[PLUG] Rumors that Windows 7 will kill Linux...

[Paul Heinlein]

On Mon, 16 Mar 2009, Quentin Hartman wrote:

> Regardless, I was not talking about patterns within an individual 
> organization. I was talking about the scope of the entire IT 
> industry, wherein each individual purchase-making "entity" is a 
> single datapoint. Within that context, I think that the question of 
> "which platform?" as a technical acquisition criteria is in decline, 
> and in the next 5-10 years will likely be completely irrelevant in 
> the vast majority of cases. The only reasons it will be a 
> consideration for purchasers will be aesthetic ones.

Good point, though I think your window will be closer to 10 to 15 
years than to 5. Inertia in ultra-large organizations is just too 
great. :-)

At our company, there are only only two or three positions (out of 35) 
that have prescribed platform needs. We offer every other new hire his 
or her choice of Linux, Windows, or Mac OS X. Our shared 
infrastructure is deliberately built around open protocols, leaving 
choice of client application to the individual. Our few 
platform-specific applications are distributed via remote-access 
mechanisms (X11, RDP, or CLI over SSH) to clients with incompatible 
local environments.

There are some inefficiencies with this approach. Shared calendaring, 
for instance, is currently difficult to implement. Also, IT support 
needs to be broader -- which usually translates to "more expensive." 
Complex documents, like spreadsheets with multiple windows and 
dependencies, tend to be tool- and platform-tied.

Still, I think it's the way forward. Users determine their own 
efficiency and comfort level, and they interact with shared digital 
assets via open protocols. Here, anyway, it's not utopia; it's the 
present.

-- 
Paul Heinlein <> heinlein at madboa.com <> http://www.madboa.com/