Why don't companies consider open source more?

[Red Squirrel]

I sometimes mention, usually as a joke "you know to save money why don't we switch to open office?". Managers and non pro linux/open source people will usually get very defensive and start saying how it would be imcompatible with macros, vb script and other microsoft based crap.

Sure, I see their point. But look at how much money a 500+ pc environment would save, just by switching to Open Office alone (not even considering Linux at this point).

It would take some adjusting to do and can't be done at the blink of an eye, but in some environments such as schools, I really think the trouble would be worth it. I find microsoft (and other companies) licensing is a real joke. Not only do they rape you, but they make it harder to get raped. Instead of saying "we need 1 grand per PC" they'll start adding all these other things "well that's just for 1 user, for more users you need to pay this much, for this type of environment, you pay extra" and list goes on. It gets worse when you get into server environments.

Take MS exchange for example, you PAID for it, PAID for the server OS, yet you still have to PAY MORE for cals, mailbox licenses and so on. Every direction you turn, you have to pay more. Going with a Linux mail server and adding some custom code for collaboration will be more work at first, but pay off and save the company Millions per year. Start adding up all the crazy prices companies pay for software and open source just seems more worth it.

It's also easier to get support on a well known app, then some propitiatory app. (like for those that use weird apps that nobody has ever heard of).

Instead, companies rather lay off a bunch of people, then review their ridiculous spending on stuff they could get for free. 😛 I find out pricing on stuff where I work and it just shocks me that they are willing to pay that much money. Some support contracts go for over 50k a year not counting the product itself, yet that number is probably used once.

 

[Vette73]

Yea you save on software but how much do you lose on support/training, lost customers, etc...

We Fed Gov upgraded our software so we can exchange documnets with others that we interact with. So we got new office yet I don;t think anybody uses any of the new features but me and very few others.


There are pros and cons to both.

 

[Deeko]

No.

 

[IronWing]

The Linux vs MS question aside, the rationale I've been fed by our corporate IT folks is that open source = no support. Note that I didn't say that I agree with this rationale just that that was the explanation.

 

[Crusty]

Paying for something that works and praying that something works are far from being equal, especially when it comes to mission critical services.

 

[Modelworks]

I think the main reason is because open source is not promoted. It is basically free so their is nobody running ads on tv or in magazines. There is no salesman coming to their door telling them the wonders of open source software. As for support, both Novell and Redhat provide full support.

 

[BriGy86]

Unless a company can call the vendor at the drop of a hat and either get the issue resolved or get a decent time line as to when it will get resolved (a day or so)open source will not be an option.

 

[spidey07]

It's really a support and cost of doing your own support. Much cheaper in the long run to just buy software and pay maintenance on it. When there's a problem it's THEIR problem and not yours.

Basically what BriGy86 said.

 

[Modelworks]

Redhat has some pretty damn good support policies.
1 hour response time 24/7 , what more can a company want ?

 

[SagaLore]

Originally posted by: Crusty
Paying for something that works and praying that something works are far from being equal, especially when it comes to mission critical services.

You just stated Microsoft twice in one sentence. What about open source? 😉

 

[Joemonkey]

Originally posted by: BriGy86
Unless a company can call the vendor at the drop of a hate and either get the issue resolved or get a decent time line as to when it will get resolved (a day or so)open source will not be an option.

nice freudian slip 🙂

but yeah, this is usually the problem. If something breaks and you are down not making money, would you rather post on a forum and hope for a fast reply or have someone to call and yell at?

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: ironwing
The Linux vs MS question aside, the rationale I've been fed by our corporate IT folks is that open source = no support. Note that I didn't say that I agree with this rationale just that that was the explanation.

That's usually what I hear too. But I find it's the opposite. Also, if worse comes to worse, the source is there, dig into it and find out why so and so problem is happening. But in most cases someone else with more time will already have done that and there will be a fix.

