[ILUG] Linux is more expensive than Windows

[Niall O Broin]

On Tuesday 6 April 2004, maddenj at skynet.ie (John Madden) wrote:

>To be honest, I think trying to persuade these types of companies of the
>benefits of Linux on their servers / desktops is a waste of time.
>Everything comes down to money, and they're not willing to try it when
>it means spending too much money initially.

Actually, I recently read a VERY interesting article (no URL, sorry, and
google didn't help, though it did provide a moment's amusement on #linux)
about cost of IT services in large organisations. It was about how businesses
could save money by changing to OS-X (AND they could keep using MS Office
easily) but by and large, they don't. And why is that? Well, in corporate
America, the size of your corporate dick is the size of your budget. If
somebody comes to an IT manager in a big company and says "You can reduce your
budget by 50% and still provide the same service to your company" he's saying
"You can cut off half of your dick". The IT manager has got this budget, and
the corner office that goes with it, so why would he want to reduce it? Of
course for the good of the shareholders he should do that, but most companies
are run with the interests of their upper management in first place, followed
by the interests of shareholders. Customers and staff are also rans.

The article I referenced was rather more lucid than am I, and went into more
detail, but that was its basic point. And it's a frightening one . . .




Niall