Re: [SLUG] "My distro beat up your distro" discussion

From: Ian C. Blenke (icblenke@nks.net)
Date: Mon Nov 18 2002 - 12:48:04 EST


On Monday 18 November 2002 11:46, Jim Wildman wrote:
> It depends what strata of business you are talking about. Let me divide
> the business strata into 4 pieces
> 1) <50 desktops administered by the local 'computer person'. The one
> who knows the most.
> 2) 50-200 desktops with maybe a local professional, otherwise using
> hired gun or contract support
> a) with heavy ties to the MS infrastructure (VB, asp, AD, vertical
> apps, etc)
> b) without heavy ties to the MS infrastructure
> 3) The large corporate desktop (200-50,000 users)
>
> Type 1 is already starting to move. The availability of web interfaces
> for many applications is helping here. The holdup is the number of
> people (computer persons) who are familiar with Linux. With the aging
> of our first generation of high school/casual users, this problem will
> be 'grown out of'.

NKS is a Tampa Bay local Linux/OpenSource based managed solution provider.

As a Linux solutions provider, I can tell you that the small business (SB)
customer is our primary target for managed services. For those companies that
cannot afford a full-time "computer person", our managed service offerings
fit perfectly into their business need.

> Type 2a will happen as companies begin to see the true cost of the MS
> addiction. If you've ever tried to scale Active Directory or Exchange
> across a geographically dispersed company you know what I mean. The
> *nix alternative can be orders of magnitude cheaper with less security
> implications. Some companies are beginning to see this. For instance,
> if you deploy Active Directory today, you are facing 2 (at least)
> major infrastructure upgrades in the next 2-3 years. One from the
> current AD to the next version, then from that one to .Net/AD, which
> will not be the same version at all. Not a good thing to do with your
> authentication infrastructure.

NKS is provides Linux/OpenSource experts on a contract basis.

While we also deal in medium sized businesses (the "M" in SMB), we typically
do contract work for such companies. They already have some form of internal
IT staff, but need experts to answer difficult/complex questions about
Linux/OpenSource and migration from Microsoft products. While we sell fewer
managed services to this segment of the market, we do give customers a nice
safety cushion for support and experts to call on when vendor support falls
apart.

> Type 2b is already happening, too. There is a growing group of
> professional support consultancies that can make the arguement for
> moving your corporate desktop to Linux (Russ Herrold and Owlriver being
> an example). For organizations who have little tie in to custom apps,
> or who are looking to replace legacy or proprietary applications (ie,
> dbase accounting, home grown infrastructures, etc) the financial and
> support arguements are beginning to be very obvious. Microsoft is our
> biggest ally here, since they are forcing people to throw away or upgrade
> working systems (ie, 9x desktops). In some very important niche markets,
> the EULA is going to bite them big time because of the Federal privacy
> regs. (ie HIPPA in the medical space, GLBA in the financial space.) I
> cannot agree to a EULA that allows my vendor to access my data when I am
> responsible (meaning stripes and bars if I dont' do it) for maintaining
> the privacy of data.

NKS is a professional support consultancy, but it isn't our core business. It
is our goal, however, to displace Microsoft solutions wherever possible. In
fact, Eric has mandated us to do exactly this ;)

We are actively working toward this direction, but the market is only now
beginning to really accept it. Sure, there are good local pioneers of this
(the City of Largo being a prime example), but convincing most customers to
drop their Windows desktops is an uphill battle. Most of the effort is
acceptance by management and the retraining of users who just want their old
applications. With the new licensing costs, and other TCO craziness in the
Microsoft world, it's not hard to make a strong business case for Linux on
the desktop anymore.

> Type 3 is dependent on some of the same things, plus 'enterprise' level
> support. Right now, only RedHat (and maybe IBM) provides 24x7x365 level
> 1,2,3 support contracts, and really only for servers at that. As the
> early adopters in a vertical market (say Amazon) get publicity for how
> much they are saving using open source tools, the other companies will
> have to participate in the arms race. I think it will become
> increasingly difficult to maintain the arguement of 'soft savings' from
> using MS products (ie, they make my programmers more productive) in the
> face of hard dollar savings (fewer, smaller servers with less downtime
> and lower license/maintenance fees). Sun is already pushing this. Did
> you catch the 2 ads in this week's eWeek about 'self maintaining'
> computers? Full page. The tight economy and capitalistic market forces
> will push this market, but it will be another year or two.

We have an exciting offering in the works now for precisely this market. It
fits right in with what you're mentioning. The other folks would kill me if I
say anything more about it at the moment, however ;) But look for something
interesting from us for the enterprise market in the near future.

Ok, enough horn tooting. We don't do it often. I'll bet I've even broken a few
dozen unwritten rules about using SLUG resources as a marketing platform. My
apologies for offending anyone on the list with this drivel.

-- 
- Ian C. Blenke <icblenke@nks.net>

(This message bound by the following: http://www.nks.net/email_disclaimer.html)



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