Change of OS . .

Post #115,291 by Andrew Grygus 8/25/03 11:43:40 AM Reply	Change of OS . . In the small business environment I work in, outright recommending changing the operating system just detracts from the message. Nobody's going to do it unless they suffer a major disaster, as Ernie Ball did. There are more or less valid reasons for this attitude. It's going to me a one time expense which is harder to take than the steady bleeding with Windows The bleeding isn't that bad yet, because licensing and upgrade enforcement hasn't taken effect yet. My clients are split between Office 97 and Office 2000 with no intentions to upgrade. Very few have any XP except on a few new notebooks. Worms have just started to become a significant expense - not yet fully digested. It's seen as high risk. Spend the money and it doesn't work and you have to go back to Windows anyway - more expense. Resistance from employees is extreme. Irrational, but extreme. Just suggesting an alternative to Outlook sends the sales/marketing people on the warpath, and they have tremendous influence. Owners just don't want the internal strife. Linux isn't ready because critical specialty applications aren't available yet. Does Linux have an equivalent of Act! or Maximizer? Not that I've seen. Most small businss people consider computers a regretably necessary pain in the ass anyway, and want to spend as little time thinking about them as possible. Linux must enter the small business market in a low profile way. I've successfully deployed a number of Linux servers, and resistance from software vendors and consultants seems to be declining. Beyond that, it's going to have to come in as a task specific item. Right now, I think it's more important to move small business people to OpenOffice and Mozilla, so when the disaster does come, or licensing costs become unbearable, the transition will be a lot easier. If it does come, I've made my case and my clients know where to turn and who not to blame. As for OS/2, it only runs DOS/Win3.1 software - and with some restrictions. DOS worms are pretty few and far between right now, and the last DOS boot sector infector I've seen was at least 4 years ago. Thanks for your comments on patching. I'm going to incorporate at least the one on patches being impossible to back out. [link\|http://www.aaxnet.com\|AAx]
Post #115,308 by orion 8/25/03 1:12:27 PM Reply	Smart thinking Windows with Open Office and Mozilla will train the users to use this software and when the change does happen they will know how to operate Open Office and Mozilla under Liuux. The price is right, virtually nothing, to use those software titles, just be sure to have them donate something to Mozilla. What OO needs is an Outlook and Access clone, or work-a-like. I suppose Evolution can handle Outlook's function under Linux, but Access is hard to match with its ease of use database. When I had a small business, we developed a lot of databases in Access, so our old clients would have to have those databases and apps based on them converted to something else. *"Lady I only speak two languages, English and Bad English!" - Corbin Dallas "The Fifth Element"*
Post #115,357 by kmself 8/25/03 9:03:57 PM Reply	Re: Change of OS . . ObLRPD: Considering that all you're risking is the $15 co-payment, there's no harm in giving him a shot at it. \r\n\r\n I understand and largely share your thinking on migrations. Fell-swoop is hard to go. \r\n\r\n I'd attack the gradualism premise on two fronts: \r\n\r\n \r\n Replace MSFT server apps with corresponding free software alternatives. For calendaring, take a look at [link\|http://otn.oracle.com/products/cs/content.html\|Oracle's Collaboration Suite]. It's web and server based, with very aggressive pricing, and some pretty strong recommendations. See also the TWIT [link\|http://twiki.iwethey.org/Main/ApplicationsCalendaring\|Calendaring page]. \r\n\r\n Desktop apps. Sounds like you're doing this: OpenOffice, Mozilla, and the GIMP are first-run options. There's the [link\|http://gnuwin.epfl.ch/en/index.html\|GNUWin II] free software apps for Windows disk, which is decent, though something of a mixed bag. Still, transitioning to portable apps, then porting OS, makes the transition smoother. \r\n \r\n --\r\n Karsten M. Self [link\|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com\|kmself@ix.netcom.com]\r\n [link\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/\|http://kmself.home.netcom.com/]\r\n What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?\r\n [link\|http://twiki.iwethey.org/twiki/bin/view/Main/\|TWikIWETHEY] -- an experiment in collective intelligence. Stupidity. Whatever.\r\n \r\n Keep software free. Oppose the CBDTPA. Kill S.2048 dead.\r\n[link\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html\|http://www.eff.org/alerts/20020322_eff_cbdtpa_alert.html]\r\n

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