[Info-vax] Uptime for OpenVMS

[seasoned_geek]

On May 17, 4:48 pm, ChrisQ <m... at devnull.com> wrote:
> Keith Parris wrote:
>
> > And for those who don't understand German, Babelfish says:
>
> > "a well configured Windows computer, at which nobody plays, runs also
> > over several days stably."
>
> Talking desktop machines here, both Win2K and XP are pretty reliable
> with few surprises, so long as you limit the installed software to known
> good vendors and take the same care as you would with (traditionally)
> pro systems w/regard to configuration and sysadmin. Use both Xp and
> win2k (legacy apps) here, running on Proliant boxes and they only get
> rebooted for updates or hardware changes. Have also been checking out
> various Linux distros, with Debian (squeeze) looking far better and more
> mature now than it was even a couple of years ago. Linux seems to be
> coming of age and looks very good indeed...
>
> Regards,
>
> Chris


Linux is actually replacing the corporate desktop.  I spotted this
trend several years ago while working with an off-shore company.  I
told my manager and he laughed out loud.  Two months after I finished
my project with them he had to call me and let me know that their
company had formed a new business unit specializing in migrating not
only corporate desktops to Linux, but moving corporations off of
Exchange to either Google mail or other in house mail server.  Even
their little consulting company had saved over $1million per year
removing the Microsoft products.

Even IBM has jumped on this bandwagon with their Symphony Office
product.  Granted they integrated it into Lotus Notes, but, it started
with OpenOffice and they are in the process of returning the code to
the LibreOffice project.

Speaking as a published author, I have written and done complete
layout of multiple titles using these OpenSource word processors.
They really lack nothing for the publishing industry which means they
definitely lack nothing for the average corporate desktop user.  The
lowly office worker needs word processing, an occasional spreadsheet,
and a Web Browser along with email and calendar services like those
provided by Evolution.

Numbers very widely, but I've seen "annual support costs" for a
corporate desktop with Linux distro and non-Exchange email server as
low as $27/yr/machine, and most companies do it internally for less.
The same machines, running Microsoft products along with the various
required anti-virus and other licesnes not to mention the cost of the
annual/perpetual MS license auditing typically runs $150-$450/yr/
desktop.  The higher costs tend to be if you are using SharePoint
instead of Samba or old fashioned Netware servers.  When you start
talking about corporations with 30-50,000 non-development basic
desktops, saving even $120/yr/desktop is a lot of cash.  The numbers
are even more staggering if you include the cost of terminal emulators
so your standard desktop people can access your cash cow systems
running on OpenVMS or MVS...VT100 stuff like Reflections is pretty big
ticket while Xterm and Putty are free.  Likewise 3270 emulators for
Windows tend to have a stiff price tag but have many prepackaged
OpenSource alternatives with a standard Linux desktop.

Let us not forget the one thing Microsoft did which forced corporate
America to start installing Linux on the desktop.  They released
Windows Vista.  The worst release of Windows ever and it wouldn't run
on most existing desktops.