Microsoft's admissions on PC vs Consoles

Originally Posted by JemyM
This have always been a major argument for apple. But if you have a staff member who are familiar with an easy-to-use linux system and offers to install it for you, there's a chance you go through with the switch, especially if the company is interested in saving money.

I sincerely doubt a company would consider switching to Linux based on the knowledge and experience of a single employee. What if he would find a new job?

I would think the cost of the OS is marginal compared to the total IT cost a company has. Companies, especially larger ones, are very careful in switching to a new OS even if it is from XP to Vista. As long as Microsoft is still giving support on XP, many won't make the move just yet. The cost of such a move are not to be neglected, with no productivity gain at all. The cost of switching from Windows to Linux are likely to be bigger and I don't think it would improve on productivity.

Originally Posted by Myrthos
I would think the cost of the OS is marginal compared to the total IT cost a company has. Companies, especially larger ones, are very careful in switching to a new OS even if it is from XP to Vista. As long as Microsoft is still giving support on XP, many won't make the move just yet. The cost of such a move are not to be neglected, with no productivity gain at all. The cost of switching from Windows to Linux are likely to be bigger and I don't think it would improve on productivity.

Jemy already stated that it's more of a smaller company thing. The larger companies won't choose for another OS like you stated. Still you'd be suprised how many banks work on Mainframe. The visible shell might be windows, but that's just the client side. In every serious IT department you've got a mixture of servers: windows + unix + linux.

The real reason why many of the small to middle companies won't switch, is the application layer. There are simply to many applications woven into an M$ OS or even worse M$ Office. Here at the Universital Hospital of Antwerp (UZA) we (my colleagues and myself) would like to change the OS, but it simply can't be done because of the patiënt administration tools.

edit: I should also specify that because of the unique nature of this company our M$ license is a lot cheaper too. -> That makes it less appealing to change to a free version of a worse supported application.

Originally Posted by Bartacus
When was it? Every six months a new one comes out that you can get with the update.

About 6 months ago. My first problem was trying to install the 64 bit version. I have an Intel E8400 processor, which is definitely 64 bit, but the install just locked up continually. I then tried the more manual install, instead of the GUI. Still no luck. Finally got the 32 bit version to work, but never could get the networking to work right. Spent several days ont heir support forums, but never got a decent answer.

Originally Posted by Alrik Fassbauer
The graphics cards manufacturers are stuck regardless: Even now, there's a new development of a combine of CPU & GPU growing.

Intel, for example, wants to "enrich" theirs CPUs with graphics abilities - whicg would make cards obsolete. NVidia, on the other hand, argues that a GPU is much, much faster than any CPU right now and could therefore used in a quite similar manner than a CPU.

AMD/ATI is seemingly on both parties.

From what I've read so far, there might be a serious revolution in a few years, regarding that.

I saw a video of a demonstration by Intel of one of these systems. With their generic on board graphics chip, they were able to produce a 3-D environment that was equal to the quality of most recent games. It wasn't pre-rendered, the guy was moving a character around in it and such. My understanding is that right now, the driver support for those on-board chips by Intel just isn't there yet.

While I don't subscribe to the PC gaming is dying camp, I do think it is being outpaced by consoles. As such, I think something like this is essential to the long term health of gaming. It would open up a much larger market, as we would essentially return to a time when most PC's out there were capable of running most games.

Originally Posted by Bartacus
The real reason why many of the small to middle companies won't switch, is the application layer. There are simply to many applications woven into an M$ OS or even worse M$ Office. Here at the Universital Hospital of Antwerp (UZA) we (my colleagues and myself) would like to change the OS, but it simply can't be done because of the patiënt administration tools.

That's a good point. In my profession, we use Excel extensively. I've programmed more VBA than I care to remember. I know that OpenOffice now has a version of basic you can program in it, but I'd have to convert 100's of thousands of lines of code (granted half of it probably needs a good work over at this point!). I do work for a large company, but the small firms in my industry use the same tools.

Now, if either Wine ran Excel flawlessly or they adapted OpenOffice to run VBA flawlessly, it might be an easier sell.

Originally Posted by blatantninja
About 6 months ago. My first problem was trying to install the 64 bit version. I have an Intel E8400 processor, which is definitely 64 bit, but the install just locked up continually. I then tried the more manual install, instead of the GUI. Still no luck. Finally got the 32 bit version to work, but never could get the networking to work right. Spent several days ont heir support forums, but never got a decent answer.

Ok, then I know the sollution -> The newest systems are never really good supported by the Linux people. The reason is quite clear: they have to do the work to make it compatible while M$ demands to get it working for their OS. I have the same version of CPU and it's working fine now with the latest ubuntu distro (Hardy something?) I however have no more a problem with wireless networkcards since I switched to cable again. I had an older pc running with Feisty Fawn -the one before your try-out- with a wireless network card without any problem.