Toc linux

[John McGregor]

> Has anyone attend seminars on window$
> secruity? I have. window$ has become more complex than UNIX. As window
> $ support costs spiral out of control due to the increasing complexity
> of the product, UNIX/Linux looks more attractive due to its stability.
> RickT
> 

I also think that the retraining costs are over blown.One of the
arguments that the Microsoft camp puts out is that moving to Linux will
require the hiring of extra IT staff. I think that this is a fallacious
argument. New staff will be a requirement for the project, but for
payroll and all other reasons, they will be replacements not additions
Look around your class or office. There's a good likelihood that you are
going to find 80% of the members doing 100% of the work. Migrating to a
new technology provides an employer an excellent excuse to hand out a
few redundancies by way of forced retirement packages and then hire new
employees with the required skill set. To the enterprise, the cost of
carrying the deadwood plus the cost of losing valued employees to
overwork, in the long term far out weighs the one time charges involved
in laying off staff due to lack of work. Not-with-standing the one time
charges, the effect on the bottom line will be negligible.

There will be some retraining necessary for the end users, but I doubt
that it will be excessive. Its been my experience that moving users from
Microsoft Office to Open Office and from Outlook / Outlook Express to
Evolution or Thunderbird has been pretty seamless when a well thought
out faq is presented at the start of the process (and the fact that the
'help' function in Open Office actually does provide usable help). The
main reason, though, is that the vast majority of end users don't use
the complex features of the Microsoft apps and don't need to relearn
them either.

John




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