NewsForge Secretaries use Linux, taxpayers save millions

[Jonathan Hutchins]

I was hoping this would be useful to argue for a switch to Linux here, as
well as among some friends.  Unfortunately, there is so much misinformation
about MS/Windows stuff that I can't use it.  Sure, it presents the case that
you can run an office using *NIX instead of Windows, but their claims about
savings and reliability are way off.

I'm sure there are places where crashes that loose work are still common,
but they're not run by someone competent enough to develop a *NIX office
system.  For the claimed price of $750 you can get a PC that will run NT.

I did some quick math on license fees, and figuring server, workstation,
office suite, and mail client, multiplied by the nominal 100 users I
support, the license cost wouldn't pay a year's salary for someone to
develop and deploy the configuration for the end-users, and I really don't
think I could do both that and maintain my current level of support.

I still think Linux is the answer.  The reason is that MS is doing so much
mucking around with their systems, bundling programs and links to sponsors
and such, that it's going to take as much work to clean up a Windows
installation as it would to configure a Linux installation.  More and more
offices are returning to the model of a centralised computing resource
instead of having to support distributed individual PC's, and *NIX,
including Linux, fits that model much better than MS' products.