[Thermodyne]

If I seem to be pro MS, then it is because I am a realist. Hey, I don’t love them, but I don’t hate them either. Personally, I think American business could take a few lessons from them. Cost cutting and job outsourcing might look good for the next dividend, but it is a poor substitute for actually going out and making money. And I also think that MS could benefit from listening to their customers a little more.

As for what Linux can do, can it deliver a single set of office apps (same suit for every user, office xp in this case) to 500 plus clients in 28 locations? Clients are 486’s through P4-2.4c’s, and run win 3.1, 9x, 2k, and XP? It also has to deliver 2 UNIX apps and a web based Sequel app. All processing has to take place on the servers, do to the limited abilities of the older systems and TC’s with current software. It also has to support about 100 thin clients from the same servers. Tech support is limited to 1 tech per 125 systems (actually it never gets better than 1/200), and because of distances, 75 percent of service calls need to be handled remotely. Each user gets the same desktop based on what group they are in. And to access the UNIX apps, trust relationships need to exist with two disjointed NT domains. Also, any location needs to be able to access resources, such as printers, in any office. Then toss in domain wide security, backups, web mirrors and Email just for kicks. Now, you get two of the 5 techs to run the servers, 1 of them for the wan and firewall, and two to support the rest. Of course it also has to do the normal domain stuff too.

Also, do to the limited amount of bodies, new features must already be proven out in the real world. Testing on site is very limited. Then just to make life unbearable, management approval lead time is often 18 to 24 months. Not to mention that the approved equipment/software list come from above and is politically influenced (here it is, use it).