TOC Linux

[Robert Brockway]

On Fri, 3 Mar 2006, Randy Jonasz wrote:

> After looking it over, it appears the greatest hurdle to overcome is the
> cost of retraining.  I think  the study does not effectiveky represent
> this.  Alas, we live in a windows world and people have become accustomed to
> how that OS functions.  To teach a whole new skill set to a Sales Rep who
> only wants to update his contacts and fire off sales proposals is daunting.
> We would have to account for an intial reduction in productivity and
> possible lower morale as people reject change.  This is not to say that OS
> solutions are not viable. But I am finding the greatest objection to
> conversion is what I have mentioned.

I think this is true to a point however I've seen plenty of examples of 
non-technical people surviving just fine without MS-Windows and a mouse. 
30 years ago it was common for the secretaries in some organisations to 
use a dumbterm - somehow they survived without a mouse :)

I've personally worked with a hundred completely non-technical data entry 
people who tapped away at dumbterms all day long without complaint (I was 
a consultant sysadmin on the server).

I've also need police officers using an interface to a mainframe system to 
enter data.  The mainframe interface was a tn3270 emulator running on OS/9 
Macs.  That entire state-wide police department ran that way for 15 or 20 
years just fine.

There can be resistance but OTOH if proper training is provided a lot of 
people will just see it as part of their job and get on with it.

Rob

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