>
> On Nov 19, 2007, at 10:40 PM, Xiaofan Chen wrote:
>
> > So I think Microsoft now faces strong competition from
> > the free applications. And the free applications are really
> > good enough (and available for Linux/Windows and Mac).
> > Why people and companies still use Office?
>
> Inertia.
>
> For another example of a closed-but-better e-mail client, Apple's
> Mail.App is excellent, and the OS X 10.5 Leopard version just added
> automated calendar integration.
>
> Problem is... I could send you an invite from this Mac right now, and
> it'd be useless... your Notes system wouldn't understand it, and
> neither would someone's Outlook/Exchange system.
>
> Standards exist, but no one desires to follow them, and no company
> with deep pockets who's buying ALL of the above, has ever demanded
> interoperability. And probably never will.
>
> > For OS, it is a bit different. Linux is still suffering from driver
> > problems. Windows and Mac OS X are still easier to use
> > for average people. IMHO, calling 2008 the year of Linux
> > Desktop is a bit too optismistic. Of course, low cost PCs like
> > Asus EEE PC and the Everex Green gPC can make a
> > difference. If OLPC will succeed, it will make a difference
> > as well.
> >
http://www.linux-mag.com/id/4357
> >
http://www.linux.com/feature/121151
>
> Linux on the desktop for most non-geeks will always be a non-starter
> due to software piracy. People running home machines "borrow"
> software from their friends all the time... good, or bad.
>
> I listened to a couple of guys figure out how to copy MS Office on the
> Ham Radio just today, in fact. No shame. Just a long discussion
> about how to properly copy the disc so the other guy could "get it".
>
> I think if Microsoft continues down the path they've started down --
> cracking down on piracy, the Windows Genuine (Dis)Advantage system --
> they're just going to give folks reasons to look for free
> alternatives, which is an indication that all it takes for them to be
> marginalized by home/personal users is enforcement of the licensing
> they supposedly already agreed to!
>
> As far as business go... very few Corporations do anything that makes
> sense.
>
> People are far more worried about taking risks in middle management
> these days, than in picking the right software tools for the job. If
> it's been MS Office since 1990-whatever, it will remain MS Office
> forever, until either a competitor takes a risk on something different
> and gains a serious monetary benefit from it, or the marketing engines
> of the CEO trade rags pick up and run with some articles on how
> "wonderful" something different is.
>
> IT decisions are so rarely made from real metrics, and far more than
> any other department in the company, they hinge on two things: 1)
> what the CIO wants -- whether it makes any sense or not, and 2)
> whatever will keep the CIO in power with a large department full of
> techs constantly working on "problems".
>
> Ever see a CIO try to make his department smaller by picking the right
> technology so he'd be forced to lay off staff? Right...
>
> The most stable and useful mail system I ever worked with was at a
> medium-sized company (couple of hundred people) that had a Linux box
> with proper RAID sub-systems running qmail, courier-pop3/imap, and a
> webmail application.
>
> In other words, regular old standards-based mail.
>
> Everyone in the company used the mail client of their choice. Two
> mail clients were supported by the desktop support folks, "officially"
> but they weren't the typical IT folks acting like they were there to
> "save" everyone, they SERVED the staff, and would help with
> configuration and other issues on other clients... and everything ran
> great.
>
> Shared calendaring was handled by a web application, except for a VERY
> small minority who would send out Outlook calendar requests... which
> ultimately are human-readable on a non-MS client... so folks just put
> it on their web calendar or kept their own notes... worked fine.
>
> That system NEVER was down. (I know, I sysadmin'ed it for three
> years.) We rebooted it ONCE for a security patch that we determined
> had to have a reboot, and we had maybe four or five other mini-windows
> where we had to restart a daemon or two. Total cost of ownership over
> the three years I was there? $0/year for software, about $1000/year
> for the hardware, if you were only counting those three years. It had
> been in service for a year before I arrived, and since I left, I don't
> think the hardware (other than failed drives) has yet been replaced.
>
> The sysadmin who built it said, "heck if this stuff is good enough for
> ISP's with hundreds of thousands of users, it'll work great for our
> little company"... and he was right. He also had the good fortune of
> a couple of clueful upper managers who realized that Exchange/Outlook
> was a never-ending drain on the company budget and when the sysadmin
> said "free"... they liked what they heard.
>
> --
> Nate Duehr
>
.....nateKILLspam
.....natetech.com
>
>
>
