[Thermodyne]

The main issue we would have is with the server based network. When a change occurs we benefit from work done by the venders. We also benefit from a wait and see attitude where we let others work out the bugs. While this sort of debugging occurs in the Nix world, it is not as well organized as it is in the windows world. Also, the Nix world is not really a server based model. Nix tends to rely on apps on the workstation. Which is not so bad until update time rolls around, then there is a massive amount of hands on. With our system an update to say
Office XP would require software to be installed on the farm only. The user would have it at
log on with no added strain on the bandwidth. There is also the issue of interconnected software. We have an app that holds a db that is what we are there for. We have 2mil invested
in it and 1/2 a mil worth of support contracted for each of the next three years. It generates
email by interfacing with our exchange server. And authenticates by using our NT domain
controllers. Were we to change to open source on either of these, it would be COD all the way. If it would be done at all. At this time they support Windows w/Java and there is a Version that can be run on Sun systems.