Then you have companies with weird non widely used software, sure it has support, but they wont help you much anyway especially if the issue may be environment related. Lot of companies will straight out refuse support if you are running in a VMware environment. So in the end, most of the time you're on your own anyway if there's an issue. That's what our job as a tech is for, to figure out these problems and fix them.

Now would going 100% open source be smart? It depends what your needs are. To me, sometimes it may be worth to use some microsoft stuff given it's widely used, but you have to ask yourself if the alternative is just as good, and less costly. I can see a company not wanting to go away from Outlook, but what about word and power point, maybe excel (depending on if they have complicated vb macros and stuff, that comes from partner companies). Even taking out a few costly apps and replacing them with open source could save a ton of money. I think a mix of both would be the easiest solution from a financial point of view and IT implementation point of view. It all comes down to what the environment is though.

For a brand new smallish company that does not deal that much with the outside, going 100% open source would be fairly easy.

 

[SagaLore]

Forget all the arguments that admins and managers typically give you.

The real reason they don't switch, is because admins don't know how to support it, and staff don't know how to use it. They are afraid of something they're unfamiliar with.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: SagaLore

Originally posted by: Crusty
Paying for something that works and praying that something works are far from being equal, especially when it comes to mission critical services.

You just stated Microsoft twice in one sentence. What about open source? 😉

Haha that is true. I did not want to use "microsoft sucks" as a reason to go open source but got to admit, you tend to run into the harder problems with Microsoft then you would with Linux or other open source apps. Linux will have it's fair share of very complicated problems too though but they seem to be less random. I've seen Microsoft servers totally bail out for no reason, but Linux servers will usually have a reason behind it.

 

[BriGy86]

What about active directory alternatives? I heard OpenLDAP wasn't as secure and may have less features. If that's the case I'm sure there are more open source programs that have the same underlying issue.

And hardware support. It's my belief that the lacking hardware support is the main downfall to open source. I can't just use any piece of hardware and get it setup easily unless I'm a guru in the certain flavor of *nix I'm trying to use. Wireless cards are a good example.
And I even had issues getting Mint and Ubuntu running correctly on a computer of mine.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
Forget all the arguments that admins and managers typically give you.

The real reason they don't switch, is because admins don't know how to support it, and staff don't know how to use it. They are afraid of something they're unfamiliar with.

Hmm that's a good point. Even where I work I see that. We have very knowledgeable people when it comes to Windows and administration in general, but most of them are not very familiar with Linux. They usually come to me with that stuff though we don't have much of it. The closest thing to Linux I get to deal with is ESX servers.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
Forget all the arguments that admins and managers typically give you.

The real reason they don't switch, is because admins don't know how to support it, and staff don't know how to use it. They are afraid of something they're unfamiliar with.

Then there's the whole lack of real support thing. There are many people out there that have used software and let support/maintenance lapse. And they don't ever want to live through that again so there are people that through experience would never wnt open source and rightly so.

You can also have a much smaller staff because you use the expertise of the software vendor strategically instead of having to employ 20 different experts.

-edit-
Then again isn't apache open source? So you can find a few gems.

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: BriGy86
What about active directory alternatives? I heard OpenLDAP wasn't as secure and may have less features. If that's the case I'm sure there are more open source programs that have the same underlying issue.

And hardware support. It's my belief that the lacking hardware support is the main downfall to open source. I can't just use any piece of hardware and get it setup easily unless I'm a guru in the certain flavor of *nix I'm trying to use. Wireless cards are a good example.
And I even had issues getting Mint and Ubuntu running correctly on a computer of mine.

Actually I've always wondered why Linux has not surpassed MS as far as Domain's/AD go yet. That's something I'd like to see. A domain controller is something you're pretty much forced to run on Windows, though you can do it on Linux but it's equivalent to NT4. (eww)

 

[Red Squirrel]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: SagaLore
Forget all the arguments that admins and managers typically give you.

