Insight warns of $20 MILLION kick in the teeth from Microsoft The impact of Microsoft's sweeping channel programme changes were laid bare last night when Insight Enterprises warned investors that its bank balance will be up to $20m lighter next year as the new fee structure takes hold. As revealed by The Channel back in early summer, Microsoft killed off its two year old Solutions …
Actually it's pretty cheap for what you get. Loads of functionality is now rolled into the OS that you used to have to pay extra for.
You might have had to pay extra - these are features that MS decided to use as price differentiators - as Windows fades in to irrelevance, differentiators are not required.
You could always use Linux and pay in time and inconvenience instead
lol
> you used to have to pay extra for. Antivirus, CD burning, Zip and disk encryption for instance.
You get all those under Linux except for the Antivirus ..
> You could always use Linux and pay in time and inconvenience instead...
Instead of a phone call to the support people who tell you to reinstall, reinstall, reinstall ...
You are kidding right? Let's break it down:
The inbuilt products:
Antivirus - Experience of dealing with people who rely on it usually have me cleaning their machine more! I usually point them to external programs.
CD Burning - Have more failures or unreadable discs. Better off with an external burning program. This isn't a disc problem by the way! Our users generally use this, or our external clients, and we have a high rate of unreadable discs!
Zip - Absolute rubbish program. We get a lot of Zip files from authors on Macs. While the temporary folder can be seen Windows mostly fails to see the actual files. We rely on 7Zip to do the work because it opens the files perfectly.
I use Linux for private stuff and some work stuff. Have no problems and no inconvenience. Everything works perfectly. In fact, when I have stuff on Windows that doesn't work I find Linux usually does the job without problem.
Is that the AV that MSFT says is intended to be the worst available? The CD burning software likewise, although MSFT haven't admitted to that one - there is free software that works better, also free unzip software, free whole-disk encryption software. That's before you even consider how quick and easy Linux is these days.
( not---> )
...before even the most cynical management consultant can't keep a straight face when launching yet another "get the facts" about TCO comparisons between MS and Linux?
For those that missed it, The LSE undertook a real study of the TCO of OSS (pdf)
Real study lol?
"by OpenForum Europe"
"Dr Shaikh is a coauthor of Adopting Open Source Software: A Practical Guide"
"Tony CORNFORD has published work on open source software processes and business models."
So obviously it's going to be biased to punt their own books and provide a meal ticket.....
The only real top to bottom attempt at adoption of Open Source adoption to date has been Munich and that cost tens of millions and still hasn't been completed after a decade....
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