__/ [ Rex Ballard ] on Thursday 25 May 2006 03:10 \__
> Many corporations now offer "User's Choice". They provide support for
> FireFox and Open Office while still permitting IE and MS-Office.
>
> Most corporations have had difficulty retaining highly skilled people
> when they have tried to "Lock Down" or "Lock Out" open source
> technologies.
>
> Most of these companies don't need to even "support" OSS. After all,
> firefox can be downloaded in 10 minutes over a corporate network, Open
> Office takes about 20. VMWare Player and Linux take about 3 hours to
> download, but the images can be distributed on DVD, or USB drives.
>
> Most IT directors who attempt to prohibit Open Source are simply
> ignored.
This reminds me of the IT people in this Division. They bought an Exchange
server (_huge_ disaster since day one, despite it being replaced with
another), probably owing to preferences of seniors. One of my colleague
who uses Netscape mail was told that, in order to get support, she needs
to move to Outlook. What about address books and many years of mail
archives? Well, I told her to upgrade to Thunderbird, but sometimes I
doubt that the click-and-drool staff will accept it. To some people, an
easy 9-to-5 job is more important than choice and priciples, if any exist.
> OSS is here to stay. Linux and Windows are going to have to live with
> each other for a few years. Linux doesn't have the ISV and IHV support
> to break-out completely on it's own, and Microsoft can't keep up with
> Linux and OSS.
Not cost-wise, not performance-wise. In fact, deep pockets (PR) and lockins
will be their main weapons.
Roy
--
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