Carlo wrote:Yes, that's true. But most existing companies have already done this and hence are already locked in. You can't change that. The other thing you have to take into account is that upper management of most companies absolutely will not sign up to anything which doesn't have a support contract. They don't care if they have to pay through the nose for Office, they won't take OpenOffice because there's no line of support if it all goes wrong. Our older product used to be based off of a free database solution, but people wouldn't buy it because it was 'free'. They wanted it to be based off of Oracle or SQL Server despite them costing many thousands of pounds per license. Why? Because they are 'industry standard' and supported. For a small start-up company, Linux and open-source stuff is a God-send. For an established business or anything larger than a few dozen staff they currently stand no chance at all. Microsoft has it sewn up for the foreseeable future. |
How much longer will YOU be using Windows at the office?? • Page 3
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Carlo 21,801 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 16 years agoFurbs wrote:
I'd read up the recent leaked Microsoft strategy memos from chairman Bill Gates and CTO Ray Ozzie. OK So it's 'leaked' (!)... It's pretty obvious which direction MS are going with office.
They do? I'd love to see that statement!
If its no different, surely its a breach of hundreds of patents/copyright?
Office it going to become a set of webpages to compete with what many expect from google to be a virtualisation of Office core products.
Also, there was an article in the FT IT suppliment this week. You'll have to go to the library for it now, or subscribe to the FT website. -
BartonFink 35,268 posts
Seen 1 month ago
Registered 20 years agossuellid wrote:
Ah the nail firmly hammered on the head. I am kinda the opposite background wise. Have been working for the past 15yrs or so as a Windows developer and now I am starting to work with Linux, Apache, Sybase, Oracle etc and to be honest it's a fn nightmare. Configuration is the main problem it's a complete mess with different implementations all over the shop. Very ugly.
Carlo - companies don't just use Office and paint tho. You have the account system, HR holiday and sick system, customer service tracking system, inventory, licensing, programming apps, key entry, CCTV, code repository, test tools, etc etc. Where I work these are all windows based.
Its not free to retrain or replace your IT staff, retrain your users, investigate new apps, port to new apps etc. Simply too expensive to switch - and the apps don't exist on Linux anyway.
On top of this the major proportion of software developers develop for windows - without a market they are not going to switch - without tools they could'nt anyway.
This is speaking from experience btw as an ex unix/linux developer now working on windows apps.
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Carlo 21,801 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 16 years agoFurbs wrote:
LOL... who said THAT?!
Thats hardly the same as them saying "oh those idiots who buy and install Office. What chumps!" though is it?
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BartonFink 35,268 posts
Seen 1 month ago
Registered 20 years agoCarlo wrote:
Explain why you think databases are good candidates for keeping locally?
Ssuellid, this isn't a cookie-cutting 'one solution for everything' argument. Of course some things are best kept local (databases for example are good candidates).
I take it you are not a developer. -
spindizzy 7,755 posts
Seen 4 weeks ago
Registered 17 years agoCarlo wrote:
Closed and proprietry is bad for your business. you get locked in with a vendor who can then charge you whatever they want.
I am a developer*, and I completely agree with this statement. In fact, I struggle to see how anyone could argue against it ... but this doesn't mean that people should dump windows etc (I think they should for other reasons), it just means that the data formats should be open, so that people can always access THEIR data. Especially since MS does such a fucking awful job of making their own programs compatible....
*well kind of. -
spindizzy 7,755 posts
Seen 4 weeks ago
Registered 17 years agoBartonFink wrote:
Carlo wrote:
Explain why you think databases are good candidates for keeping locally?
Ssuellid, this isn't a cookie-cutting 'one solution for everything' argument. Of course some things are best kept local (databases for example are good candidates).
I take it you are not a developer.
Yeah I saw that and went 0_o
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Carlo 21,801 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 16 years agospindizzy wrote:
Local to the the object querying it.
BartonFink wrote:
Carlo wrote:
Explain why you think databases are good candidates for keeping locally?
Ssuellid, this isn't a cookie-cutting 'one solution for everything' argument. Of course some things are best kept local (databases for example are good candidates).
I take it you are not a developer.
Yeah I saw that and went 0_o
You're right. I'm not a developer. A team of them told me however during a design phase that somehow had the database servers 'local' in the building on the LAN, and the web-servers off-site at the ISPs building that SQL was a very 'chatty' language and if this implementation was implemented it would mean unless the code was VERY carefully crafted, it would ensure huge ammounts of data would be passed from the DB servers to the Webservers whos .asp pages quereied the DBs to pass back to the visitor. They also say thet SQL as a language was not WAN optimised, and was more LAN optimised (hence the 'back and forth chattyness' (Unless you use something that is WAN optimised like DTS), so the objects that queried the data should be kept as local to the databases as possible.
