RE: [TCLUG:3331] Windows NT pricing

[Brad DeJong <1796@mn3.lawson.lawson.com>]

Vince Platt wrote:

... Linux won't significantly dent market share though until it becomes   
better at fulfilling the needs that Windows fulfills.  Primary among   
those is ease of use.  Next in line is Microsoft's ability to integrate   
their products to naturally complement each other and work together.  ...


I look at "ease of use" being supplied in a number of areas -

Installation -  Frankly, I think this one is a draw.  The Linux   
installation routines have gotten a lot better with the possible   
exceptions of getting drivers for the latest and greatest hardware (video   
cards in particular), although even that is improving as more   
manufacturer's get on board.

Administration -  For small workgroups that can operate with the canned   
utilities, I'd have to give the edge to Windows.  As things get larger,   
Linux (any Unix) has the advantage.  The biggest advantage is that   
Windows comes with some canned packages that almost do what you want.   
 Simple system monitoring with graphical displays is one area that comes   
to mind.  But their user administration and such doesn't seem to scale   
well.

Ease (cost) of customization -  Advantage Linux.  With the standard Unix   
tools, it is fairly easy to write your own custom commands to do system   
monitoring, user administration, security, file maintenance, ...  To get   
the tools for Windows that come with Linux costs $$$.

As for getting tools to "work together", Linux blows Microsoft away.  (At   
least for the kind of things I want a system to do :^)  An example of   
this that I saw last week is when a friend was porting a package that he   
has that accesses the public library system and generates a list of books   
that his kids have checked out that are due back during the next week.   
 On Linux, he could pipe commands to a telnet session and get responses   
piped back.  Try doing that with the Windows telnet program!  It is   
strictly stand-alone, there is no such thing as "working together" with   
that tool.