Posted on 01/29/2005 11:42:59 AM PST by Bush2000
IBM goes silent on Linux desktop effort Big Blue mum about progress of the company's move to open source clients
By Robert McMillan, IDG News Service
January 25, 2005
More than a year after IBM's (Profile, Products, Articles) Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Sam Palmisano challenged his company to move to the Linux desktop by the end of 2005, IBM has significantly toned down its rhetoric on the subject of open-source clients.
"We don't have anything we want to say that's definitive," said Nancy Kaplan, an IBM spokeswoman, as she declined to comment on specifics of the roll-out. "There are people using Linux and nobody is telling them to stop," she said.
IBM's Linux migration plans were made public in January 2004, just months after IBM Chief Information Officer Bob Greenberg formed an internal initiative called the Open Desktop project to facilitate the move.
"Our chairman has challenged the IT organization, and indeed all of IBM to move to a Linux based desktop by the end of 2005," Greenberg wrote in a November 2003 memo. "This means replacing productivity, Web access, and viewing tools with open standards based equivalents," he said.
IBM executives said at the time that they had approximately 15,000 Linux desktops within the company and predicted that they would have between 40,000 and 60,000 desktops in operation by the end of 2004.
IBM's Kaplan declined to say whether that goal had been met or not. "I don't know if there was ever a goal of 40,000 users; I don't know if there are 40,000 users," she said. "There's nothing mysterious about it; we're using Linux."
Whether IBM's Linux users are getting any help from IBM's internal support staff is another question, however.
According to one IBM employee, who asked not to be identified, the company has created a Linux version of its standard desktop client, called the Client for eBusiness. Based on the Red Hat (Profile, Products, Articles) Linux distribution, the Linux client includes the Open Office productivity suite, a Lotus Notes client running under the Wine Windows emulation software, and the Mozilla browser.
Though IBM volunteers have set up an internal IRC (Internet relay chat) channel where Linux problems are discussed online, users may experience problems running IBM's internal Web applications. Most of those applications are written for the Internet Explorer browser, which has not been ported to Linux. Internet Explorer is the only browser supported by IBM's internal support desk, according to another IBMer.
"If you don't use Internet Explorer, you might not get very far with them helping you with the problem," he said.
The majority of IBM's Linux users to date are technical users in the company's product development and research and development groups -- users who are technical enough to support themselves, the sources said.
IBM is using Wine to run Lotus Notes software on thousands of clients, according to sources, but ironically, the company's internal use of the open-source Windows operating system emulator did not translate into a ringing endorsement in a guide to migrating to Linux clients, published recently on IBM's Web site.
Wine is mentioned only in passing, in a section entitled "What to do if all else fails," and it is called a "temporary workaround" to get an application running on the Linux client. "This is not a solution for the long run," the guide states
You cannot be too careful when dealing with linux nutjobs
Linux desktop failure bump
No surprise, because there's no money for IBM when their own operation needs extensive and expensive maintenance to operate. But there is money for IBM when other companies need extensive and expensive consulting to operate.
IBM's linux position is nothing more than a "do as we say and not as we do" hypocrisy.
Yeah, IBM had to pump big bucks (ie. free consulting, development, etc) into Munich and other failing Linux projects just to keep them from going under due to cost overruns -- but, when push comes to shove within its own network, IBM has apparently decided that the cost simply isn't warranted. Hypocrites. If it wasn't clear before, it should be clear now that the only ones selling desktop Linux are the ones with their hands out for big, fat, greasy, dripping consulting contracts: IBM, etc.
What? No comment?
That's my read. If it were going well, they'd be crowing about it.
"a damn fine business desktop"
If and only if you are running a Windows emulator and Windows software. If it doesn't run Outlook, Act, Excel, Access, Autocad, Pagemaker, Goldmine, and Adobe Illustrator (among others), it's not a dman fine business desktop.
Please don't take this as an endorsement of the most evil software, Outlook. This is indeed an endorsement of Excel, Access, Act, Pagemaker, Autocad, Goldmine and Adobe Illustrator.
Umm no, unless you are already tied to, lets see, lotus notes (like IBM) is, do you need windows software.
If it doesn't run Outlook, Act, Excel, Access, Autocad, Pagemaker, Goldmine, and Adobe Illustrator (among others), it's not a dman fine business desktop.
Throw out Excel, Access, as Openoffice are just as good. Outlook = Ximian evolution (which can even integrate with an exchange server). I have never even herd of goldmine, so I looked it up and it customer interaction software, there are both open source equivalents and web application servers which do the same thing.
All this being said, if there is a piece of software you absolutely need that will only run on windows, then yes windows is for you. There is no piece of software out there that does not have an equivalent which will run on Linux or on a web application server. There are CAD applications available for linux.
On top of all of this is that Linux can attach to a windows terminal server! so you can cut the number of windows boxes you have to worry about down significantly.
In short, you make the mistake of assuming that only autocad can be used for cad and only outlook can be used for mail. I have said if you have a team of guys who totally need autocad than by all means stay with windows, if you have some flexibility and are not tied to a particular app (or have good web based apps) than Linux is a damn fine desktop..
" Throw out Excel, Access, as Openoffice are just as good"
I've tried them. They aren't as good.
There is no substitute for AutoCad.
There is mediocre software that doesn't meet the needs of professionals.
" In short, you make the mistake of assuming that only autocad can be used for cad"
I can use MacPaint, but it isn't as good. It is not a mistake to use the best software that is also the industry (Architecture) standard.
