On Wed, Jul 16, 2008 at 09:16:48PM -0400, Chris Knadle wrote: > not Mandriva specific. > > On Wednesday 16 July 2008, xe22 wrote: > > Furthermore, I keep reading how Linux is not quite ready for the > > desktop, but please tell me what it can't do. > > I wonder, too. > > Several large corporations have attempted to convert computers > company-wide > to Gnu/Linux, but most have not been entirely successful in doing so, and it > is not very clear as to why. If there are people on the list that work for > big corps that have attempted it and have run into issues that force back the > effort, those issues would be interesting to hear -- assuming you're allowed > to talk about them.
After Novell bought Suse, they created a plan to get the bulk of the company over to Linux desktops. Their phased approach however didn't start with Linux, it started with OpenOffice. Phase 1, installed OpenOffice on every machine, and did a 12 month phase out of MicroSoft Office. It turns out the big issue with Linux in the enterprise is really file formats. MS Office for Mac is key to why Mac actually can make gains in the enterprise (as it has done over the last couple of years). Their case study is here: http://www.novell.com/collateral/4621400/4621400.html Once you have people on OpenOffice & Firefox, it turns out the rest is pretty much noise (for a large number of users). It's one of the reasons we've started distributing The Open Disc (http://www.theopendisc.com/), even though it's Windows software. It gets people over to an Open Source application stack so they can make a platform choice in the future, and not have to deal with an application that won't let them move. -Sean -- __________________________________________________________________ Sean Dague Mid-Hudson Valley sean at dague dot net Linux Users Group http://dague.net http://mhvlug.org There is no silver bullet. Plus, werewolves make better neighbors than zombies, and they tend to keep the vampire population down. __________________________________________________________________
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