so big that extensive training will have to come of this. You make it sound as though your custom built software definitely has no open source alternative, or that porting the win32/mfc/.NET specific stuff will be really really hard. and that it's gonna cost millions to contract out a software developer to make the port. This is all based on fallacious presuppositions that say that linux isn't cross compatable and that options for porting your software do not exist. This "windows based custom software", is it written in Java? (no problem whatsoever then, remember java is "write once, run anywhere") or maybe it's just written in C over Win32? (no problem, the wine project allows you to recompile that software against their libraries and it runs just fine unless it uses some really rare and obscure software library that isn't included in wine, then you have to only rewrite that section. "oh no!!! it's tragic!!".) Or is it written in C++ on MFC? (well that's not too hard either. Wine supports some of MFC.) really though I have a feeling your applications are written in C# on .NET.. and no one has heard of mono? your apps recompile without a hiccup on mono... and if all else fails, you can run Windows XP or Vista on VMWare Server on your Linux Server... ohhh so hard and costly! so in fact in some instances... it IS as simple as a few clicks (mono and wine or even finding an open source replacement which isn't hard either).

"Oh yeah, right...think about THIS:

--Back up YEARS of business data"

Wait, Wait, Wait... you don't already have backups on separate drives? I hope your primary servers get struck just so you learn your backup lesson! I'm guessing the next complaint will be file formats, well, if it's from your "in house custom software that you now know runs on Linux" then I don't see what the problem is, even if you've designed your software quite horribly, it's not hard to customize all the other software to be compatible with those custom file formats, in fact, it's easier than ever with open source because you HAVE THE SOURCE CODE TO BOTH YOUR SOFTWARE AND THE THIRD PARTY OSS. This isn't really that difficult.

"--Build/buy a new *Nix server"

Why are we buying a new *nix server, can't we just install linux on the servers we have.... hey, I think we can!

"--Find a app that works perfectly for my business"

Hey, that's where that alliance of vendors come in, they can help me pick out everything I need, wow... this was easier than I thought, why didn't I do this years ago, or better yet start from the beginning this way!?

"--Have someone convert ALL my data"

Again you have no basis for this assertion that ALL of your data will need to be converted over to work with linux, this is another fallacy. In fact it's really tempting to break into the "non sequitur song". Word, Excel, and Powerpoint documents, even ones from Office 07 work nearly seamlessly with open office, and can be ported to the Open Document Format with ease... hey, guess what, they even give you pdf rendering for free! imagine that! and if you want to make the process even easier, start deploying OOo (Open Office.org) on all your windows machines and use it, the interface is easy enough and the help system is plenty helpful if needed. Most of the icons are pretty intuitive. Also I've thoroughly answered this claim three refutations above, as well as when i talked about converting apps over.

"--Wipe clean all my Windows workstations; install *Nix and the previously-mentioned app"

Yes, let's be stupid and do this all at once again. totally throw away the old hard disk image with all the data for that workstation right away and blow everything else out of the water. I've already given you a solution for the software that doesn't have a OSS alternative. I don't know what more you could want... oh wait, I know, buggy, expensive, closed, and entrapping Microsoft software... hey wait a minute, I'll bet you work for Microsoft!.... withdrawn

"--Get right to work."

Ya pretty much, you're all set after making the conversions which as I've demonstrated and documented before, aren't hard.

"Now, let's see...what are my costs, real AND hidden?

--New server"

Again, where's the justification for this?

"--New app"

wow, that was easier than I thought,

"--IT dept. time to re-do all workstations"

Linux is saving us thousands of dollars a year not having to pay more and more money for upgrades, fixes, virus software, Microsoft certified specialists, We're always up to date, we spend less on IT time because we don't need them to fix nearly as much, it all "just works"! was it worth it? ABSOLUTELY!!!! I don't know why we ever went with the MS roadmap to begin with, all it was was "pay us more money so you can keep running your business when you could have had it all for free, oops, did we say that out loud"

"--Retrain ALL employees on new app"

This one is just too comical.... IT LOOKS AND WORKS EXACTLY THE SAME AS THE WINDOWS APP!!! unless you found an open source replacement app which also for the most part works very close to it's windows counterpart you don't really have much training to do, do you, and I'll bet your IT department is familiar with unix systems already, at least they should be or I'd be concerned with who you hired for you IT department.

"--Somehow manage to stay in business while learning all this new stuff"

I know, that's gonna be soo tough with us running headlong into the process as stupidly as possible... At least give these business some standard of intelligence in how they approach this, and do your homework about the system you're saying is not gonna work before you reply that it won't.

"Umm, let's see, Steven...the last time I looked, the global economy was in the toilet. Business are looking for ways to REDUCE costs, not spend money on a new system that will take MONTHS or longer for employees to learn. Did you EVER ponder those costs? I would safely wager that following your suggestions would cost businesses TRILLIONS of dollars...to what end? To save a few bucks upfront, MAYBE? And what if your Linux software vendor goes belly up? Then what?"

