Munich considers dumping Linux for ... GULP ... Windows!

Re: Lack of integrated email/contacts/calendar?

"Remove Windows from a modern desktop PC and install Linux, and you are left with vastly overspecified hardware. But do the opposite..."

Just to note that Windows 8.1 outperformed the latest Ubuntu in benchmark tests such as boot time, 3D graphics and copying large files...

Re: Lack of integrated email/contacts/calendar?

Linux today is as bloated as Windows. Don't say 'well try Puppy Linux or some other lightweight distribution (amongst thousands).' It is fair to compare commercial offerings, such as Redhat, with Windows.

Re: Lack of integrated email/contacts/calendar?

Do you remember the study they did. If I recall correctly, Mac's were considered, they were also forecasted to have the lowest support and maintenance cost of all platforms, but the highest investment cost for a change, was it roughly 3 times higher than continue with pc's.

The mac way would have had MS Office and Exchange support, apps would have been quite similar to work with, that meant lower training costs than going with Linux.

I still don't understand what the criterias was that made them go with Linux. They surely were not criterias that was made from the users perspective.

I may though mix it up with another similar study. As I've read a few of them.

Re: Lack of integrated email/contacts/calendar?

Sounds like you ran that through Google Translate, AC.

I would guess that that is 80% of employees, not every employee has a computer, or even a desk. That was 80% of all jobs, not 80% of all PC users, there is a difference.

Hello RICHTO

It's been a while...

Re: Lack of integrated email/contacts/calendar?

"That so called admin had the cheek to admit that, when really he/she should be looking for a new job...."

It's not the admins fault that his management made him use a crappy Open Source platform for email that hardly anyone else uses and simply doesnt work reliably with mobile email devices.

Re: Lack of integrated email/contacts/calendar?

Hmm. My smartphone connects totally well and easily to a FOSS mailserver. Well, it does not connect nicely to an Exchange server, but that's not what is mentioned in the article.

You do know what integration means don't you?

So you can access your email. What about your calendar and contacts from the same app? Oh, right, that isn't going to happen.

So how is it integrated? If you're faced with a question that is tough to answer replacing it with a different question that you can is generally not helpful.

Re: I smell a shill

I smell irrational open-source fanboy narrow mindedness.

It's all about the right tool for the right job - if a closed source product (even MS) can do that better, so be it.

Re: I smell a shill

Indeed. Chances are that the "functionality" argument is more likely based on the lack of certain high profile brand names rather than actual ability to do something.

That and a large sum of money.

Re: I smell a shill

What, because they've dared criticise your holy grail. It hasn't worked for Munich because of a whole lot of reasons, be they technical or operational. Instead of seeing if the problem can be fixed, the Open Source crowd bitch and moan about everything and point the finger. I suggest they start looking at their software and give it the functionality that people want/need.

Re: I smell a shill - "lack of training may have been the bigger cause"

So training and the time for it is free?

The strength of MS, much as I dislike it, is that even we haters know it and can use it with no training or with the help of a colleague for those awkward cases, with lots of MS documentation on their and other sites.

Linux still shows the gaps. It is still not as complete or consistent as full, genuine UNIX systems of yore. Please do not waste your time arguing. I have decades of experience with both, including a couple of years when I persisted with Linux email in a largish firm, despite the laughable integration with other applications and the workarounds to display common attachment formats. I am using it now for very large, enterprise applications, in a very large financial environment. But for day to day, non-technical or specialised users or office systems (email, calendars, word processing, presentations, spreadsheets, reports, etc), who have not got time at work to work out the simple, daily tasks and work management, Linux as yet does not cut it in comparison with Windows. Large firms have got thousands of employees, with scores of people leaving and joining every day. They need systems that are familiar and easy for most people without expensive training, special set-up, complicated update and security management and expensive, inhouse experts to manage the routine office management.

Personally, I prefer Solaris, OSX, BSd, almost any *ix to most versions of Linux. All this time and effort and the Linux cracks still show. It will be ready for the desktop when it fulfils the user requirements as easily as MS seems to do, with no more effort and knowledge than Windows seems to require of its users and administrators. Licences may be expensive. But so are human specialists and their time, plus much software required on Linux platforms is ported, professional, licensed software - so still cost.

If you believe otherwise, you have not worked in or managed informatics in a company employing more than a dozen or so people who are not all technicians with time to set up and administer their tools instead of working for the company.

Re: I smell a shill

>>If they were really any good, presumably they would be working in the real world for twice the money and not for local government...

Pardon? As one who works for "business", I think you are an idiot. Local Government has a rather bigger, more serious, more critical role than most businesses, even when such businesses are paid by local government to do some jobs.

Almost any business can fail and life carries on regardless unless you are an employee. If local governemnt fails, you get rubbish in the streets, roads becoming unusable, law and order breaking down, education collapsing and much more. Many of the staff are underpaid and too few for the jobs to be done, because people like you will happily pay over the odds for a private business product but resent even one penny of tax to pay for local governent workers and equipment.

Local governement tends to do its job so well that pratts are unaware of how effective it is and hurl abuse willy nilly.

Tell you what, why do n't you work for your local government and make things so much better?

I've worked for state bodies: but for most of my working life I have been with private enterprise. PE is incredibly inefficient, narrow minded and, technically, lacking as "business" prefers not to take risk and loves to save money on the essentials in order to pay the upper echelons and shareholders more than can be justified. Of course there are exceptions and, of course, some civil servants are appalling. But overall, I think we should have the best and brightest managing the infrastrucutre of our lives and society - if that fails, we are in big troubel very quickly, along with the businesses relying on the infrastructure of the society.

Re: I smell a shill

> If anything Open Source 'free' software is a truimph of socialist idiology, <

Actually, if anything OpenSource is far more libertarian; open and voluntary co-operation on an agreed-upon goal. You can be free to not participate, or to branch off in your own direction.

Re: Lack of integrated email/contacts/calendar?

My Take would be because the only provided options were: webmail or Outlook.

It's no surprise that Outlook doesn't play nice with third party servers when the email client vendor happens to also sell an email(/groupware) server solution..