The real reason they don't switch, is because admins don't know how to support it, and staff don't know how to use it. They are afraid of something they're unfamiliar with.

Then there's the whole lack of real support thing. There are many people out there that have used software and let support/maintenance lapse. And they don't ever want to live through that again so there are people that through experience would never wnt open source and rightly so.

You can also have a much smaller staff because you use the expertise of the software vendor strategically instead of having to employ 20 different experts.

That's a good argument, when you don't let the software contracts expire like they did where I work. 😛 not that it's the fault of the vendor but some of these software contracts cost more then hiring someone else to not only support that one product, but maybe 5 more.

 

[BriGy86]

Originally posted by: Joemonkey

Originally posted by: BriGy86
Unless a company can call the vendor at the drop of a hate and either get the issue resolved or get a decent time line as to when it will get resolved (a day or so)open source will not be an option.

nice freudian slip 🙂

but yeah, this is usually the problem. If something breaks and you are down not making money, would you rather post on a forum and hope for a fast reply or have someone to call and yell at?

fixed🙂

speaking of the forum issue, I just posted a problem I had with the Mac version of Firefox a few weeks ago on the Firefox forums. And still have yet to get a single response. Apparently I'm the only one on the internet trying to get it to work hassle free through a proxy.

 

[spidey07]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel

That's a good argument, when you don't let the software contracts expire like they did where I work. 😛 not that it's the fault of the vendor but some of these software contracts cost more then hiring someone else to not only support that one product, but maybe 5 more.

It's be pretty straight forward to do a full fledged cost/expense analysis. But then again all it would take is one serious problem that you couldn't get help for to blow that analysis out of the water.

 

[BriGy86]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel

That's a good argument, when you don't let the software contracts expire like they did where I work. 😛 not that it's the fault of the vendor but some of these software contracts cost more then hiring someone else to not only support that one product, but maybe 5 more.

It's be pretty straight forward to do a full fledged cost/expense analysis. But then again all it would take is one serious problem that you couldn't get help for to blow that analysis out of the water.

Think if your one guru was out sick or died in a bus accident on the way to work. all or your eggs would be in one basket where as with vendor support it's a lot less likely.

 

[foghorn67]

Originally posted by: SagaLore
Forget all the arguments that admins and managers typically give you.

The real reason they don't switch, is because admins don't know how to support it, and staff don't know how to use it. They are afraid of something they're unfamiliar with.

That's bullshit. Most admins work more than 8 hrs a day just to clean house and upgrade services to today's standards. Why would they want to adopt something unsupported in the midst of all this, plus day to day operations in the economy when jr. admin's don't exist anymore.

 

[Joemonkey]

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel

Originally posted by: BriGy86
What about active directory alternatives? I heard OpenLDAP wasn't as secure and may have less features. If that's the case I'm sure there are more open source programs that have the same underlying issue.

And hardware support. It's my belief that the lacking hardware support is the main downfall to open source. I can't just use any piece of hardware and get it setup easily unless I'm a guru in the certain flavor of *nix I'm trying to use. Wireless cards are a good example.
And I even had issues getting Mint and Ubuntu running correctly on a computer of mine.

Actually I've always wondered why Linux has not surpassed MS as far as Domain's/AD go yet. That's something I'd like to see. A domain controller is something you're pretty much forced to run on Windows, though you can do it on Linux but it's equivalent to NT4. (eww)

i wonder about this too, why linux and mac have no true AD/group policy equivalent

 

[arcenite]

Originally posted by: spidey07

Originally posted by: RedSquirrel

That's a good argument, when you don't let the software contracts expire like they did where I work. 😛 not that it's the fault of the vendor but some of these software contracts cost more then hiring someone else to not only support that one product, but maybe 5 more.

It's be pretty straight forward to do a full fledged cost/expense analysis. But then again all it would take is one serious problem that you couldn't get help for to blow that analysis out of the water.

/thread