[mdlug] A big opportunity for Linux?

[Dave Arbogast]

Adam Tauno Williams wrote:

>>>Sure, and "cost effective" means allot more than upfront cost.  Since
>>>most businesses pay a pittance for desktop machines, let alone the
>>>software on them,  the business case for LINUX is a pretty hard sell.
>>>      
>>>
>>Errrr, I take it you have never actually see a M$ Enterprise support 
>>agreement and the eight figure ransom big business pays for the real 
>>cost of these "cheep" desktops.
>>    
>>
>
>Are we talking about enterprises or small/medium businesses?  Seems to
>me the mile post in these kind of debates gets switched back and forth
>allot.  Enterprises just don't care,  it isn't that expensive relative
>to other things.  No small/medium business I've ever encountered has an
>M$ support agreement.
>  
>
I thought I clearly said BIG Business ;-)  I have been in several BIG 
Businesses, and they care enough to shell out BIG money for it. They 
also get "services" from M$ to resolve problems before the rest of the 
M$ customers who don't care....

>  
>
>>If they don't pay, they risk the very 
>>real probability that malware will take down their business. 
>>    
>>
>
>Bogus.  I admin a network of ~250 Windows 2000 & XP workstations.  No
>support agreement.  The threat of malware is drasitically overstated by
>fear mongers and alarmists,  the issue is actually quite easily to deal
>with using well-known techniques.  Openness to Open Source solutions
>only makes it even easier.  In all the years I've been an admin there
>has been one lonely incident of malware disrupting (not shutting down)
>normal business and the issue was resolved within hours.
><aside>Fortunately for us our competition was down for a couple of
>days. :)</aside>
>  
>

Sorry Adam, I was talking about Enterprise - BIG Business. 250 nodes is 
not even a single suite on a single floor for big business. My personal 
experience. Not conjecture. I personally have seen Tens of MILLIONS of 
real dollars in lost business on multiple occurrences in BIG business 
due to M$ systems being wacked by malware in a production environment. 
Again, personal experience, not grape vine, and not small business.

The topic of this tread is "A big opportunity for Linux?" and that is 
where I am attempting to show I think Big business is ripe for the 
opportunity.

>  
>
>>Then, there's the cheeper cost of AV and infection mitigation for the user 
>>induced events.
>>    
>>
>
>Well, the cost of our AV protection solution... $0.00.
>  
>
Well, for a small privately held company, it sounds like you have faired 
well.

>  
>
>>AND, if they have an envirornment where a vedor sells them a WIN OS 
>>embeded device (MF copier, manufacturing machinery, appliance, etc) they 
>>are at real mercy of the desktop devicing causing interruption of their 
>>core business when the cheep desktops cause faults 
>>    
>>
>
>Eh?  This doesn't even make sense.  If you have any kind of embedded
>device / appliance you are always 110% at the mercy of the vendor.
>Nothing changes that.  Fortunately my experience is that most embedded
>devices are far too stupid / limited / sealed to respond to malware in
>anyway (you're lucky if most "appliances" even manage to do what they
>were advertised to do).
>
>  
>
Again, I was talking about personal experience. I have seen this. Just 
dig under the covers of most of the Multi-function copiers. Again, this 
is for BIG business, so we are talking about tens of thousands of 
dollars for a single machine - they all too often have Windoze 2000 
Server as the embedded system. It is not "limited" or "too stupid" to 
become infected with a host of malware.

>>- maybe infections - 
>>of these "turn key" opperations.  Most of these embeded devices never 
>>get patched and the vendor usually tells the client they can't touch the
>>    
>>
>
>Sure, and what does this have to do with Windows vs. LINUX desktops?
>The embedded devices are just there - nothing anyone can do about the
>bloody things. (I have well over two dozen hosts running NT embedded,
>real crap).
>
>  
>
"A big opportunity for Linux?" - Topic - yes?   So, all these systems I 
spoke of are WIndows Desktop systems that cost a ton of money after the 
fact, and Linux desktops have a clear benefit against malware - less 
cost and more reliability. It is clear to me. I' m sorry if I have not 
articulated this well.

>>OS. I have seen all of this. It is costing business multi-billions to 
>>mitigate the risks and clean up after this so call "cheep OS". 
>>    
>>
>
>And I've seen those numbers;  same thing with SPAM... it is costing some
>unholy amount of money.  I don't buy it.  If this is true then those
>networks are being administered poorly or someone is quite happy to just
>fork over buckets of money for someone else to deal with the problem (a
>legitimate business solution in some cases [although, I suspect, usually
>not]).
>
>  
>
Well, I personally have seen this is BIG business, first hand, not a 
trade rag.  Choose to believe what you want. This is about Opportunity 
for Linux, not opinions - mine nor yours.

>>I thought eveyone knows M$ does not make the bulk of their $$$ from 
>>selling the actual software anymore....
>>    
>>
>
>So?  This is true of IBM, HP, Sun, etc... hardware & software is just a
>platform.  The solution is valuable part, so of course that is where the
>profit is.
>
>  
>
Again, back to the topic of discussion. Opportunity for Linux based on 
real total cost of ownership....     

Are you a tried and True MSCE ?  :-D    I usually don't get slammed so 
hard by Linux people what I talk about Linux, particularly when the lack 
of Windoze security is a factor.

-dave   (CISSP)
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