On Tue, 25 Mar 2003 10:58:39 -0800, you wrote:
>Andreas-Johann Ulvestad wrote:
>
>>Exactly - lots of fun, using 5 years convincing customers that it's more
>>cost effective to run Linux instead..
>>
>Didn't have to convince anybody - customers
>have been calling me because they want linux.
How much longer are they going to want linux though if:
a) Linux is more expensive. Take a company looking at deploying
either Linux or Windows XP to the desktop, for a 4 year period. While
these companies expect to upgrade the applications over that 4 year
period they would prefer to keep OS changes to a minimum (ideally just
security updates and maybe drivers for new hardware if needed). They
Microsoft Windows XP: $300.
Red Hat Enterprise WS: $480 (300+(3*60) *
$720 (300+300+(2*60) **
* RHN required just for security updates, unlike any other OS, as well
as new device drivers (which are usually vendor supplied in the
Windows/Mac world).
** By releasing a WS product based on obsolete products (Gnome 1.4)
Red Hat has ensured that the 5 year support time frame is a joke
because few prospective customers will be able to use WS for 5 years
without moving to Gnome2, thus forcing an additional purchase of WS
inside our hypothetical 4 year planning period.
b) Red Hat Enterprise Linux, like Microsoft today, becomes known in
the public mind as a product full of security holes and is thus
unsuitable for critical work. This will happen because the
accelerated rate of change indicated in the consumer edition of Red
Hat Linux means no commercial software will target the non-Enterprise
versions of Red Hat anymore. Thus Red Hat is forcing anyone using
commercial software (whether it be Oracle, DB2, Maya, Houdini, or even
likely Java, etc.) to use the Enterprise editions. However many of
these people/companies will not be able to afford/justify the cost of
the RHN membership and thus will skip the security updates (as Red Hat
is the only OS vendor I am aware of that is not making security
updates available for free), thus providing the script kiddies and
other hackers a viable alternative to Windows and in the process
damaging the Red Hat name.
>
>>and now they say "but in windows, we
>>can get updates for free, we don't need to pay yearly licenses"..
>>
>Ah, they haven't heard about licensing 6.0 -
>
>Plus all the constant virus updates - ugh...
Unix is not immune to this, and as vendors like Red Hat change things
that encourage people to run systems without fixing the known security
holes we could find them coming to Linux.
--
Phoebe-list mailing list
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/phoebe-list
