It was never said that it would be easy ... and let downs are to be
expected ... at least you had the courage to propose this, I never
even dared! (Yet).
But here it seems that even though you are the IT manager, the decision
was taken completely out of your hands :-( I wonder If the situation
would have been much different if the IT people of the other departments
were behind you.
You talk of support. How much does a setup like the one you work in
resort to Microsoft for support with office?
On the other hand I also know of a Chairman of a Company owned by the
Government, who wanted his IT people to look into migrating the whole
Company to Linux slowly, starting from clerks. But his IT people, and
others, would not listen. The last I heard was that he felt it a bit
too premature to force them too look at Linux, we are talking of
a government owned company after all.
The message we get here is that what is most needed is exposure,
education and advocacy ... and I have only myself to point fingers at
since I am the PRO of the MLUG.
I do need help, and the wiki is were you can help. This HOWTO is a good
start.
Philip
On Thu, 2004-05-27 at 22:53, Mario Debono wrote:
> Sorry Guys but I have to but in on this one.Especially since I recently tried
> to get Linux into the company I work for. I am an IT Manager, and my
> department (35 user) is part of a larger group of companies total PC's on the
> whole network are around 80 spread over 4 offices.
>
> I basically took stock of my departments situation, and can summarise it as
> follows:
>
> 1. We will be changing our MS Exchange mailserver by the end of this year due
> to the heavy licencing costs.
>
> 2. We are currently running an old application that will run only on Windows
> which 25 of the users use. This needs to be changed due to changes in our
> business environment within the next two to three years. However 14 of these
> 25 users interact with Malta Customs Department. www.ces.gov.mt. To use this
> site you must have IE 6 and Java 1.3. This site is so particular that if you
> use Java 1.4 it won't work!
>
> 3. Ten users only use Email, Word Processing and Spreadsheets.
>
> 4. We need to update our Windows Licences for servers and desktops, not to
> mention MS Office.
>
> So I presented the following plan based on a strategy to convert to Linux, in
> this order:
>
> 1. Migrate the mail server to a Linux box running something we could
> configure
> easily in house, such as Communigate Pro.
>
> 2. Migrate our central document storage (All users save their documents to a
> central Win 2K server) to a Samba Server that would temporarily be located on
> the mailserver.
>
> 3. Migrate the 10 users who spend all day on email and Word to Linux.
>
> Points 1 to 3 would happen by the end of 2004.
>
> 4. After changing our Operations Software (this would actually be at the end
> of 2005), migrate the 11 users I mentioned in point 2 above to Linux.
>
> So at the end of my plan we would have had 21 Linux desktops and two Linux
> Servers, with 14 Win XPs on the network. The result according to my
> calculations, a savings of about LM10,000 on licencing costs. Unfortunately
> my Linux pitch crash landed! The reasons presented to me:
>
> 1. Too much time will be wasted on retraining.
>
> 2. We want to keep a standard with all the group of companies. The other
> Offices in the group would not be able to migrate to Linux due to their
> interaction with third parties, whose systems demand Windows.
>
> 3. Lack of Linux knowledge by two of the other IT Branch managers led to them
> heavily opposing any change.
>
> 4. The idea of saving money on MS Office Licencing did go down well, since we
> could still run Open Office on Windows. However Free Software with no
> support? No thanks was the answer, we'll take Sun Office!
>
> 5. We outsource our Network Administraion and the company we use for the last
> 10 years only supports Windows. There is a very good relationship between our
> MD and the MD of our vendor, who was at the meeting, and I could tell that
> an anti Linux campaign had already been mounted far before the meeting in
> which I gave my presentation.
>
> So from my experience the issue at hand is Support. How many IT companies in
> Malta can actively and reliably support Linux? I can think of two. Megabyte
> and Philip Toledo. Anybody else can contribute to my list of two?
>
> Remember most businessmen do not really know anything about the details of
> how
> their IT is set up.They will then generally rely on someone they trust will
> give them guidance on what to do. If that someone doesn't know anything about
> a Linux network or how you can work with both Windows and Linux on the same
> network, then it's a non starter.
>
> That's my piece on this issue.
>
> Mario
--
Philip Serracino Inglott <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
http://www.inkwina.net/
--
Shame is an improper emotion invented by pietists to oppress the human
race. -- Robert Preston, Toddy, "Victor/Victoria"
