DISCUSSION: Propose A Compelling Linux Business Case

This thread is to discuss the article titled: Propose A Compelling Linux Business Case

# Note: h1 tags have been replaced with 'strong' ones # h2 tags have been replaced with 'em' ones # View original (http://wolphination.com/linux/2005/1...business-case/) for verification # Thanks Ray Introduction So you want to convert your business/office computers to Linux, but you're not sure how your employees are going to react, correct? Or you want to find out what's so good about Linux that makes it an appropriate OS (Operating System) for a business user? Well, you've come to the right place! Linux is now entering the business market like never before, and some of the statistics I have seen on its growth are extremely amazing (more on this later). But first of all, what exactly is Linux? Linux is an OS which originally began as a home project for a young Finnish student named Linus Torvalds (you can see a copy of his renowned message to the comp.os.minix Usenet group here) - but talented programmers joined together to create the powerful, flexible, reliable, stable, secure, expandable, multiuser, multitasking, configurable and free OS called Linux.[1]

I get "access denied"...

Simon,

There was a small glitch in the new article system and this thread was posted before the article was approved. Thanks to J_K9 for being the first member to submit an article to the new system and Ray for agreeing to be the editor.

--jeremy

Jeremy - The pleasure's mine!

Cheers,

-jk

Many thanks for an excellent and extremely useful article on introducing Linux into the workplace. Not to mention adding such gems as "Baby Duck Syndrome" to my vocabulary.

That and the excellent links to virus docs and more, make this article an instant classic. I'll be rereading this one (hopefully while loading up Linux at the office for the dual boot test period scenario, I can dream can't I?) and handing out copies to the suits. Well, maybe not the suits cause they'll see how devious we can get with the 0 second default boot but....

This article is a must read! Keep em coming!

Thanks mephisto for your kind comments! I'm glad you've found it useful

Cheers,

-jk

As it happens, I read the fine article after I had designed a new system for a school. By using hardware more effectively and not paying that other guy for licences, I was able to support twice as many seats for the amount allocated. On the capital costs we saved

• $40000 for licences
• $16000 using fewer cables using gigabit/s to Multi-seat X clients
• $23000 using thin clients with no drives, except USB ports

That is amazing enough, but our on-going costs will be much reduced by having only six servers on which to maintain filesystems instead of 200 thick clients, less power, noise, and fewer fans. Of course, we could have some of these benefits using that other OS, but would you want to run terminal servers on that stuff that bogs down with a single user? The systems I have seen running Linux just work for months until we are ready to do some maintenance. By putting money we saved on licences into more and better hardware, we have a lot of redundance: a two-server failsafe cluster and four terminal servers when three would likely do well enough. We do not need to panic if anything fails. The clients log in again and continue or the other server takes over the load. We also could afford some pretty nifty toys: digital cameras, scanners, colour and black and white printers, and projectors.

It used to be said that no one was fired for buying that other OS, but, eventually, one has to look at the bottom line and realize how much can be saved on setup and on operation to see that that other OS is just not worth the money.

This isn't just a compelling article, I personally feel if companies don't go this way, they are just shooting themselves in the foot. The savings not only finacially are emense. The support costs are actually lowered, as ok, the support staff need linux experience, however the lack of crap being downloaded on a daily basis onto the system, is also a cost reducer. Half the problems i see day to day on people networks is the fact windows is just setup wrong..

I have a need to put this into a proper business, and move seriously forward with this.. As i am unable to find an element of business for an SME which can't be done using linux and opesource!! From the phone system up...

I am just starting to do some research on Linux for a possible Window conversion at my company. I am delighted that I found some information specifically targeted for someone in my position. I have already downloaded some of the suggested software and am on my way!

Thank you!
Susan

Thanks all - I'm glad you found it helpful

This is a very good article. Are there any articles regarding using Linux REd Hat for Datacenter Enterprise solutions. I just need understand Linux Red Hat strength for business applications.

You might be interested in RedHat's Migration page at

http://www.redhat.com/migrate/

Some aspects of the article, especially in footnotes, are out of date.
eg. a suggestion to use Mandriva 2005 ... would it be useful to revise it and maybe make it less time dependent? Either that or create a more up to date version and a link to it?