Comments on: US DOT considering the switch to OS X / Linux

By: Mark

Mark — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 18:45:01 +0000

I agree with IT here I work in a medium sized school district and even with roughly 500 computers it is still a large pain to keep everything maintained and upgrading to vista specs would be near impossible

By: Carlos

Carlos — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 16:09:02 +0000

and at the same time the UK is moving to Windows For Warships
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/02/26/windows_boxes_at_sea/

By: kamy

kamy — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 14:23:46 +0000

Anything that cuts the market share of M$ and satisfies their business practices is ok in my book

By: Drew

Drew — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 13:12:03 +0000

I think Microsoft mis-counted the part where some applications aren’t compatible. Bill Gates should slap his forehead now… Even Mac OSX update, they make sure all the applications available upgrade together, see! With such a big coporate having such a mistake is really naive honestly…

All my friends don’t want to upgrade to Vista now, just because the hardwares and applications thingy…

By: morepowerr

morepowerr — Tue, 06 Mar 2007 00:16:09 +0000

At lest linux is one why to make sure M$ is not helping them selfs to any info they want. I just have a hard time buying the “NO NO we don’t have any hidden back doors crap). From a company not willing do show there source.

With open source you can find & fit a problem quick. With close source stuff it could never be fixed. No one would know but the dev & the 3rd world country he/she sold the back doors client to. So they could spy on the government.

By: it_sysadmin

it_sysadmin — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 23:24:33 +0000

remember now… we’re not talking about a hundred PC’s or less. We’re talking thousands, or possibly tens of thousands of workstations across the country. The deployment and costs involved with rolling out MS Vista would be horrendous.

Then, there’s the hardware compatibility issue. Say what you want, but we all know that aging PC’s (up to 8 years old) won’t run MS Vista. And if you’ve worked in a government facility (I have), the chances of upgrading your hardware to the MS Vista spec is practically impossible.

Also… the software applications in question. It is SO easy and brainless to simply suggest that they “upgrade” the DOT programs so that they’re compatible for MS Vista, right?

This is where we separate the home PC enthusiasts from the real working world. Some of these applications could possibly been compiled 20+ years ago, and in some cases… the original source code is lost. Or the amount of work required to recompile their aging programs to something like .NET would be impossible.

Ask a systems admin or analyst how much time would it take to “upgrade” a networked application that is in use across the country by millions of users, often simultaneously. See how popular these assumptions are from their point of view.

And don’t get me started on Microsoft’s Software Licensing plans. If you deal with MS Licensing in a corporate or government environment, you’ll know the pain.

By: kozmcrae

kozmcrae — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:43:54 +0000

“Sounds to me like the DOT is whining…”

This customer isn’t whining, they’re making an informed decision. I suspect there was an unseen flurry of e-mails back and forth between the DOT and Microsoft. It looks like Microsoft’s last e-mail ended something like this “That’s the way we do business. If you don’t like it, then leave it”. That’s the most arrogance I could muster, but I’m sure Microsoft did much better than that.

So the DOT has discovered what more and more enterprises are finding out. Microsoft’s business model is not complementary, it’s parasitic.

By: Don Wilson

Don Wilson — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 22:08:28 +0000

You switch to another operating system because the application isn’t updated?

Doesn’t seem likely to me.

By: Milo

Milo — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:59:30 +0000

http://digg.com/tech_news/US_DOT_considering_the_switch_to_OS_X_Linux Digg this story!!! :)

By: Brian

Brian — Mon, 05 Mar 2007 21:14:30 +0000

It would be nice to find out what apps they are running. Will they run under OS X or Linux? There were these same kinds of problems when XP came out.

Sounds to me like the DOT is whining…