Linked by Thom Holwerda on Mon 5th Mar 2007 15:46 UTC, submitted by WillM
"Freedom of choice is one of the great benefits of Open Source Software in general and Linux in particular. This freedom gives consumers the ability to select, without fear of litigation, what software they will use and how they will use or modify it. As a principal, this freedom is extremely valuable. However, a couple of announcements this week seem to indicate that market value of freedom of choice has dipped considerably. The biggest hurdle Linux adoption faced this week wasn't Microsoft, it was an enemy from within: Linux fragmentation."
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Member since:
2006-03-21
Oh I understand that people believe the hype but in todays internet culture that really does not make sense. People can find out information at the click of a mouse. Also I can understand inertia etc among individuals but why among businesses? As I understand it businesses are there to make money right? Any money going to another company is definitely a no-no. Then why are businesses so defensive?
Now people will say 2 things to the above:
1. Businesses have software that requires windows
2. Training on a so-called "unfamiliar" system
3. Support is non-existent for Linux
And I say fine if that is really the case, but do you mean to tell me that in a company where many of the users are not power users or use specialized software that businesses are even considering any shift to Linux? or even OSS. If not why not? Surely the cost in licenses for Windows+MSO is going to be less ?
Training is a strange thing.. I read articles where just because the start button is not the same as in Windows the case is made that users will require extensive training. Now in case of Vista + Office 2007 the interface is completely changed, so shouldnt businesses at least evaluate some software which has a familiar interface and costs less to boot?
Support we all know is available.
Addressing the article, its all bull****. Dell just needs to support ONE distribution nothing else. And include it in the terms that installing any other distribution voids the support contract. Thats all that is needed. Surely dell will not support you installing Win98 on an XP laptop? This is a non-existent problem.
No, my main gripe is this: Most businesses will go out of the way to evaluate "n" number of vendors for ANY of their products including paper-clips before deciding on one. Its only in the case of Microsoft that they have a blind spot. It is a bit strange that in these competitive times when every penny saved is an advantage there are so few businesses not trying to do what seems to be common business sense and try to keep control of their own inventory.