Yes, we are trying to reduce costs, I fail to see how Linux instead increases costs, it seems to me that it may possibly increase costs up front, and lower some costs up front, but then in the long run, it's completely reduced costs for the rest of our business life. We're gonna pay less and less to maintain our linux systems then we ever would our microsoft based systems. Our downtime is gonna be significantly less, and less. as for your claim of "trillions of dollars", where do you document this? you have not documented this at all! all you've done is sputter off how hard it would be to do this as dumbly as possible. and as for the "linux software vendor" going "belly up", it doesn't matter, it's irrelevant because they didn't make the software, a community of developers belonging to no specific individual company did and they're still around writing code, and making that software better. And it's unlikely that a linux vendor would go belly up to begin with. How do I know this? "Linux is the fastest growing platform..." - Jim Zemlin - CEO of the Linux Foundation. "He's biased" you may say, but Steve Balmer agrees: http://www.osnews.com/story/21035/Ballmer_Linux_Bigger_Competitor_than_Apple .

"Honestly, on the server side of business, hey, go right ahead, run all the Linux file servers you want. But, from an end-user and application standpoint, ALL the costs associated with a conversion to a Linux environment would put many a business into bankruptcy."

I've documented above that this is simply not true. You're engaging in dishonesty here. a more honest statement would be "ALL the costs associated with conversion to a linux environment implemented very stupidly would put many a business into bankruptcy, but if done intelligently and wisely, it will end up saving us from bankruptcy in the long run." also, I object to your oversimplification of Linux as a mere "file server". Linux is much more capable than a windows server will ever be and you know that.

"The ONLY businesses that would benefit from your idea are brand-new startups."

And again, I've documented above how this isn't true. so here you have it folks: fallacies, dishonesty, ignorance... this is all you have arguing from the Redmond side of things. If that's really all you have... then I posit that Linux has made Microsoft in every way, obsolete and irrelevant to modern computing in the enterprise sector.
Thanks for reading.

Let me clarify, as you miss my point...

First, let me state that I'm an admin, not a software engineer; I know a little, but certainly not enough. Therefore, I honestly cannot say what my apps are written in.

Given that, let me give you some background. My employer is a manufacturing concern in the promotional products industry. We use an application that was written by the programmers at the industry's leading organization. My employer has been using this software since 1992, and I've been with them since 2000. This app handles and integrates the full gamut of business operations: Product workflow, inventory, sales, financials, customer service, etc. you get the point. Overall, the company has approx. 90 employees, of which 40+ use the program on a daily basis, and many of them have been with the company for 10+ years.

The "software" division of the national organization provides updates and full support for their product for very reasonable yearly fees. They're very responsive to suggestions and ideas for upgrades. Several years ago, at my behest, we looked into new software packages; both "mainstream" and custom-built "from the ground up". The quotes we received ranged from $335,000 to almost $600 grand up-front. Even if a Linux-based custom app cost one-third, that's still a big chunk of change, and once you add in support fees, our ROI (compared to our current fees) is measured in DECADES; not years, or months. I can't justify that.

With respect to data, did I EVER say anything about Office? C'mon, I may not be a Linux nut, but I have played around with OpenOffice, even as far back as the 0.9 version. YES, OO is a great suite, no question. But that wasn't the point I was making. My contention was that there's plenty of businesses using xBase and dBase types of programs that are effective, cost-efficient, and relatively easy enough to troubleshoot or fix if needed. I am NOT saying that there aren't good alternatives out there; BUT, my question remains-what's the cost to convert?

Lastly, and I think that this is where the Linux brigade misses the point BIG TIME, is the HUMAN aspect. I think that you're so hung on technology, in and of itself, that you fail to recognize the pain and difficulty that comes with changing an easily recognizable interface. Look at what happened with Vista; forgetting the "performance" issues, plenty of people griped about the interface change. Now, make a big change in the application that someone uses for 8 hours a day...plus, you mention the app looking "exactly" like the old one: Have you ever heard of copyright infringement? Me personally, I could care less; I'll get the hang of it pretty quick. Tell your valuable employee of 10-15 years that they have to re-learn something they use everyday who's NOT tech-oriented, and you will have a big problem on your hands. THAT'S the point.

So, forget me, forget the technology, and ponder both the cost factors and the human factors. Maybe some 20-somethings that have grown up with frequent changes can handle it, but you're certainly going to have issues with a VALUED 40-something employee who's not a geek.

Have a nice day, and get over your techno self. Methinks that you might be one of those people in the tech field who may be quite intelligent, but lacks the skills to understand how people work. Trust me, I've been on both sides, and the world ain't a series of ones and zeroes...

When you're right, you're right

Yesterday, I had an especially poor outing. I'll do better.

Steven