Re: Blaming North Korea?
(payroll, accounting, tax & HR software, SEO and marketing tools, photo & video processing, etc)
All available with tools on Linux that're close to if not as good as the paid versions. Eg Gimp which, while true it maybe only has 90% of the functionality of Photoshop etc (actually I think the % is higher), it doesn't have either the cost or lock-in - no Gimp user has been unable to work because Adobe's activation servers are throwing a hissy fit. (I quite amazed a friend of mine who taught me some tricks with Photoshop, and I was able to do them in Gimp later - unfortunately she needs the proper colour management which Gimp lacks (what she sees on her screen must match what comes out the printer exactly - her office, lighting, placement of lights/furniture etc etc are all set up to keep the screen the same at all times), but most of what she does can be done in Gimp.
I've done plenty of SEO stuff without resort to any "special" tools. You really don't have to spend that much on it despite what some claim (and given the quick and high rankings my sites received for the appropriate searches, I think I must've done fairly well)
Some very good video tools in Linux, and of course payroll etc etc are also there as well.
As to "cheap and easy support", having to pay someone to come in and fix your computer every few months when another set of forced patches bork your machine, and you lose hours (sometimes days) of productivity while your machines are dead... Backups are wonderful, if you have the time and money and skills to use them. Otherwise they're as dead as your computer till you can get someone to restore from the latest issue.
VM's would probably do for most SMB's if they really have to have Windows to run something; spin it up to run the tool then shut it down when done, and with snapshotting rolling back to a working version can be quick and easy. (No Charles9, we're not talking professional gamers or people who have some special hardware, we're talking machines doing secretarial etc work, which hopefully you won't be doing on the same machine that runs your expensive CnC or controls the MRI etc etc ;) )
Biting the hand that feeds IT
