On Tue, 2003-12-09 at 06:56, Wayne Wilson wrote: > More interesting news. > > <http://observer.guardian.co.uk/business/story/0,6903,1101344,00.html> > > Fascinating that it takes a well known company to make a linux > distribution viable, but whatever......
The fact that Linux-capable desktop applications like OpenOffice are a bit simpler and less capable than MS Office is actually an advantage in most healthcare settings, I think. The trick is to get healthcare application vendors to create front-ends which run natively under Linux (as well as to create entirely open source applications, of course). If the UK NHS starts to seriously consider Linux as the OS for ward and clinic workstations, then vendors will fall over themselves to port their front-ends to Linux, I suspect. The refrain from vendors here about Linux front-ends is "we would, but there is no demand from customers". let's hope the NHS changes that. > > With Novell soon to be selling SuSE, it might be a huge leg up in many > organizations. Novell used to be the low cost PC networking solution > until MS moved the underlying technology of networking into the base > product line, but they are still prevalent at many non-profits and > schools. But remember that in the early 19990s Novell bought the rights to Unix System Vr4.2 from AT&T, and started to sell it as UnixWare, with a view to using UnixWare as a replacement for NetWare. Technically UnixWare was a fabulous Unix, but Novell completely botched the marketing of it, and in the late 19990s sold UnixWare and many of the rights to Unix to...SCO. Thus Novell's acquisition of SuSE is a second bite at the Unix/Linux cherry - hopefully they will get it right this time. -- Tim C PGP/GnuPG Key 1024D/EAF993D0 available from keyservers everywhere or at http://members.optushome.com.au/tchur/pubkey.asc Key fingerprint = 8C22 BF76 33BA B3B5 1D5B EB37 7891 46A9 EAF9 93D0
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