Full Disclosure mailing list archives
RE: lame b!tching about xpsp2
From: "James Patterson Wicks" <pwicks () oxygen com>
Date: Fri, 13 Aug 2004 17:22:16 -0400
Barry, All references to command-line were in direct reference to Devis' comment " . . nothing more and shows how the typical M$ user is scared as hell of having ever one day to learn Unix, go through RFCs ( what for ? M$ don't even read em themselves ), and use the command line." I was simply pointing out that teaching everyone command-line is unreasonable. A lot of *nix gurus forget that there are millions of people out there who think a korn shell is something you use for tacos. When you are an administrator dealing with servers and applications, you are sometimes too far removed from the real user. Managers and designers have think like a user when it comes to making enterprise-level decisions. Normal users cannot (and will not) use command-line in an office. Add to that the fact that people not only dislike change, they try to resist it, even if it's for their benefit. These are a few of the human-factor elements that must be considered when making a change within an enterprise. Ok, your point on cost is correct. If you wanted to train your staff to use Mandrake 9 (we did a beta in the office), the training costs would be considerably less, but learning a new GUI and office application suite still requires training. Remember that not everyone in the company is comfortable with a computer to begin with. If you have ever worked at the Help Desk in a company, you would understand that there are some really dense people out there. Three years ago, migrating 500 users from Windows 98 to Windows 2000 took a month and several "training lunches" to educate the user community on the differences in the operating systems. Did the IT department feel it was necessary? Nope. Did HR feel it was necessary? They sure did, and they were right. As a whole, people have to be gently through a change, even the majority of Windows 2000 users felt it was unnecessary. Ask any CTO. The human element is a killer when it comes to enterprise-wide IT decisions. The minimum training period to move some slightly-above-minimum-wage-earning mailroom dude from Windows/Office to Linux/Open Office is a one-week training period. That still about $2500 per user. Then you have to give your Help Desk staff extra aspirin for the hundreds of "I used to do it this way in Word, how do I do it now" questions that they will receive. You can cut cost even further with in-office training, but there comes a point where you just have to concede that the costs and headache are not worth it. -----Original Message----- From: Barry Fitzgerald [mailto:bkfsec () sdf lonestar org] Sent: Friday, August 13, 2004 3:18 PM To: James Patterson Wicks Cc: Full-disclosure Subject: Re: [Full-disclosure] lame bitching about xpsp2 James Patterson Wicks wrote: James, Don't take this the wrong way, you've got a point in your e-mail here, but I'm going to call you on some FUD in your message.
The business world cannot afford to "start from zero" and retrain tens of millions of workers who use Windows desktops every day. The
business
world needs secretaries to manage calendars and write memos, not learn command line syntax. The business world needs lawyers who can sit down and knock out a brief in Word in a few minutes, not someone who needs
to
learn a bunch of keyboard shortcuts in a command-line text editor.
Time
is money, and it cost too much money to re-train a world of Windows users.
"Unix is a command line..." (repeated ad nauseum) I love this argument. As if those of us who argue for Free Software solutions want lawyers and sales associates to write memos in vi. (actually, I'm going to nix the pro-Unix argument because, frankly, "Unix" isn't the viable alternative, GNU/Linux is...) GNU/Linux is not just a command line. It's a full suite of applications. Between Mozilla and Open Office you can do any business function in GNU/Linux that you can in MS Windows in the GUI. In fact, I'd argue that there's more variance in the interfaces of MS apps between versions than there are between MS Apps and Free Software apps. If you haven't looked at it in a while (I'm going to venture that you haven't -- otherwise you wouldn't be making the statements that you are regarding command-line editors) I'd suggest you try it again.
The cost to send one of our lower-level sales associates to a one-week Unix class is between $2300 and $2500. Add to that the man hours that you lose when the person is out for a week (40 hrs * $15/hr = $600). That's around $3000 for one class. Who can learn command-line in one week? Let's say that it takes two classes for the sales associate to become proficient enough to run *nix from the command line. That's around $6,000 to learn a new OS. Even if you went the freebie route
and
installed all open-source OS and applications, what about the cost to have someone come in and install them? Then you have the cost to train the sales associate on the new applications (another weeklong course
for
$2000 + and salary). Then you have data migration costs. I conservative estimate would set the cost to move ONE employee from Windows to *nix would be around $10k. Multiply that by the number of employees (with adjustments for salary) and a company of 300 and you
are
talking over $3 million to move USERS to *nix. This number does not even address the cost of data migration, retraining administrators and changing to *nix on the servers. This number also does not calculate soft costs like loss of productivity during the migration, but you should get the point. Unless you are starting up a business now, going with *nix can be incredibly cost prohibitive. It's not about "stupidity" or someone getting their ego hurt, it's about the cost of doing business and remaining competitive.
Those numbers are HIGHLY inflated. You don't need to send your sales associates to Unix class anymore than you needed to send them to MS Windows class. There goes over half of your $10,000 figure. Installation, re-tooling, and retraining your IT staff are legitimate concerns, though. There are definately issues to consider, but let's be realistic about things here and not go off the deep end, thanks. -Barry p.s. Aren't we getting a bit off topic here? I love a good FUD fight just like anyone else... but this should probably get back on topic. OK - how about the cost of having your infrastructure overtaken by crackers? How much would that cost a fortune 1000 company? If you said "more than the inflated migration numbers I cited above" -- then you're right. This e-mail is the property of Oxygen Media, LLC. It is intended only for the person or entity to which it is addressed and may contain information that is privileged, confidential, or otherwise protected from disclosure. Distribution or copying of this e-mail or the information contained herein by anyone other than the intended recipient is prohibited. If you have received this e-mail in error, please immediately notify us by sending an e-mail to postmaster () oxygen com and destroy all electronic and paper copies of this e-mail. _______________________________________________ Full-Disclosure - We believe in it. Charter: http://lists.netsys.com/full-disclosure-charter.html
Current thread:
- RE: lame b!tching about xpsp2 James Patterson Wicks (Aug 13)
- Re: lame b!tching about xpsp2 Joshua Levitsky (Aug 13)
- Re: lame b!tching about xpsp2 devis (Aug 13)
- RE: lame b!tching about xpsp2 joe (Aug 16)
- Re: lame b!tching about xpsp2 devis (Aug 13)
- Re: lame b!tching about xpsp2 Barry Fitzgerald (Aug 16)
- <Possible follow-ups>
- RE: lame b!tching about xpsp2 James Patterson Wicks (Aug 13)
- Re: lame b!tching about xpsp2 Joshua Levitsky (Aug 13)