Oh yeah, I forgot. He's off drinking from the same Kool-Aid pitcher these CIO's drink from. We'll have to forgive him if he delays in spinning this in Microsoft's favor.

He probably was involved in the study - set up the Linux box and generated 75% of the costs - tech to repair his mess.

Hey I am a CIO for a mid size organisation of 1000 employees with about 80 LANs and remote sites and I would not believe the advertising for a second. I am a Mac devotee (up to my 7th Mac, currently Dual 2GHz G5 and 1.5GHz PowerBook) in a predominantly Wintel world but Linux is coming. I even have users and my CEO wanting Macs for their desktop/notebook PCs - unfortunately many of our corporate apps will not run on a Mac or Linux and VMware or Virtual PC won't cut it. Another way around is using our Citrix infrastructure but this adds about $400 per client. So for now our Macs are graphic/video machines and our Linux boxes are application servers. I wholeheartedly believe that the Windows stranglehold is being eroded on a daily basis - and you should hear it from the mouths of IBM and HP executives that are devoted to a Linux platform. I wouldn't expect Microsoft's share price to be going up any time soon. I long for the day when I can put a Mac on everyone's desktop.

Expensive proprietary systems from MS and Apple are relics from the 20th century. Reliable open Linux systems are the future. Linux desktops already outnumber Macs, MS is next. You don't have to be gouged by the MS and Apple monopolies, each pushing their own proprietary system.

TMO already runs on Linux PCs, this will be your fate as well.

OK - let's poke the troll...

Been there, done that, the linux box was hacked within 24 because the standard install had so many security holes... You need to keep a pet linux tech to set up/maintain the damn things. What's more the KDE gui sucks both functionally and aesthetically, even compared to Windows let alone OS-X...

I've been a Linux user for over 8 years now, and a Unix user for longer and you know what?

I recently became a Mac user. Why?

Because I lusted after NeXT's machines and operating system long ago. It was a better desktop Unix back then than Linux is now, even 10 years ago.

Since Linux couldn't catch up to NeXTstep even when it was basically abandoned for years, I fail to see how it's going to catch up while Apple are improving and modernising every part of it in the form of OS X.

You've got yourself to blame for not configuring it. linux is about freedom and power, if you want to point and click and stay inside the lines, stick to windows, if you ever want to grow out of that, you know what to do.

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Anonymous wrote:
You've got yourself to blame for not configuring it. linux is about freedom and power, if you want to point and click and stay inside the lines, stick to windows, if you ever want to grow out of that, you know what to do.

I would have to agree. I've been a Unix/QNX user/developer for a number of years. My first Mac was a B&W G3/450, which I still have and now runs OS X Server in my own company. OS X is so simple to administer that I'm my own tech support for a small company of 10 developers. Never again will I move back to Windows unless something srastic happens to Apple.

The Microsoft ad was probably not really intended to convince anyone. It was for the CIO who wants to use Windows. It gives him justification and ammunition if someone in the upper hierarchy suggests he do otherwise.

Now he can say that Linux won't save the company money, that a genuine audited study showed that Linux is 10 times more expensive than Windows in reality.

Forget the "Fear" part, Windows buyers 'know' they are always right, and have nothing to fear.

My Linux experience mirrors that of other posters; Linux is NOT something that you just toss on the network and let run. It really needs someone with a high geek factor to configure and maintain. I'd even suggest a <gasp> Microsoft solution if you need a general purpose server. Of course, I have a shiny new XServe G5, which looks very promising in terms of ease of setup and use.

Finally something believable. I actually agree with the RC--kind of. Linux *servers* may outnumber Mac servers. And yes, proprietary systems will be relics of the *21st* century. (But I'm pretty sure that a top-flight, easy to use system like OS X will be wanted for a few more decades at least.)
I'm not sure about how TMO is hosted tho'.

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RealityCheck wrote:
Expensive proprietary systems from MS and Apple are relics from the 20th century. Reliable open Linux systems are the future. Linux desktops already outnumber Macs, MS is next. You don't have to be gouged by the MS and Apple monopolies, each pushing their own proprietary system. TMO already runs on Linux PCs, this will be your fate as well.

Fact 1: Linux desktops does not outnumber Mac desktops

Fact 2: Just because the fate of companies and industries may be to switch to Linux in the future, it does not mean that the normal average computer user's fate is the same. Business and home use are two different issues, in case you have become such a social loser that your work has become your life and you no longer have the ability to differentiate between the two.

Fact 3: Linux will not outnumber MS desptop (even though I don't like that statement either) because MS Windows is still easier to use and more intuitive than Linux. Depending on which Linux Distro you use, there could be countless different ways to install applications. With Windows, there is only ONE. Maybe when the Linux world decides to band together and work on one Daddy Linuc that the average home user can use with ease without turning him/herself into a geek, your dream of Linux killing Windows will be just that. A dream.