This would be funny if it wasn't so pathetic.
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| tadelste Aug 31, 2005 6:08 PM EDT |
So, Gartner has an alternative for enterprises who have had their teeth kicked in by viruses? I guess they think that using a personal firewall and scanning every packet is a good idea. What about having to defrag to keep performance up? So, Linux isn't good enough for Gartner? |
| ralph Sep 01, 2005 2:18 AM EDT |
When I see that Gartner has released a study, I don't expect to learn anything. I expect a shill for Microsoft. Have they ever been anything else? This is a real question. Have they ever been objective? |
| PaulFerris Sep 01, 2005 5:36 AM EDT |
Every time they open their mouths like this, they weaken their reputation in the industry. Too bad for them. It should occur to them sometime that this is happening, but probably due to some kind of pointy-haired-boss group-think (guessing here) they continue the slide. One day, maybe they will achieve MindCraft status. Remember them? Probably not. |
| dinotrac Sep 01, 2005 6:23 AM EDT |
Guys -- Did we read different articles? Granted, this is Gartner, and their lead conclusion is just goofy -- no competition? R-i-i-g-h-t. Still, I seem to hear the sound of knees jerking. Reading the whole thing reveals that Gartner says: 1. Most people can get their work done with Linux and Open Source tools. 2. Changing over from Microsoft Software to Open Source (as opposed to starting from scratch) is painful and expensive. This is not exactly controversial. In corporate land, where everything costs money, changing from anything to anything else is painful and expensive. Add to that the nasty tendency of companies to view IT as a cost center rather than a profit center, and you have a built-in resistance to change based on careful analysis of inadequate information and serious reflection on career enhancement. 3. They did report on significant deployments in education and that savings ensued. So why all the vitriol? Gartner is Gartner. Stupid statements like the opener are to be expected. Otherwise, the piece wasn't that bad. |
| SFN Sep 01, 2005 6:45 AM EDT |
"Reading the whole thing reveals that Gartner says:"
...snip...
"So why all the vitriol? Gartner is Gartner. Stupid statements like the opener are to be expected. Otherwise, the piece wasn't that bad." I think your original point sums up why the piece is so bad. In this day and age, the average person does not read the whole of anything. They want the quick bite and make decisions (in many case, expensive business decisions) based on the bites that they get. Using that method what do they take away from the piece? That Linux isn't good enough for a desktop system. Does Gartner know that people will do this? You bet. As a matter of fact, they're counting on it. This allows them to play Microsoft's hand and still have the ability to protect themselves (and Microsoft) by saying, "well, if you read the whole things you'll see that we don't actually misrepresent the situation." |
| tadelste Sep 01, 2005 7:01 AM EDT |
SFN: Excellent observation. I know one of the distinguished analysts for Gartner who covers the Linux server space. He's definitely one of the better people around. I'd guess he's an ally. Here's some food for thought: How much does Linux and Open Source pay Gartner for advice? And how much does M$ pay them? Actually, that's not their business model btw. The receive money from all sorts of clients wanting advice on deployments. So, if I'm a client (and I could be a medium sized-business) and I wanted an hour with the desktop specialist at Gartner - he will listen to the circumstances and depending on those circumstances will make a recommendation. In this article, you now know what the Distinguished Analyst for desktops will say to his customers wanting advice about Linux desktop migrations. And that's a real shame. |
| dinotrac Sep 01, 2005 8:38 AM EDT |
Tom - That is a shame, but the shame doesn't start with Gartner. The shame is just the latest reflection of the observation you saw 20-30-40-50 years ago: Nobody ever got fired for buying IBM. For the most part, a corporation making bold infrastructure moves is a corporation with its back against the wall. I know you remember how Linux got its start in more than a few corporate environments. IT departments were told to improve lan performance without getting the budgets they needed. Many is the Samba server that came to be that way. It's a little better now. Linux is no longer an oddball suggestion. The problem now is that the desktop is just plain harder than the server room. More different people with their fingers in the pie. It will happen. It is happening. Not only that, I suspect most places that make the switch will be surprised -- even astonished -- over how disruptive it isn't. But change is scary and the Devil you know is, at least, the Devil you know. |
| phsolide Sep 01, 2005 8:44 AM EDT |
Quoting:Here's some food for thought: How much does Linux and Open Source pay Gartner for advice? And how much does M$ pay them? The way I heard it, it goes like this: You'll never get to use CVS as a source code control system, because CVS doesn't have hot 20-somethings in the sales force who will go bikini-golfing with your CIO in Bermuda. The whole thing is rigged, and there's no incentive to de-rig it. C-level corporate officers (and many layers below them) get bought off all the time. And it takes surprisingly little. |
| SFN Sep 01, 2005 9:01 AM EDT |
"CVS doesn't have hot 20-somethings in the sales force who will go bikini-golfing with your CIO in Bermuda" *perk* Microsoft has that? Down with Linux and it's commie leanings! |
| ralph Sep 01, 2005 1:06 PM EDT |
To dinotrac: I don't think I have responded to the article with vitriol. Rather, I try to be rational. I dismissed the Gartner report and asked if they had ever been objective. The reason I repond to the Gartner report rather than ignore it is that prior Gartner studies have been influential. I know some Microsoft fanboys and they always bring up Gartner studies to justify their dismissal of Linux. |
| dinotrac Sep 01, 2005 1:38 PM EDT |
Severian -- Vitriol is probably too harsh a term. The point is more a matter of reading the report. That way, if a Microsoft fanboy brings it up, you can say...yeah, I saw that. Did you see where Gartner said most people can do their jobs on a Linux desktop? Did you see the part where places that have tried it end up saving money? One thing that piques my curiosity: I though educational institutions got super deals on Microsoft stuff. If they save money, wouldn't most folks save even more? |
| tadelste Sep 01, 2005 6:47 PM EDT |
Education institutions get super deals on Windows and Office. But it takes as many as 500 individual applications to run a school. Most schools don't have the money for the enterprise style applications. So, Schoolforge provides open source apps for free and from what I understand, you can run a school system out of their free repository. http://richtech.ca/seul/ Take a look. And more exist in different repositories. |
| phsolide Sep 02, 2005 6:44 AM EDT |
I finally read the real article. This is just like Manek Dubash'es article: "reports" the facts of the study (which costs so much nobody except big MegaCorps can afford to see it) in a rather tepid fashion, but slap a controversial headline on it that at least arguably contradicts the study reported on. Weird. I'd nominate this article as another Wagg-Ed PR Hit. I do like the exquisite weaselwording that Gartner and others use: "organizations should carefully consider their situations blah blah". They used to say the same things in 1989, when it was abundandtly clear that Apollo, Sun, Stellar, SGI, Mips, Ardent and others had workstation offerings that blew the doors of micro-VAXes, but DEC had C-level loyalty. Should your organization move to unix-based workstations? Carefully consider all your options! The subtext here is "consider all the kickbacks you get from incumbents, especially golf with bikini-clad members of the sales force". |
| SFN Sep 02, 2005 7:22 AM EDT |
"consider all the kickbacks you get from incumbents, especially golf with bikini-clad members of the sales force" DEC had that?! Oh, man. |
| tadelste Sep 02, 2005 8:02 AM EDT |
Golf tournaments with Jocks and pretty girl golfers. Dinners. Four day trips to where ever. A few years ago, a Dallas corporate escort blue the whistle. She was this great looking, young woman with major class. She lived the good life and the money was big. I have to go to the print archives to dig it up. She was simply on the payroll of one of the big corporations in town. |
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