Another major reason is training. Every time you hire a new employee, you have to train them to run the new software. Hiring somebody who knows Office is easy and adds no training costs. Linux has a learning curve and training costs for every new employee.
So even if you don't own a single computer, the cost of training one employee to run Open Office in place of Excel, Access or Word (among others) is a lot more than the cost of the computer, software and operating system. Then, when you hire another employee, the costs happen all over again.
This is the major reason that Linux has not been adopted by most businesses. Computer and software costs are a very small part of computing costs. Saving a few hundred bucks on software is insignificant when compared to personnel costs.
I like Linux. It's a fun item for us nerds. It may be the future, but not the immediate future. I'll keep using it. I have a KVM switch on my Linux box and my Mac. They are fun and educational, but aren't replacing my XP box just yet.
Lets examine just that thread and see some things I said in there
I posted an article, and in that thread I said "Actually, Linux exist just well with windows. There are cases where it would ba a pain but on the whole its really not an issue. OpenOffice performs just as well as Office for 99% of what windows users need. Linux Boxes can be a part of an existing Windows domain, share fileservers, printers, and pretty much every other resource you can throw at them."
I also said (in the same thread) "It really depends on what you are using, Visio/Project.. youre compleatly right. But for things like Office/Mail/Print there aer existing products that do the job." This was in responce to someone saying that moving to linux on the desktop is a non mover.
How about "I am willing to bet a home TCO would rightfully favor windows.."
Three times in that post I said there are times and places where windows is a better fit. Your example of me trying to say that Linux is the one great solution for all youre IT ills turns out to show youre more a OS bigot than I am even close to being..
In your opinion, speaking as an Engineer to me they are just as good and require almost no retraining to use.
There is no substitute for AutoCad.
I cant speak to that, I am not an expert on CAD software, but are you telling me autocad holds 100% market share? There may be low substitutability for this product, but there is some. Also autocad is not used on the average business desktop. I work for a smaller company now only 600 employees and not one instance of autocad running. When I worked for Adelphia with six thousand employees there was no autocad there either.
It is not a mistake to use the best software that is also the industry (Architecture) standard.
So its your opinion that a large majority of business desktops run autocad?
Linux has a learning curve and training costs for every new employee.
For some apps, and in some situations I agree 100%, but for many business this is not the case. My point is that for many business (especially new ones) this is not a huge expense. We use windows at my office, we just brought in deltek, and had to train everyone in the office. Using windows and windows based software is no guarantee that you can avoid training.
Saving a few hundred bucks on software is insignificant when compared to personnel costs.
The main problem was until two or three years ago there was no mature office suite for Linux. Would there be training involved? probably. Will that training make it not worth wiled for many business? yes! will much of the training cost be offset by reduced demands on helpdesk for cleaning junk off a computer? absolutely! Save in preventing downtime from the next code red? yup!
And unless its market share is 100% on the desktop in that industry than there is substitution. Is autocad in 100% of construction and architecture? is ACT and gold mine in 100% of sales offices? If not your theory that these are completely needed is off
In finance it's Excel.
I hope not, Excel makes versioning and sharing iffy at best. There are far better web based applications for finance than Excel.
It would take our secretarial staff a month to get up to speed on a new Word processor, much less a database or spreadsheet.
Than you have a slow secretarial staff, I have give open office to a few people who had no trouble adjusting to the different places things are.
We would have to hire new IT people and since nobody in the office knows Linux, it would require more IT time.
What part of me saying that its usually best for new companies is the easiest to ignore? Would an existing IT staff have to learn Linux or be replaced by someone who does? yes, but any IT staffer worth a spit already has some UNIX background.
The only thing we use IT people for is to setup the network on new computers and even then only for those to numb to do it themselves.
So you let people set up their own computers without any guidelines, and thus be the local admin on the boxes? wow, we only let IT folks do that, even then we have a few who we suggest they use the corporate image.
I can just imagine my secretary trying to figure out the IP address of a shared printer in Linux. In Windows, you just hit the browse button and it finds the printer.
Ummm, play with samba some more it does just find printer names through the browse function in windows (and with cups on linux clients through a point and click web page). Samba is a great print server for windows domains.
Another huge factor is home computers. Most of our staff takes their work home. Only IT nerds are running Linux at home.
You keep taking your office as the gold standard for the business desktop, its not (neither is mine). But in many environments the majority of employees do not take home their work. Even in cases when they do most opensource applications save to file formats like .doc, and .xls. Also as I have said the direction office utilities are going is towards web based. Thus available on any platform.
The price of the hardware and software is the least important factor in total cost.
Youll get no argument from me on this, my belief that there are times linux works has little to do with the license cost. The upkeep is a big expense, and Linux is easier for an IT staff to remotely maintain. Linux also is a more stable environment.
On a side not with MS now beginning to check for windows licenses for updates they may finally be able to go to a subscription (rent) model for their os, it will be interesting to see.
There is no Linux equivalent of the Adobe software InDesign, Photoshop and Illustrator. Sorry, Gimp's not good enough in the professional design world.
But in that case you could do what historically has happened between Windows and Macintosh: Most of the enterprise used Windows, and those few who needed to do design used Macs.
That city in Florida that switched its 800 users to Linux said the biggest problem they had was people wondering how to switch the wallpaper. There's no real learning curve between Windows and Linux from a user perspective doing data entry or standard Office-type work. And OpenOffice works just about the same as Office for most users, so there's not much of a learning curve there either (I use both).
I really cant speak to that, I am not in the design field. I do know that the monly weakness I had heard about was cymk support but that has been fixed.
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