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A vista of Apples, penguins and more
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By: Michael Warrilow, Director, Hydrasight
Published: 23rd February 2007
Copyright Hydrasight © 2007
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Let me share a tale of woe on how worlds collide.
But, first, a disclaimer: just like an ex-smoker, I'm the worst kind of Mac enthusiast. In balance, I'm focused on the needs of the enterprise / business user.
So I'll start by noting that there seems to be a lot of tinkering going on among analysts from this very website. I read that my peer, David Perry, has been pondering the business use of Mac in recent blogs. Likewise, his colleague Dale Vile his shared his experiences roadtesting Vista. Sadly, I gave up trying to use 2 different Vista Release Candidates during 2006; I couldn't get openVPN to work. Meanwhile, Vista kept (re)adding those obtrusive and uncooperative boot menus that Microsoft deems we all need.
Instead, I went and installed a Linux desktop. I chose SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop because of the general level of buzz plus the higher likelihood that businesses may try this (business-oriented) distro. If you're interested, Novell tells me it's free to download and use (without a support subscription). So far, the results have been better than I expected. The user experience is more cohesive than I anticipated and approximates the Mac, more or less, which clearly beats Windows. Of course, Linux isn't ready for the mainstream consumer nor do I consider myself the analyst to make that call (and this is just a blog, after all). The gap is getting closer though, IMHO. SUSE came bundled with OpenOffice and Firefox plus a reasonable email client (lacking integrated anti-spam, unfortunately). It even had openVPN out-of-the-box!
So, what's the rub? How do these worlds collide?
Well, we use Microsoft Groove at Hydrasight and guess what? It only runs on Windows… and that's the big problem for business. Be it CAD or accounting software, chemical analysis or manufacturing, there's just too many business apps running on Windows. Moreover, business is slow to change (much more than consumers or power users).
Allow me to illustrate: I bought an iBook G4 for my wife for Christmas in 2004. Ironically, six months later, I'd pilfered it for some onsite consultancy work I was doing at an Australian bank. On several occassions the Mac was automatically blamed for file formating problems (i.e., PowerPoint and Word). No matter that my Mac was running Microsoft Office X!
This may get a little easier, at least for power users, with the no-charge availability of VMWare (Server on Linux and Fusion beta on Mac), which is another option on top of those that David Perry mentioned (i.e., Parallels, BootCamp). I did a P2V conversion of my Dell laptop, using VMWare's no-charge conversion tool, and now have my old Windows machine simultaneously co-existing inside my new Linux desktop. Personally, I don't believe that even this will be enough to displace Microsoft on the business desktop but it is another foot in the door.
As to the challenges for business upgrading to Vista, that's another topic entirely.
PS—When I do get the chance to upgrade my mobile computer, I'll give strong consideration to a Intel-based Mac with VMWare software (and/or an iPhone). Alas, if only this had been available for my old iBook G4 :-(
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23rd February 2007: 'Samuel' said:
Michael, I would be very interested to hear your views on Ubuntu Linux 6.10 (Edgy Eft). Ubuntu is 100% free and is an extremely polished Linux desktop with GNOME. (if you prefer KDE try KBUNTU)
Reply to Samuel?
23rd February 2007: 'Duncan' said:
I have just installed SLED 10 and the installation routine is still quite complex. In contrast I also installed Ubuntu Edgy and it ran with minimal input.
For legacy MS apps I would recommend using the freely available VMware server or Parallels Workstation (a small license fee). WINE is okay, but falls short of being considered useful.
It is worth noting that you will need a valid MS Windows license (OEM is not transferrable) for virtual machines (WINE appears exempt as there is no need for an OS install)
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23rd February 2007: 'Mike Shaw' said:
SLED, as you call it, is perfectly simple to install and configure. It is a highly polished, professional Linux distribution targeted at enterprise desktops.
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23rd February 2007: 'RJK' said:
I would imagine the learning curve to implement Linux desktops (regardless of distro) would be a soul destroying task in any enterprise!
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23rd February 2007: 'Andrew Cuddles' said:
I cannot see the free download link you mentioned - all I see is Buy SuSE Linux???
