[Wylug-discuss] Defence of Linux at work

[Gary Stainburn]

On Friday 25 April 2008 22:47, Christopher Brown wrote:
> Ahhh, a network consultant. Isn't that funny that his own could
> support Windows but not Linux. Definitely _not_ someone I would have
> consulting me. A "Certified partner" perchance? I believe you have to
> do MS-only to get "Gold certification". Maybe I'm just being cynical.

Yes you are being cynical, but no more so than everyone else.

When it comes to networks I have no doubts about Ash's abilities.  He's 
already got me out of the Dodo by proving that our VOIP wasn't working 
because of the PBX's and not because of my networks.

He definitely knows his onions.  His opinions are obviously based on his 
experiences, which are very much non-Linux.  He was only agreeing with the 
thoughts that the company were already having.

And at the end of the day, these fears are very well founded.  If I do get 
knocked over tomorrow, they're stuffed.

What this thread has proved is that this need not be the case though, and a 
number of offers have come in, offers I hope to follow up this week.

> Perhaps the best argument is the one for Exchange. Due to the open
> standards on which they are currently running, they have the happy
> option of moving with relative ease to another mail server. Once
> migrated to exchange doing the reverse is very much harder.

The argument against exchange is today getting stronger as I'm about to 
install a second mail server to localise traffic, easing a full WAN 
connection. Doing this with Exchange would be costly.

> You could tally up and show them how much their current setup has
> saved them since whenever. You could also comment on the cost of
> migration to the setup they envisage.

The companmy is well aware of how much my solutions have saved over the many 
years we've used Linux, but they are more concerned about the safety side. 
Over the last few years we've grown business-wise by leaps and bounds, now 
turning over £19M, and they'd rathr spend the money if they see a real 
business reason for it.

As I've said above though, this thread looks like it's proving that there 
isn't one.
>
> Really though I'd take the "I understand your concerns and $REASON is
> why they are not valid or soon won't be" line.

That's what I'm doing, hence this thread to collect ammunition and allys.

>
> Cheers

-- 
Gary Stainburn
 
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