Linux and the public sector

[DimPrawn]

http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/...9166214,00.htm

Birmingham City Council is mulling an extension to its open source software deployment, which was criticised last year for falling short of expectations.

The council revealed last autumn it had installed just 200 Linux desktops, while using up more than £500,000 of open source public funding . The project was subsequently mothballed, and some machines in the city's library cluster were migrated to Windows XP instead.

Feck me, what a waste of time and money! Too many tree hugger anti Microsoft feckwits with time on their hands and fingers in the public purses.

Microsoft is cheap, it works well. Get over yourselves.

[andy]

If microsoft was not such a bully, linux would have been a top o/s
and is better , reliable, fast and does not crash.

[DimPrawn]

But costs £500,000 for 200 desktops that then migrate to XP. Genius product!

[Euro-commuter]

http://www.silicon.com/publicsector/...9166214,00.htm

Birmingham City Council is mulling an extension to its open source software deployment, which was criticised last year for falling short of expectations.

The council revealed last autumn it had installed just 200 Linux desktops, while using up more than £500,000 of open source public funding

200 Linux desktops, £500,000? Are you sure about that? £2500 each?

How could it cost so much, without Windows being involved?

Ah, wait:

Birmingham's current open-source footprint covers 200 PCs in the main city library ..... Out of those PCs, some are running an entirely open source desktop and some are running Windows with Open Office.

[AtW]

How could it cost so much, without Windows being involved?

Linux license cost: £0
IBM consultants' work: £2500

HTH

[Euro-commuter]

But costs £500,000 for 200 desktops that then migrate to XP. Genius product!

Bollox posting TBH Dim: as if Linux itself cost 2,500 per machine. I can understand a TCO argument, but just to about some vague "news" about one project, public sector at that, is not exactly a content-laden discussion.

[Euro-commuter]

Linux license cost: £0
IBM consultants' work: £2500

HTH

Ah, right. And with Windows instead, it would be cheaper???

[andy]

Linux/unix will keep us in employment for the next 20-30 years
unlike windows admin which I am sure even 10 year olds can manage

[DimPrawn]

They had a Library of 200 PC's running Windows.

Some feckwit said "Rather than migrate to XP, we can migrate to Linux. It's free so the cost will be nothing."

£500K later (training, consultants, IT contractors) they have 200 PC's now running Linux. Turns out many of the Library staff used Windows only software and complex Excel spreadsheets, so these machines had to be migrated to XP.

And that sums up Linux on the desktop. License cost 0, migration cost £2500 per PC, saving???????



A top spec NEW PC with Vista costs about £500.

[AtW]

Ah, right. And with Windows instead, it would be cheaper???

MSDE or whatever the certification is are cheap as chips.

Actual OEM cost of Microsoft OS is around 50-100 GBP, this is very good deal and you can't beat it, it is only on server side where Microsoft and others like Oracle try to rip you off, that's where Linux makes perfect sense financially.