How to move your company to open source...Or maybe not....

Such a short article. I hope TJ reads lxer and convince his boss to read it too. There are many smart intelligent guys who are knowledgeable and experienced in moving shops from Windows to Linux. I am sure many of us can help in the process of convincing her by presenting facts and offering ideas.

TJ, if you are reading, how about more specifics? This could be a very good case study for many to benefit from.

Problem one:

Unless there is powerful commitment up and down the line (as in the Ernie Ball) case, you are not going to toss Microsoft out overnight.

Nor should you try.

The truth is that major systems changes hurt. They just do. It's the nature of the beast and has nothing to do with the new system being Linux and/or Open Source.

Most successful implementations start with "invisible" implementations: fileservers, webservers, etc.

I don't know what your e-mail needs are, and the extent to which you use Exchange (a truly wretched mail server), but Outlook users can still be Outlook users with a Linux-based mail server.

Desktops are the last and hardest outpost because that's where non-IT people come into contact with the technology.

One strategy that can help is to pilot small groups of users who might be well-served by Linux desktops so that you and the company can get some experience with them. That also has the advantage of keeping down the number of new users you may have to hold hands for.