I was a little discouraged to see that the M$ Monopoly is still in effect with "first tier" providers:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/02/05/0234205&tid=163&tid=201&tid=98&tid=218 Shame on them, especially IBM's PC division. Outside the big dumb vendors, I know things are better. Bits Technical, a former employer, will work with IT professionals and provides excellent support. They already recommend Open Office and have a "customer is always right" attitude. They might even let you do some experimentation to make sure everything works before they assembled an order for you. After that, they have very good RMA and spare parts policies so you are not left in the lurch if something breaks. I also know that Bits was suffering from Walmart and other discount competition, so it's good to see Walmart offering a sub $500 Linux laptop. Does anyone have any other good Linux support stories here in Baton Rouge? The whole issue is a red herring. You don't have to buy new computers to roll out Linux in an organization. I know, from working a Bank One "upgrade", how painful and tedious a software swap can be to a Windoze organization, but the first Linux swap out kills that pain forever. The main problem at Bank One was that programs wrote junk to the registry that broke automated upgrade software like Novels' Zen. They could not simply be imaged, but had to be installed individually at the machine. Spyware and malware caused additional complications. One person could get five to ten PCs in a night of work. It was galling to someone used to apt-get upgrade. Large organizations like Bank One would save large buckets of money if they would look outside "first tier" or upgrade to GNU. The hardware they had was first rate and should have performed much better. Vendor support from places like Bits is encouraging and I'd like to hear more of it.
