Will IBM's push for MS free servers affect their dominence?

Devin McCloud

This is the second time this week that this Google story surfaced. I have no experience with linux other then playing with Backtrack 3 for security purposes, but I would like to here from those that do. Do you think it will affect Microsoft strong hold with a weak economy and business's struggling to make ends meet. IBM claim's:

IBM claims the system can save businesses $500 to $800 per user on Microsoft software licenses and an additional $258 per user "since there is no need to upgrade hardware to support Windows Vista and Office."

Big Blue also claims the system's virtual setup affords savings of $60 to $118 per user on power and air conditioning costs, and that it will also help companies reduce IT support expenses. "For this virtual system, all administrative intervention is done on consolidated virtual machines in the data center through deployment of standard images," IBM said.

Will IBM's ploy really get attention? Personally, I think the economy is going stop business's from upgrading to windows 2008 more then rolling over to linux.

http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/open_source/showArticle.jhtml?articleID=212202109&cid=iwhome_art_Open+_mostpop

dynamik

I like Linux, but it tends to cost more to support/maintain, at least at a desktop level, than Windows. These types of calculations tend to omit that and just look at the up-front costs. I'm not sure if I understand your last point perfectly, but Linux doesn't come close to matching the features that Server 2008 does.

Devin McCloud

Ive heard that also that in the long run the cost of administration out weighs the cost of software and licensing. I have no personal experience just conversations with the ease of use of Windows and services that are offered.
Yeah that's what I thought about Linux as far as services, which IBM is saying is a plus because it lacks those extra services. Personal, if it's anything like backtrack 3, I would rather pay to have the ability to have my network easily configured with out writing a script or manually configuring it by hand.
I think people are willing to pay for the these extra features and the simplicity of Windows.

dynamik

Backtrack 3 is a specialized distro for pentesting; I don't think you should treat it like a typical end-user distro. Give Fedora, Ubuntu, or OpenSUSE a try.

darkerosxx

dynamik wrote:

I'm not sure if I understand your last point perfectly, but Linux doesn't come close to matching the features that Server 2008 does.

I'm curious what you're basing that on, when you say features?

darkerosxx

dynamik wrote:

Backtrack 3 is a specialized distro for pentesting; I don't think you should treat it like a typical end-user distro. Give Fedora, Ubuntu, or OpenSUSE a try.

Since this thread was based on business use, we should probably mention SuSE and Red Hat workstations for business usage, rather than the experimental Fedora and OpenSuSE.

dynamik

darkerosxx wrote:

I'm curious what you're basing that on, when you say features?

Active Directory, Group Policy, Powershell, etc. Exchange and Sharepoint if you want to branch out a bit more.

darkerosxx wrote:

Since this thread was based on business use, we should probably mention SuSE and Red Hat workstations for business usage, rather than the experimental Fedora and OpenSuSE.

I was just suggesting some distros for Devin, not making a business recommendation. If people don't know that, they probably shouldn't be implementing Linux in their environment

blargoe

Until you win over the CxO level folks and eliminate their FUD with anything not Microsoft/Cisco, then a significant shift over to non-Windows will not happen.

darkerosxx

dynamik wrote:

darkerosxx wrote:

I'm curious what you're basing that on, when you say features?

Active Directory, Group Policy, Powershell, etc. Exchange and Sharepoint if you want to branch out a bit more.

Active Directory -> LDAP
Group Policy -> Red Hat Network or Spacewalk for free
Powershell -> heh...
Exchange -> any of the myriad of open source mail servers
Sharepoint -> Nuxeo

I'm not trying to do MS versus Linux, just refuting the statement saying Linux doesn't match the features Server 2008 has. It has all the same features, plus it's free.

Daniel333

Not thinking this will have much, if any, impact in the next 2 years.

dynamik

darkerosxx wrote:

Active Directory -> LDAP
Group Policy -> Red Hat Network or Spacewalk for free
Powershell -> heh...
Exchange -> any of the myriad of open source mail servers
Sharepoint -> Nuxeo

I'm not trying to do MS versus Linux, just refuting the statement saying Linux doesn't match the features Server 2008 has. It has all the same features, plus it's free.

None of those are as robust or as well integrated. I never said there wasn't anything similar.

On the other hand, Windows Server doesn't do everything that Linux does. Each has strengths and weaknesses, but saying that Linux is on par with the all features in Windows Server is simply incorrect.

blargoe

Collaboration is one of the things MS does really well... I don't think the open source alternatives are going to do it *as well* as Exchange/Outlook/Sharepoint do. Though I'm sure they are probably competent alternatives. The real issue is finding people to support them.

Just about everything else, I think you have a fair to good argument.

RTmarc

dynamik wrote:

darkerosxx wrote:

Active Directory -> LDAP
Group Policy -> Red Hat Network or Spacewalk for free
Powershell -> heh...
Exchange -> any of the myriad of open source mail servers
Sharepoint -> Nuxeo

I'm not trying to do MS versus Linux, just refuting the statement saying Linux doesn't match the features Server 2008 has. It has all the same features, plus it's free.

None of those are as robust or as well integrated. I never said there wasn't anything similar.

On the other hand, Windows Server doesn't do everything that Linux does. Each has strengths and weaknesses, but saying that Linux is on par with the all features in Windows Server is simply incorrect.

I agree.

RTmarc

blargoe wrote:

Collaboration is one of the things MS does really well... I don't think the open source alternatives are going to do it *as well* as Exchange/Outlook/Sharepoint do. Though I'm sure they are probably competent alternatives. The real issue is finding people to support them.

Just about everything else, I think you have a fair to good argument.

Throw OCS and the entire Office Suite into that list. It appears as if collaboration is the primary focus of all of the new version of Microsoft products. Exchange, Office, OCS, and SharePoint installed together mounts one heck of a tightly inter-meshed collaboration platform.

blargoe

Yeah, I forgot OCS, which is strange since I just spent a few weeks rolling it out