Its not just the powers that be, its resistance to change at all levels. I know some technicians who are terrified at losing their Windows power base. Personally, I am finding a lot more openness to open source these days so let's eat the elephant a bite at a time and go for the softer bits first.
Absolutly! I was activly kept out of meetings with RM when we were 'thinking' about bying a system from them. The truth was that the disision had already been made to purchase and I was putting flys in the ointment, having already specified linux. Every RM W/S costs about £200 extra in licencing. 1/2 to RM 1/2 to MS - nice work if you can get it.
No company that reports to shareholders should be backed and supported by the government to supply schools - there's too big a conflict of interest.
However...
Let's hope that M$ keep up their parenoia about licensing, it gives the best reason for people to change.
I sell software that I write, and woe betide anyone that breaks my licensing conditions - I get real nasty when people steal from me and my family!
That is perfectly reasonable but I suspect you don't have a monopoly that is based on ubiquity at least part of which is a complex contribution of piracy as well as paying customers. I wasn't advocating piracy just observing that making life difficult for customers is generally counter productive.
Gates is in it for the money - what's your problem? -
I don't have one except in that I don't believe there is any commercial advantage to me in selling his products for him on virtually no margin and then having to support them. I sell technology for a living and it is commercially better to give free stuff away than sell MS products but at the moment many of our other product lines are dependent on Windows so for the time being we are stuck with it. There is no margin in them for anyone except Microsoft and IBM, HP and some other big players realise that.
you can't hate the bloke for that.
No, but I want to protect the long term viability of my business and I see that far more likely to benefit from Open Source.
How many of you donate your time to the school that you work for? I thought so, not that many! Most of us need to earn a crust. (I'll grant that some have bigger crusts than others).
Well if you can tell me another company that can make a 30% profit on a 6 billion dollar turn over in a quarter I'll accept that the level of profit could be due to the wonderful products and efficiency of the company. Otherwise I'm inclined to believe its a ripping off monopoly and that seems to me to be as undesirable as theiving pirates. That's what makes it different from Ford, McDs and Bud.
It would seem that most companies across the world are (for the present) quite happy to keep buying from him, you have to ask yourself why.
I think that is changing. Rumour has it that the Ford Motor company is looking for an alternative, Sun, IBM, NEC, Hitachi all have Linux strategies. The Chinese Government have a Linux policy. The reason big companies went along with it was what was the alternative? Give the monopoly to someone else? IBM are putting £1billion dollars into Linux development for a reason. Sun put StarOffice into Open Source - why? Because they like doing business with MS? There is huge inertia in the system. I'm using a Windows machine now and we have Windows 2000 at work because we have to support them, we haven't the time in a busy day to change and I guess that is reflected by many people. We are Microsoft resellers because at the moment we have to be. I doubt very much that we will be in two or three years time. Maybe it will take 5 years if people don't make an effort maybe 2 if they do. <snip> I think all that other stuff is a red herring. Users of the Internet don't know they are using Linux so it really doesn't matter except for cost and who has control. There is going to be less and less dependency on any specific desktop operating system so MS sales will fall. They either put the price up which they are doing in real terms at the moment with Windows2000 or they find something else to sell - Xboxes? OfficeXP? Latter will be hit by free StarOffice and more stringent anti-piracy will encourage people away from XP. If you have to pay a few hundred quid for it the free one starts to look very attractive. Add to that that the functionality is not improving much and why bother upgrading? Sales slow, put price up sales slow etc.
It doesn't really matter too much what OS you use as a server (although I can think of loads of reasons for not using NT, and yes there are others, it's not just an NT/LINUX war) providing it delivers the files and is safe from attack.
It helps if its free.
Someone in this thread mentioned MS bringing out new versions all the time. So? it's a good way to boost sales, "give'em little and often". A bug fix here (plus some more bugs to fix later) the odd 'improvement' there. YOU DON'T HAVE TO BUY IT!
No need to shout, yes you do have to buy it as I explained above. You describe the way the company rips off customers and any company that does that will eventually lose customers. Its happening now.
There was a point to this, oh yeah - stop moaning and whining about Microsoft, it's so tedious and non productive - WE KNOW THE ARGUMENTS.
Actually I don't really give a monkeys about Microsoft as a company. If the Xbox takes off and they make a mint I could care less. You plainly don't understand the arguments as you have demonstrated and it is you who have brought the main emphasis of the discussion to MS. My business prospects will be far better if Open Source develops more rapidly sooner rather than later. That is the central issue to me, so the quicker we get people to realise the advantages the better. To have an advantage you have to compare one thing with another so Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Office are inevitably a part of the equation that can not be ignored.
Drive safely home in your ford
Lexus - I prefer quality.
(whatever the badge on the front), enjoy your McNasty burger and Bud tonight y'all as you watch the latest Hollywood release on DVD ("how many times can you change the country code?!") - Hypocrite? the word never passed my lips! ;-P
No, you just miss the point.
Adrian Wells
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