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It had to happen...

One of Microsoft's arguments against Open Source has been the cost of
switching existing Windows machines to another OS. Well, guess what: the
costs of upgrading to Windows Vista are going to be pretty high, too.
And compared to that, at least one major customer (the Office of State
Revenue in New South Wales) has decided that Linux is going to be the
more cost-effective option by far.

Details at <http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1585732244&eid=50>.

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> It had to happen...
>
> One of Microsoft's arguments against Open Source has been the cost of
> switching existing Windows machines to another OS. Well, guess what: the
> costs of upgrading to Windows Vista are going to be pretty high, too.
> And compared to that, at least one major customer (the Office of State
> Revenue in New South Wales) has decided that Linux is going to be the
> more cost-effective option by far.
>
> Details at <http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1585732244&eid=50>.

Considering an upgrade to XP from 2000 is already $500 odd that is bad
enough....

Then there is the matter in of data storage and freedom to access it, at
what stage will people realise this lockin is bad I wonder...(I know
some Governments/states have).

regards

Thing

Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
> One of Microsoft's arguments against Open Source has been the cost of
> switching existing Windows machines to another OS. Well, guess what: the
> costs of upgrading to Windows Vista are going to be pretty high, too.
> And compared to that, at least one major customer (the Office of State
> Revenue in New South Wales) has decided that Linux is going to be the
> more cost-effective option by far.
>
> Details at <http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1585732244&eid=50>.

Competition is one way to keep MS in check. Because wider use of Linux
benefits everyone, even people who never use it themselves.



Peter

In article <>,
Peter <> wrote:

>Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>> One of Microsoft's arguments against Open Source has been the cost of
>> switching existing Windows machines to another OS. Well, guess what: the
>> costs of upgrading to Windows Vista are going to be pretty high, too.
>> And compared to that, at least one major customer (the Office of State
>> Revenue in New South Wales) has decided that Linux is going to be the
>> more cost-effective option by far.
>>
>> Details at <http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1585732244&eid=50>.
>
>Competition is one way to keep MS in check. Because wider use of Linux
>benefits everyone, even people who never use it themselves.

There is already the expectation among some that Steve Ballmer will make
another special trip, with another extra-special deal, and we may yet
see the OSR come back round to Windows after all.

Peter wrote:
> Lawrence D'Oliveiro wrote:
>
>>One of Microsoft's arguments against Open Source has been the cost of
>>switching existing Windows machines to another OS. Well, guess what: the
>>costs of upgrading to Windows Vista are going to be pretty high, too.
>>And compared to that, at least one major customer (the Office of State
>>Revenue in New South Wales) has decided that Linux is going to be the
>>more cost-effective option by far.
>>
>>Details at <http://www.linuxworld.com.au/index.php?id=1585732244&eid=50>.
>
>
> Competition is one way to keep MS in check. Because wider use of Linux
> benefits everyone, even people who never use it themselves.
>
>
>
> Peter
>
>
>

Fair competition is not the issue, with it everybody wins. MS's dodgy
business practices are, though if you look at the likes of lexmark etc,
MS are not alone in their dis-honest behaviour IMHO.

regards

Thing

T'was the Mon, 03 Oct 2005 06:58:11 +1300 when I remembered thingy
<> saying something like this:

>Fair competition is not the issue, with it everybody wins. MS's dodgy
>business practices are, though if you look at the likes of lexmark etc,
>MS are not alone in their dis-honest behaviour IMHO.

I just posted a message on www.thespoke.net discussing my views on
Microsoft's future versus open source software. It goes like this:

Does open source software have a future? Sure, it does have a future.
I'm not entirely too sure where this leaves Microsoft, but I do know,
like IBM, Microsoft needs to revamp itself to stop becoming a thing of
the past.

Obviously, the two main advantages to open source software is that
it's free and free. Free like free beer. You can download it, I can
download it. I can download it and sell it if I wanted. The local
computer store here at Windows XP Professional Full Retail for about
$700NZ. On the other hand, I bought the Fedora Core 3 DVD which
includes a lot more software (I wont get into a debate about the
quality, just mentioning the quantity for now) for about $5NZ. That's
a price difference of about, $695NZ or about $480US.

Open source software is also free as in speech. Say you've got a
problem with .NET 2.0. Something's not quite right. You've discovered
a bug. So you email Microsoft, then look into it, decide whether or
not it's worth fixing, then put it into the next bugfix to be rolled
out through http://windowsupdate.microsoft.com. Until that happens,
you're stuck with the bug, so either you make workarounds or you
curse. With open source software, the source is available for you to
work with. It's all there. See a problem? Fix it yourself! Go into the
source, make the change, and then give everyone else in the community
the change That way everybody wins. And like Wikis, just because any
can change the source code (or the page contents) it doesn't mean that
people maliciously make changes, or that when they do, odds are there
are people who spot that straight away and undo that malicious
changes. That's why http://www.wikipedia.org works, and works really
well.

If you look at the growth of open source software, you'll see it's
been fantastic. I remember using Peanut Linux sometime around 1999 and
thinking that with was nothing compared to the spit and polish that
was Windows 98 (at the time). Now when I look at say, Windows XP
Professional and compare it to Xandros Desktop 3.0, to be honest,
there's not that much different, except $480US.

And I think herein lies the problem for Microsoft. Linux has never
before been "good enough" for the common person. But if my fiance's
family can use Linux without having any problems, then I believe than
Linux (especially with http://www.ubuntu.org on the horizon) has
become a "good enough" operating system for the masses who use Office
and Internet and send the occasional email. How will Microsoft
convince those people to upgrade to Vista? Especially when a lot of
the people aren't really using all of the features of Windows XP.

So I think there is a future for open source. Not all open source of
course, goodbye Open Solaris, it was nice knowing you. Just because
you open source a project doesn't mean that's the end of all your
development problems. But I think it's hard to compete with open
source software using traditional business models. Microsoft can't
drop prices lower than free. Microsoft will need to compete on
software quality, polish of the software and quality documentation to
be able to not just stand, but make headway against the coming Linux
storm.

I know Microsoft can do it. But be warned. The days of Peanut Linux
are over. Linux is now a big dog, with the likes of IBM and Oracle
behind it. Microsoft's going to have to work very hard over the next
10 years at least.
--
Cheers,

Waylon Kenning.