[Sussex] Business without Microsoft

[Gareth Ablett]

Hey,

All it needs is for things like this to get mentioned more 
often and before long it wont even be worth writing about 
it as loads of large Non-IT based companies will by then 
know the advantages and hopefully take note.

The very fact that something like this makes press is that
It generally isn't ready for the desktop.

But actually the only way it is going to be ready for the 
desktop is if more people try it and use it then it will 
be considered as a mainstream alternative to Microsoft.

Gareth Ablett
Systems Developer

ITP Services Ltd.
http://www.itpserve.co.uk/

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> -----Original Message-----
> From: Geoff Teale [mailto:tealeg at member.fsf.org]
> Sent: 22 August 2003 8:02 am
> To: sussex at mailman.lug.org.uk
> Subject: Re: [Sussex] Business without Microsoft
> 
> Nik,
> 
> :-)  Keep plugging it..
> 
> Just for the record, I'm aware of several businesses that run without
MS
> software, it's just that they tend to either be people like 3aIT,
ISPS's
> or the likes of Red Hat up in Guildford[1].
> 
> Whats different about Ernie Ball is that they are a market leading
> company (though still a reasonably small company) with no explicit
tech
> savvy.  The situation (basically blatant abuse from companies they
were
> customers of) forced their CEO to make an angry decision to drop all
> products produced by Microsoft and anyone involved with them. Here he
is
> two years later talking about increased efficiency of his people and
> massively lower costs derived from running Linux as apposed to
Windows.
> 
> To my mind this demonstrates two things perfectly:
> 
> 1. As Sun's research showed nearly 5 years ago, Office software is
> usually a prohibiter to effective use of computing power in businesses
> rather than an enabler.
> 
> 2. The idea that Linux isn't ready for the business desktop is
> fundamentally untrue - it's a question of actually getting people to
> think about what is best for their business rather than saying "well
> this is what we do now, so we must replicate that".  Ernie Ball
actually
> demonstrates several ways in which Linux is much more _suitable_ for
> business use than Windows has ever been.  Any one who is any good at
> software development in the commercial field will know that this is
what
> happens when you develop software - people always desperately want you
> to repeat the same mistakes they already live with.  The important
> questions are not "how do you do it right now?  What reports do you
> run?",  but instead they are business process questions like, "why are
> you running off that report?  What happens to this information?  How
> does this relate to generating cash?".
> 
> [1] I had never realised I didn't know how to spell Guildford until
that
> moment.
> 
> 
> 
> On Thu, 2003-08-21 at 18:07, nik at wired4life.org wrote:
> > so, let me check , when I say to people that businesses can survive
> > without Microsoft, oh the flame wars and retribution but when some
two
> > string operations from the states[1] opens its mouth... all is
light.
> >
> > should I point out that weve not used Microsoft to run our business
I
> > mean dont we count <sniff!>
> >
> > cue the visions of me standing on the hilltop shouting out, I WAS
RIGHT
> > I WAS RIGHT I WAS RIGHT.
> >
> > Theres just no bleeding need for Microsoft and I will keep saying it
> > until its truth.
> >
> >
> > [1] no disrepect to Ernie Ball and co, its just annoying that im not
> > part of the story[2]
> >
> > [2] these are the sort of stories we ant to create[3]
> >
> > [3] yes bitter and twisted, thats me[4]
> >
> > [4] damn these footnotes are addictive
> >
> --
> Geoff Teale <tealeg at member.fsf.org>
> Free Software Foundation
> 
> 
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