[plug] poll, linmag

[Brenno J.S.A.A.F. de Winter]

Jon,


> believe it or not they still want to
> go down the M$ path.  
Oh beyond any discussion for now .... but slowly you see a change in the 
market. Companies also read about ROI and TCO advantages and start to 
understand that IT should be less religion and more about achieving it's 
target. Some customers are really thinking of a change right now. All 
the governments changing, is also a big help.

> When you have companies such as Quicken telling all their consultants
> not to support any issues regarding clients using Linux as their server
> and the like.  The client finds it hard to make the change although they
> can see the difference in cost and stability.  But they fear losing
> their support contract with their vendor if they switch to Linux.
That's something in a mindset. IBM has some good examples in Europe 
where they help customers good (in partnership with RedHat and SuSE). 
Than there is a good business case. Recently I had a customer that 
wanted stop all OSS efforts and go completely the M$ route. When I 
pointed out that he had to buy approx. AUS$ 250.000 in licenses (mostly 
MS Office) he said he wasn't going to do so. I then pointed out that he 
was committing a crime and that I wasn't going to do time for M$ 
products, he decided to go OpenOffice :-). The point is that with not 
buying licenses some companies adjust the TCO-picture a little.

> I just remind them of the difficulty we went through when companies
> started switching from DOS and mainframe programs to Windows and now
> everyone is comfortable with Windows it's the same thing switching to
> Linux with one big exception, cost savings and stability is there from
> the beginning.
I also point out that there is: better support (thus: increased 
security), more room for adjusting software to your own needs. You have 
to kill the support issue. OSS fixes a security bug in Konqueror in 47 
minutes, while Microsoft with a bigger user-base takes approx. 2 months. 
No worries only the credit card transactions were insecure.

> 
> So I just keep plugging away some make the change and other will take
> time.  The real issue is getting these brainwashed CEO's, CIO and MS
> consultants to take off the blinders and open their eyes.  MS isn't
> going to be on top forever.

Absolutely. It's just a matter of time until Microsoft comes back to 
normal proportions, which should make the marketplace healthy.

Cheers,


Brenno.