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23rd February 2007: 'Emma Ford' said:
Openoffice and Firefox - hardly enterprise software. Best to stick with MS Office and Internet Explorer.
Reply to Emma Ford?
23rd February 2007: 'Matt B' said:
Open Office and Firefox are not enterprise ready? Why exactly? I have found both to be quite robust applications and they're FREE. Why are some people so spooked by open source?
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25th February 2007: 'Daniel' said:
Don't worry, comments like these are paid by M$ :)
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23rd February 2007: 'Roger Banks, CTO' said:
Linux on the server, yes. On the desktop, NO. There is a long way to go before companies will consider this a viable alternative to Windows.
Roger
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25th February 2007: 'Birger Kollstrand' said:
It is interesting to see individuals speaking for ALL companies.
We are using Linux on the desktop and it works very well. There are of course areas that are not perfect, but guess what? THat is also the case with Microsofts SW.
If you want to go for a transition, make sure that you put forward requirements to your suppliers that all SW should be cross platform and support Linux, Unix, BSD and MAC. It is not impossible you know.
Just look at the excellent cross platform web browser from Opera. It's made with cross platform libraries from Trolltech (Qt)
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23rd February 2007: 'Phil' said:
SUSE does have a very fresh feel to it. I love the slab start menu and the easy configuration using YAST. Keep us informed :-)
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23rd February 2007: 'Digger' said:
Forget the intel mac and iphone, get a palm treo and dig out an old 486 to run Linux on. It will save you a lot of money!
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23rd February 2007: 'Tim Kenning' said:
SLED comes with games by default. Is this really an enterprise solution. More thought is needed ...
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23rd February 2007: 'Robert' said:
Write an article about Linux and all the open source zealots come crawling out of the woodwork! Give us a break (and a copy of Vista)
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23rd February 2007: 'Peter' said:
I wish Adobe and Microsoft would release Linux ports like they have on the Mac. This is really holding the Linux desktop back!
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23rd February 2007: 'Harry Semen' said:
How about your experiences with Evolution (the email client). Openoffice gets stronger with each release.
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25th February 2007: 'Birger Kollstrand' said:
We have used Evolution on our Linux desktops. It is a good and fairly stable client when run under GNOME. We have seen quite a few issues with it under KDE which is our default windowing system.
Kontact is our prefered solution and it integrates well with our MS Exchange email/calendar server.
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23rd February 2007: 'Mark Bench' said:
I bought SLED 10 directly from Novell for $50, and that included OpenOffice, Firefox, and many other applications. It's a heck of a deal, considering that support for a full year is included with the price. It came with 2 DVDs and 10 CDs; half are for 32-bit, and the other half are for 64-bit CPUs. I did install it on my Athlon 64 desktop. I have to add that I started using SUSE in 2003, but this SLED is the best ever. I didn't have any problems with its installation, but I had to install a few packages (using YAST2, very easy, though) to be able to watch movies and videos directly from DVDs. I haven't seen Vista, however I use XP Pro at work, and if I compare it with SLED, I agree with the author. SLED is better organized and intuitive in regards of where everything is, highly configurable, and what is better, so far I haven't had a single crash, while at work I had an average of once or twice crashes a week. To avoid those crashes, I made part of my routine to reboot Windows XP every morning! I believe that if more people try SLED they would like it.
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23rd February 2007: 'Hein' said:
Linux is already very usable. I have Opensuse on a dual boot install with Windows XP pro and I hardly boot Windows anymore. I learned to love Linux and the apps that come with it. Openoffice, Firefox, Evolution are good enough to do your daily work.
Accounting software not on linux? Ever heard of SAP? This well known ERP software runs very well on Linux. There is another option for software that only runs on windows: you could consider using citrix.
And don't be fooled: Installing Linux takes a lot less time than installing any Windows version.
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24th February 2007: 'Nick' said:
Thunderbird is available and it sports a spam filter.
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4th March 2007: 'Bob' said:
If you are looking for an application to run windows programs on Linux, you may want to look into wine. Wine is a Linux application that will allow you to run some windows applications. The software is free and still in development stages.
I have been able to MS Office on Linux with this programs and a few random games.
You can get it at: www.winehq.com
Reply to Bob?
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