Fun fact about those Linux PCs in Munich

You don't hear much from the Linux-loving mainstream press, consider the following. Remember that story about the city of Munich choosing Linux to power 14,000 desktop computers? One aspect of this story that most people don't know about is that up to 80 percent of those Linux desktops will be equipped with VMWare, a virtual machine emulator, under which they will run Windows and Windows applications. That's right, folks: The majority of those "Linux desktops" will be used to run ? Windows. I'm not a big fan of Gartner, but they've issued a report, correctly titled, "Munich's Choice Doesn't Prove Linux OK for General Desktop Use," that raises some interesting issues. First, many of the Windows desktops they're migrated are very old Windows versions like Windows 3.1, making the switch to Linux less painful (it would be equally painful to switch to XP). Gartner says the cost of switching to Linux will cost 30 million Euros, or 3 million Euros more than it would cost to switch to XP, not including any steep discounts Microsoft would have no doubt provided. And finally, because most of the Linux machines will use VMWare to run Windows anyway, Linux is really being used as a hosting environment, and not as a replacement. In other words, this isn't exactly a good business case on which other companies can base a decision to migrate to Windows desktops. And, not coincidentally, that's why we're not reading about a lot of other high-profile Linux switchers.


	source: WinInfo \| posted by: Mike \| time: 14:36:00 EST Jul. 18 2003

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There are 7 comments made. Displaying comments 1 through 7 on page 1 of 1

posted by The Curious, on 14:29:14 EST Jul. 22 2003
Are there actually Microsoft loyalists who would write articles such as this still in existence?? Why is it that Microsoft's undeniably shady business practices never bother them?
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posted by Mike, on 10:03:21 EST Jul. 26 2003
truth is uncomfortable for you? Wonder how you feel about this? I guess you have no problem with companies like IBM taking code from UNIX and incorporating it into Linux, and that's not "shady business practices". Linux loyalist!
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posted by Anonymous, on 11:57:28 EST Jul. 23 2003
No one on earth can be such a fool, who will buy a new thing to use an existing thing which itself can be used directly with out the new thing. I won't think City of Munch is such a fool. It MAY be a process of change. It is too early to decide.
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posted by Anonymous, on 23:39:30 EST Jul. 25 2003
The SCO lawsuit against IBM is an absurd bid from a desperate, dying company to regain a little bit of life. It's essentially the same suit that AT&T (the original copyright holder for the code at the center of SCO's claims) filed against BSDi in t1992 and LOST. Noted and respected journalists from PBS, Computerworld, Byte, EWeek, and numerous other industry and news publications have looked at the SCO case, and agreed that SCO's claims are at best weak and unsubstantiated, and more likely totally baseless. A compilation of such articles, with excerpts, can be viewed at sco dot iwethey dot org. Articles published by lawyers or law professors who looked at the SCO case also concluded that they have no legal leg to stand on. I would include links, but as I am not registered, this site will not allow me to. There are virtually no reports written by any serious jouralists or lawywers which don't view the SCO lawsuit as suspicious. Basically, anyone with a brain thinks SCO is either lying or confused. Furthermore, there is substantial evidence that SCO has itself stolen code from both BSD and Linux. Now that's what I'd call shady business practices...
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posted by Anonymous, on 11:22:32 EST Sep. 23 2003
What does your opinion of Microsofts business practices have to do with what Munich is actually using Linux for? As for whether or not they are silly for using Linux for the purpose stated above is also besides the point. They are using it to host other operating systems, which means they are not using it for desktop use. Get over it. And before you start with the usual garbage about how I am a M$ shill and what not, let me just put it out that I use RedHat 8.0 as a file server for my XP and 2000 boxes.
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posted by Anonymous, on 12:47:51 EST Dec. 19 2003
So they use VMWare. So what? They see this as a stepping stone to running Linux applications and having access to legacy applications. What would you rather use? Word 2.0 in VMWare or OpenOffice.org 1.1 under Linux? IE 5.5 in VMWare or Mozilla 1.5 with tabbed browsing and popup blocking in Linux? I'd like to see more detailed systems design of such a rollout.
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posted by Anonymous, on 22:36:46 EST Dec. 19 2003
Get over it, linux is not ready for the desktop and we all know it. VMWare is a hack to placate linux liberals who hate anything not socialism. Microsoft Windows is a superior product hands down, and is cheaper in this situation. Political ideology like socialism should have no place in computing. Linux revolutionaries should go back to France.
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Fun fact about those Linux PCs in Munich

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