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Tue, Oct 21, 2008 12:11 EDT

Open Source: Real Solutions or Populist Sentiments?

Topic: Enterprise Management

Current Rating: 5 Comments: 11

Consider this a rant.

Everyone is talking about savings these days.  Personal savings that we have lost and savings that we have to find at work.  I see more and more articles that promote "simple" solutions.  And as we know, for every problem there is always at least one simple, straightforward and easy to comprehend solution that doesn’t work.  So, my question is: what can "CIO Magazine" offer its readers on the topic of "Cost Savings"?  I mean, besides sentiments like "Drop Microsoft and I can almost guarantee that you will have significant savings" that one can consider irresponsible at best?  As if getting rid of "all Microsoft" is a virtue in itself. 
 
Indeed, it looks like some of the authors at "CIO Magazine" are on their personal hunt for Bill Gates' head.  Guys, grow up, chances are Bill is out of your reach.  You carry the "Expert" title, so be one and check your personal preferences at the door.  Do you think that slamming Microsoft raises your profile as experts?  To me, it is exactly opposite. 
 
If you suggest that going "all Open Source" will give you savings equal to MS's licensing cost that you are paying, then at least put "re-training across the board" into the equation.  Add long term support and sustainability and a few other things from real life, then we may have something to compare.  Talk to people responsible for the sustainment of your company, they may help you deal with some of your illusions regarding "zero cost" of Open Source solutions.  CIOs know that this is far from being true.

So, it’s time to get back to reality and offer something positive and constructive.  Better planning.  Saving by investing into your staff.  Shutting down failing projects.  Delivering solutions together with your client.  Defying the old saying “There is never enough time to do it right, but there is always plenty of time to do it over”.  These would be real savings.  But changing your enterprise architecture?  I would need a bit more appealing reasons for this than poorly calculated “cost savings”.

Eugene Nizker

You do not have flash or javascript support.
Average (3 votes)
5
 
 
Tue, Oct 21, 2008 15:07 EDT
Posted by: Michael Hugos
Rating: 90

Eugene,

I hear you. Populist sentiment is a good thing because it reminds the big and powerful that they too are mortal, but let's not get carried away. Microsoft is the vendor that provides the most popular and widespread system development environment in the world.

Unless Microsoft goes into a self-destruct cycle like mad King Lear, Microsoft technology - .Net/SQL Server/Visual Studio/VSTO/SharePoint/Excel&Word&Outlook&IE - comprises the development platform that most companies are going to continue to develop in for the foreseeable future.

And business people don't really care that much what technology we use. They just want what they want and they want it fast because the world won't wait. They will choose people who deliver robust 80% solutions in a responsive manner and who keep adding more features as business needs unfold. And I think this comes more from our mastery of the skills you list than from the particular technology we are using.

Michael

 
Fri, Oct 24, 2008 10:32 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: blarman
Rating: 10

You think Microsoft HASN'T gone into self-destruct? Let's look at their current product offerings:
Windows Vista - businesses don't want to move from XP. That is fact. The cost of Vista in terms of user interface, program compatibility and drivers is too high (not to mention the sticker price). Toss in Microsoft's complicated and pricey licensing and there is no wonder Vista lags. There is also the phenomenon of "good enough" - and Windows is certainly there.

Microsoft Office - Pricey. And now there are alternatives (Open Office, Google Docs, etc.) that actually work. Microsoft's prices keep going up and again they have hit the wall with "good enough". Microsoft needs to go back to Marketing 101 and start offering lower-priced options. $350 for Excel, Word, PowerPoint and Outlook is overpriced given the alternatives.

Virtualization - Buggy. As long as all you're trying to virtualize are Microsoft OS's, it works pretty well. But again, Microsoft's policies towards non-MS products have put it in a bind here.

I could go on. .NET. Silverlight. Sharepoint. They are all interesting ideas that have some play, but are vastly overpriced given the alternatives. Part of CIO magazine's responsibility is to point this fact out. I don't consider that "bashing", but a welcome bucket of water to the face of a blowhard Ballmer who needs to get off his MS superiority kick and recognize that they can't compete based on a monopoly anymore.

 
Wed, Nov 26, 2008 11:02 EST
Anonymous user
Posted by: Anonymous
Rating:

blarman,

SharePoint is Microsofts best selling product in terms of sales growth. 80% of fortune 1000 own it. It's basically 6 workloads in one. You'd spend 2-3x cobbling together other products to gain the same functionality. Listen to the buyers. They love SharePoint. Silverlight is free. You just need an IDE like visual studio. It's no more expensive than Adobe and is as good.

Vista was an easy one to criticize. I suggest you get your facts straight before making blanket negative statements.

 
Fri, Oct 24, 2008 17:13 EDT
Posted by: bcrowell
Rating: 30

Eugene:

I recently posted a blog on this issue entitled "Evaluating the Alternative Desktop – The Time Is Now!!!" and agree with your perspective that this topic requires calm and thoughtful analysis. The reason it's a little upsetting to many folks is that we've gotten comfortable in relying on Microsoft solutions for a long time. They're a safe choice, just like IBM was the safe choice back in the '60's and '70's. But the problem is that viable alternatives have developed that need to be evaluated.

At 60,000 feet, my guess and that's all it is, is that the savings will be about a $1,000 per desktop but you're right we need a much more through analysis. Some of the topics you raised need to be included such as training (IT staff and employees), licensing, maintenance costs, longevity of hardware, the cost of rework to make applications compatible, etc... need to be elements in the analysis on both sides of the equation. The analysis should also include a 10 year time frame to allow for the impact of future upgrades and recurring maintenance expenses.

The time is now, especially given the current economic turmoil, to get this analysis under way.

Bill

William A. Crowell, Principal
Magellan Associates, LLC
www.magellan-associates.com

You can contact me by clicking on my name and then click the "contact" tab.

 
Sat, Oct 25, 2008 1:25 EDT
Anonymous user
Posted by: ASR
Rating: 90

This is long overdue. There are advantages to open source for sure but the general climate from the editorial side is deeply anti-Microsoft.

Open Source is not free - Red Hat updates cost about $125-$150 a year and you don't get updates unless you subscribe. Otherwise you can spend a lot of time figuring out what needs to be updated and doing it yourself manually. Windows comes with FREE updates and that's usually for at least 5 years or longer (Windows XP still gets updates for free).

On the Office Front, Open Office has improved quite a bit from 1.x to 2.4 (not yet on to 3) but it still is no where near as polished as Microsoft Office. Of course there's no decent competitor to Outlook that does exchange well at least not that I've seen or that is free. Evolution at least works with exchange (not IMAP but MAPI, evolution actually uses web access but I digress) so it's a start. Thunderbird only does IMAP and does not handle tasks, calendar and contacts in an integrated manner.

Often times I'll start with a document in OO on my desktop and then at some point will switch to my laptop (despite smaller keyboard and screen) cause Office is just a lot easier and smoother to work with,

Ajay

(Ex MSFT employee, now all my development is on RH 4.x for the last 2 years)

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