I'm sorry, but I've read far better FUD (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt)
than this piece at JTAP. It claims to be looking at alternatives to
Microsoft products, but spends most of the article praising their
software and totally failing to look at the alternatives.
Section 3.1 trots out the old "no applications" myth. 3.3 fails to
realise that most Linux SAMBA fileservers are set to report themselves
as NT file and print servers to avoid discovery because there is so
much FUD out there at the moment.
Section 3.4 contains a warming nugget of truth by pointing out the
dangers of committing to Exchange server. However, it then totally
overlooks the fact that any licence for Microsoft products can be
terminated by Microsoft to force an upgrade (unless something has
changed since I last had a MS product a few years ago).
The case studies are interesting, but are just that: case studies.
They show a snapshot of sites tied into closed solutions from
Microsoft, Novell and others and scared of using anyone new, even if
they get hardly any support from their current vendors.
Section 5 is almost criminal in not considering Free software. Moving
from the arms of Microsoft to Lotus or Corel will only mean that they
head off down the same blind alley, but with a new running-mate. The
true, if bitter, pill that needs to be swallowed is that we must
standardise: not on vendor or ($DEITY help us) application, but on
open formats and open protocols. If it can't talk to everything else,
why use it? You can already see where that road has lead us with
MS-Word. Section 7 makes my argument here further, even if it is a
bit extreme ("essentially no vendor-independent standards" and "HTML
will be superseded[sic] by XML" stick out) and it ignores non-MS
provided MS file viewers from Sun and Free software.
Section 6 puts forward arguements for and against keeping the status
quo, but that option is not available to us (see arguments under 4 and
5 above). Point 3 for ("concern that...not included use of the IT
products most commonly used") overlooks the reason why Microsoft et al
have academic licences: if students use them at uni, they'll carry on
to use them at work. Marketing, pure and simple.
The conclusions? Corresponding to the article's ones:
* FUD
* short-sighted
* OK about servers
* see above for rest ;)
In short, I really can't see what "issues" this article raises at all,
other than how to break people out of the spell of closed software.
Anyone in East Anglia could come see me at ALUG1 on Sunday if they
want to discuss this with some examples to hand.
Details at http://www.anglian.lug.org.uk/
--
MJR
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