As the ISP capped the amount of data passed along the lane between the office and the hosting office, it would mean a LOT of money would be spent on the communication between the database and the webservers.
Given that in-house, users hit the Databases all day too, making it unrealistic to place the DBs off-site the conclusion was to keep the DBs local, and DTS copies of the data changes to another set of 'local web DBs' on the host side each day too.
My conclusion was to replicate the data between both offices (Distributed transaction clustering). It had the added advantage to resistance to disaster, with only a low latency of data entry to the web appearance.
You guys do anything else but code? Something to read over your lunch-time sarnie
Edited by Carlo at 11:57:11 11-11-2005 -
ssuellid 19,142 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 20 years agoCarlo wrote:
Something to read over your lunch-time sarnie
Would rather watch paint dry.gif)
. In my own time I don't bother with computers at all except for leisure activities. -
Carlo 21,801 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 16 years agossuellid wrote:
Me too...
Carlo wrote:
Something to read over your lunch-time sarnie
Would rather watch paint dry. In my own time I don't bother with computers at all except for leisure activities.
Lets go back to looking at the games -
Carlo wrote:
ssuellid wrote:
Me too...
Carlo wrote:
Something to read over your lunch-time sarnie
Would rather watch paint dry. In my own time I don't bother with computers at all except for leisure activities.
Lets go back to looking at the games
Anyone think he needs to get out more? ;0) -
Carlo 21,801 posts
Seen 2 days ago
Registered 16 years agoMadder Max wrote:
Indeed... I'm stuck at work all day long with nothing to do...
Carlo wrote:
ssuellid wrote:
Me too...
Carlo wrote:
Something to read over your lunch-time sarnie
Would rather watch paint dry. In my own time I don't bother with computers at all except for leisure activities.
Lets go back to looking at the games
Anyone think he needs to get out more? ;0) -
tengu 10,294 posts
Seen 14 years ago
Registered 18 years ago -
Very interesting. And here's something else interesting!
And then there's the OSX on Intel wild card.
We're in for some very interesting times in the next couple of years. -
/old fart mode
You know back in the days a thread like this would have taken off big-time, we used to have monster discussions about stuff like this.
Really, it doesn't get much more interesting imo. -
True, but that wasn't "back in the days" that was quite recent. And lots of threads, just not much discussion. So plenty of interest but I suspect it wasn't controversial, I mean who's going to play devil's advocate? We all agree don't we? -
I want to see UncleLou's take on this.
Maybe the thread title's a bit scary?
Try calling it 'M$ is t3h d000mzd0rd!!!11!' -
Do you want me to rename it? -
Seems you've confused 'trolling' with 'generating interest' - there's a difference you know! -
How's that for a rechristening? -
Heheh, see? -
itamae wrote:
Linux comes in lots of flavours. Have you ever tried Ubuntu?
While I appreciate the fact that Linux exists it was clearly designed with someone other than me in mind. In 15 years I've never seen an operating system that was less intuitive and accessible. Still, er, good news, I guess. -
Mapster wrote:
Yeah, but how long have you been using it? A few days? And how long have you been using Windows?
All the everyday things you need to do in OSx are easy to get to, easy to find, and that's great. When I want to root a little deeper though, I find that I become lost. It's probably because after years of windows use (abuse!) I know exactly where everything is, so get frustrated when I can't find certain admin type stuff.
In no time you'll know your way around OSX better than you ever did around Windows. No registry or Windows system folders see? -
Furbs wrote:
IM 'market'?? I wasn't aware that anyone bought IM apps.
Am I the only one who isnt looking forward to a more fragmented office environment where an email I send from an MS client may not work on another customers PC if they've gone down a non-MS route?
If MS start to lose significant market share, dont be surprised if that happens. Just like the IM market.
The whole point of the current debate is access to file formats. So the issue doesn't arise. -
itamae wrote:
Yeah you should!
No. Should I?
It's really very very slick. Looks sensational and comes with pretty much all the software you'd need in the distro - and very easy to install new stuff. A nice pretty GUI for Noddies too. Well worth a look, seeing as it's free and you can run it from a CD. Link -
Barton, you have read the articles linked to at the top of the thread right...? -
Mac *is* Unix. ;p
mouse, I think Ubuntu works really well as a solution for grannies or non-dabblers. You're right, it does start to wobble when you try to get clever with it - I had a hell of a time trying to set up Samba shares in it which is why in the end I ditched it, reluctantly. :/ -
Heheh you realise you've just justified my salary? 
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Job done.
Re the screen, you couldn't just adjust the monitor...? -
You've never changed screen resolution??
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. In my own time I don't bother with computers at all except for leisure activities. 
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