Munich now Open Source

[runderwo]

But that's government! The very definition of government is to try to waste as much money as possible, so when they see something with a higher TCO, they're attracted to it like a housefly to honey. Am I right or wrong?

[cjolley]

Originally posted by runderwo
But that's government! The very definition of government is to try to waste as much money as possible, so when they see something with a higher TCO, they're attracted to it like a housefly to honey. Am I right or wrong?

Wrong (at least here).
That's why we are a Windows only shop.
Unix and Linux admin has too high an overhead.
We have 2000 PCs and about 50 servers on our network.
They would be dramaticaly more expensive to operate in a non-Windows OS.
chuck

[Technoid]

Gurm & cjolley
Proffesionall Linux Bashers!
For Hire!
We take creditcards!
555-bashlinux-000

[Gurm]

Originally posted by Slougi
I don't know Gurm. Ximian has contracts to convert 250000 workstations in the EU to Linux from Windows. Link: http://osnews.com/story.php?news_id=3705&page=2

If that is not catching on I don't know what is.

I'll quote:

"I'm personally working on converting about 250,000 different Windows machines to Linux desktops, primarily in European government."

Yeah. As I said before - primarily governmental red-tape type machines where they don't worry about support costs. This is typical of government.

Also, he's "personally" working on it? Ohhh yeah.

I like the next line:

"(we have a couple big deployments that I hope we can talk about soon)"

Umm yeah. That's like me saying I've got something "really big" around the corner.

- Gurm

[Gurm]

Originally posted by runderwo
But that's government! The very definition of government is to try to waste as much money as possible, so when they see something with a higher TCO, they're attracted to it like a housefly to honey. Am I right or wrong?

You might be joking, but yeah you're right.

Government looks at THIS YEAR'S COST. That's the problem with many governments - astonishing shortsightedness. If government were run like a business, we'd all pay lower taxes. But it isn't. They're desperate to do anything to lower THIS YEAR'S outlay, so as to make the budget (and the inevitable deficit spending) look more attractive to voters. Saving $200 apiece on 250,000 machines is a LOT of money back in the coffers - who cares if they EASILY waste twice that much in the first six months of support costs and calls from confused end-users who can't make the calculator go, or who call up to ask where Minesweeper went?

- Gurm

[Gurm]

Originally posted by cjolley
Wrong (at least here).
That's why we are a Windows only shop.
Unix and Linux admin has too high an overhead.
We have 2000 PCs and about 50 servers on our network.
They would be dramaticaly more expensive to operate in a non-Windows OS.
chuck

Hear hear, Chuck.

- Gurm

[Gurm]

Originally posted by Technoid
Gurm & cjolley
Proffesionall Linux Bashers!
For Hire!
We take creditcards!
555-bashlinux-000

So prove me wrong. Find me 100 Linux techs who will work for $30k a year (about what basic Windows techs are getting suckered into with this economy), will work long hours, wear a pager, and be able to solve ANY Linux problem in an hour or less... and can singlehandedly support/fix the boneheadedness of 100 secretaries.

I'm willing to bet actual money (not much or Julie will kick my ass) that if you go and look at the business plans of companies that HAVE adopted Linux, that their support costs went through the roof, or else they have some sort of support-offset mechanism, or huge in-house support staffs.

IBM has even notched back its linux support, due to costs spiraling out of control for it.

Again, I'm not saying that it isn't viable as a server. I think that you could get one moderately talented guy and run a bunch of Linux servers, so long as nobody logged into them to do work. And that THOSE can be more cost-effective than their Windows counterparts.

- Gurm

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Gurm
....
Again, I'm not saying that it isn't viable as a server. I think that you could get one moderately talented guy and run a bunch of Linux servers, so long as nobody logged into them to do work. And that THOSE can be more cost-effective than their Windows counterparts.

- Gurm

That may be true for Web & Mail type servers, but for database (Oracle) servers the costs of LUnix admins and DBAs are MUCH higher than for windows.
chuck

PS I think our Techs make around $18,000 not $30,000!

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Technoid
Gurm & cjolley
Proffesionall Linux Bashers!
For Hire!
We take creditcards!
555-bashlinux-000

Not at all.
The tools I use most (SQLPlus and PowerBuilder) are OS agnostic.
It is simply a matter of putting the costs to a spreadsheet and getting the taxpayer value for money.
chuck

[Technoid]

Originally posted by Gurm
and be able to solve ANY Linux problem in an hour or less... and can singlehandedly support/fix the boneheadedness of 100 secretaries.
- Gurm

As if there was a surplus on Windows Techies able to do the equivelant for the Windoze platform!!!

[Gurm]

There IS a surplus, sadly.

That's why I haven't been able to get a job yet.

- Gurm

[Wombat]

Originally posted by Gurm
So prove me wrong. Find me 100 Linux techs who will work for $30k a year (about what basic Windows techs are getting suckered into with this economy), will work long hours, wear a pager, and be able to solve ANY Linux problem in an hour or less... and can singlehandedly support/fix the boneheadedness of 100 secretaries.

I'm willing to bet actual money (not much or Julie will kick my ass) that if you go and look at the business plans of companies that HAVE adopted Linux, that their support costs went through the roof, or else they have some sort of support-offset mechanism, or huge in-house support staffs.

IBM has even notched back its linux support, due to costs spiraling out of control for it.

- Gurm

And there's lots more where this came from. *nix admins cost more per admin, but one *nix admin can maintain far more machines than a Windows counterpart.

http://www.ibm.com/linux/linuxvswindowstco.pdf

[cjolley]

Originally posted by Wombat
And there's lots more where this came from. *nix admins cost more per admin, but one *nix admin can maintain far more machines than a Windows counterpart.

That's what the PR piece says, but that is simply not the case in the real world.

We have one real admin for our 50 servers and four techs for our 2000 desk tops.
That and 1 1/2 DBAs for our Oracle and SQLServer databases.

We've studied it and our costs would DOUBLE if we went Lunix.

If we just did the servers it would be less than double, but it would still go WAY UP.

There is just no question about it.
chuck

[GNEP]

Originally posted by Gurm
There IS a surplus, sadly.

That's why I haven't been able to get a job yet.

- Gurm

<playing devil's advocate> Well perhaps there's an opportunity for learning Linux then </playing devil's advocate>

[Gurm]

There are NO jobs for Linux admins around here. None. Zero. Zip.

- Gurm