"You have to be deviant if you're going to do anything new."
- David LeeNka wrote:
On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 12:35:55 -0500, you wrote:
I know this is a little off topic but I really need some help with this.
The company I work for just got bought out by a larger company. The larger company uses .NET from Micro$oft. I of course use all open source stuff for our web sites and now the new company wants to come in and pretty much blow away everything I have done and use their .NET setup.
I've basically got a month to do research and get my guns loaded for what I'm sure will be a heated debate about the Open Source Solution vs the Micro$oft .NET solution. So what I am looking for is personal and professional opinions about both solutions (specifically PHP etc), any and all links to good articles about both solutions giving the pros and cons of both technologies. Any other mailing lists I can get on to get more opinions about the two technologies. Are their any links to show the cost benifits of using Open Source vs Micro$oft .NET? (I know Open Source is free but I have no clue where to find how much .NET is).
In my experience, software and hardware costs are nothing. A VS.NET license costs, what... 2 billed days of programmer time? Maybe 3 or 4 days of web monkey time. Either way, it's trivial compared to a 5% (and that's a very conservative estimate) saving in development time over 3 or 4 years use of the tool.
Having said that, you have to factor in retraining costs. If it takes six months to get your old programmers up to speed, it's probably easier to stick with what you know. But in this case... what they know is .NET and you're the interloper.
If I was management in that situation, I would be looking to reduce costs by jettisoning the second company's overheads (such as the IT dept), and you're about to make a massive pain-in-the-ass of yourself because of some dumb religious issues. Way to go.
If they offer you .NET training grab it with both hands, because it means they want to keep you around and it makes you more marketable. Remember, if they already have/can find a .NET developer who knows enough PHP to maintain legacy code... why even bother to retrain you?
(BTW, if you try to argue PHP v. ASP.NET on technical grounds you're gonna get steamrollered, IMO. Seriously, look to what's best for you (learning new skills) and the company you work for (supporting one platform, not two) and spend your time developing a migration path, not a diatribe).
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