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Fail Client: How Linux Fails At The Corporate Desktop
My work takes me in and out of busy offices all day long. I see Macs, I see PCs, I see servers and printers. I see PCs running Windows which is no surprise, but what I never see are PCs running Linux. “Why is this?” I always ask myself. I mean, the benefits of open source far outweigh the risks and from an administrative viewpoint, the OS is a lot easier to manage. So what is it that is holding Linux back? It’s not spreadsheets and documents –word files and excel files can be easily handled in LibreOffice– nor is it Access/database related as you can get KEXI running in no time. No, I will tell you what is holding Linux back and the answer is simple. Outlook. |
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Comments (12)
Everything you mention exists for Linux. It just isn't in one easy to integrate marketable package. Whoever sticks it all together and markets it will do just fine.
Quoting:It just isn't in one easy to integrate marketable package.
Exactly, and I am very surprised that Red Hat or Canonical haven't already done it or at least gave it a good attempt yet, especially when all the pieces are already available.
Quoting:I am very surprised that Red Hat or Canonical haven't already done it or at least gave it a good attempt yet, especially when all the pieces are already available.Canonical hasn't made much in the way of inroads into the enterprise. It's not their primary focus. I can understand why they haven't done.
Red Hat, OTOH, could do it fairly easily and, like you, I wonder why they haven't. I can and have built Linux systems that do everything listed in the article. I have seen some rather large enterprises that do use Red Hat Enterprise Linux on the desktop and do not lack any of this functionality. It's a matter of assembly, repackaging, branding and marketing, not any technical shortcoming or lack of software.
What really bothers me is Red Hat bought the iPlanet solution and didn't run with it.
Good article and the guy has a valid point.
A company I was working for back in 1998 was looking exactly for this to replace the Exchange/Outlook combo they were using and they looked at Linux specifically Redhat as part of their investigation into replacements.
At the time they were using a mixed MS/HP-Unix environment but were wanting to go all Linux on the backend and a mixture of MS/Linux on the desktop and ditching HP-Unix entirely. Sadly it was not to be as they were unable to find any one stop easily manageable replacement for Exchange/Outlook. I believe they went the Lotus Domino route on HP-UX in the end and Linux was relegated to use by developers, although I can't be sure as I left before the final solution was implemented.
I can quite believe this is going on all the time in the corporate sphere and am surprised that the likes of Redhat have done nothing to rectify the situation in all this time.
A company I was working for back in 1998 was looking exactly for this to replace the Exchange/Outlook combo they were using and they looked at Linux specifically Redhat as part of their investigation into replacements.
At the time they were using a mixed MS/HP-Unix environment but were wanting to go all Linux on the backend and a mixture of MS/Linux on the desktop and ditching HP-Unix entirely. Sadly it was not to be as they were unable to find any one stop easily manageable replacement for Exchange/Outlook. I believe they went the Lotus Domino route on HP-UX in the end and Linux was relegated to use by developers, although I can't be sure as I left before the final solution was implemented.
I can quite believe this is going on all the time in the corporate sphere and am surprised that the likes of Redhat have done nothing to rectify the situation in all this time.
Quoting:Canonical hasn't made much in the way of inroads into the enterprise.
@caitlyn,
That is why I am surprised because creating such an integrated solution would have been a good enabler to get into the enterprise market. My bigger surprise is at Red hat because they already were and could have expanded their market share quite a bit.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers desktop solutions in the sense that chickens fly and horses swim.
With enough propulsion, chickens, like pigs, can fly.
Quoting:Red Hat Enterprise Linux offers desktop solutions in the sense that chickens fly and horses swim.FUD and utter nonsense! Again, I consulted for them and they do offer desktop solutions to their large enterprise customers. You know why? If they didn't do a good job of it they would lose those enterprise customers in the server room as well as on the desktop.
What Red Hat does not do and does not care about is the consumer desktop or the community desktop.
@caitlyn
Exactly my point. Although there may be various bits and bobs that could be put together to come close to the MS environment it isn't easy. And when you have over-worked sys-admins they aren't likely to want to move to something that takes a lot more of their time to maintain a basic user base.
My CTO actually looked into the open source Exchange replacements about two years ago. They were more expensive compared to our Charity license in the US and Enterprise license in the rest of our offices. And that was just for the Exchange part. And he did ask about charity discounts and such.
Exactly my point. Although there may be various bits and bobs that could be put together to come close to the MS environment it isn't easy. And when you have over-worked sys-admins they aren't likely to want to move to something that takes a lot more of their time to maintain a basic user base.
My CTO actually looked into the open source Exchange replacements about two years ago. They were more expensive compared to our Charity license in the US and Enterprise license in the rest of our offices. And that was just for the Exchange part. And he did ask about charity discounts and such.
@caitlyn. I should have stated "consumer desktop", indeed. I'm using RHEL for the job too and know it well, since one of my clients is a geophysical research office, and their calculation software (edited by Haliburton, sold 50.000 dollars per workstation) is certified for RHEL WS 64-bit only, and another client (the company that builds the motorways here in South France) is currently migrating their Oracle Database servers from Windows to Linux.
As a production desktop for clients (the human ones) I've been using CentOS for years, but I've become wary of it. Go figure. Recently I've mostly been using a heavily tweaked Debian stable with a dumbed-down KDE4 (http://www.microlinux.fr/desktop_linux.php). And if I take a peek in my crystal ball, it looks like the future (for my company, YMMV) lies in Slackware (first love) on both servers and desktops, with XFCE as main desktop environment, since both GNOME and KDE seem to suffer from some curious form of Sisyphus syndrome (e. g. work until everything is perfect, then let everything roll downhill and start all over).
As a production desktop for clients (the human ones) I've been using CentOS for years, but I've become wary of it. Go figure. Recently I've mostly been using a heavily tweaked Debian stable with a dumbed-down KDE4 (http://www.microlinux.fr/desktop_linux.php). And if I take a peek in my crystal ball, it looks like the future (for my company, YMMV) lies in Slackware (first love) on both servers and desktops, with XFCE as main desktop environment, since both GNOME and KDE seem to suffer from some curious form of Sisyphus syndrome (e. g. work until everything is perfect, then let everything roll downhill and start all over).
and they do offer desktop solutions to their large enterprise customers.....
Yeah, maybe you could if you were big enough but somehow I don't think a company is going to realize a Billion Dollars of Wall Street Goodness by supplying Soccer Mom or even CEO Mom support for her Windows Machine(s). Just sayin'.....
http://www.redhat.com/about/news/archive/2012/3/A-billion-th...
Yeah, maybe you could if you were big enough but somehow I don't think a company is going to realize a Billion Dollars of Wall Street Goodness by supplying Soccer Mom or even CEO Mom support for her Windows Machine(s). Just sayin'.....
http://www.redhat.com/about/news/archive/2012/3/A-billion-th...
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The first is what underlies the Outlook/Exchange configuration and may therefore actually be more important in most business organizations. That is Active Directory. A single point of user configuration and a single point of user authorization. It provide the Outlook/Exchange system with a Global Address List of all the other staff and their e-mail addresses. And although you can integrate Linux into AD, it's pretty much a hack job that really doesn't work well for mobile device users (laptops and such).
The other item being used by many businesses is Sharepoint. This also integrates with Active Directory for users and their authorization, and provides file sharing that works very well.
When Novell first "became a Linux company" I had high hopes. Surely they would integrate NDIS into Linux and provide a superior directory system over MS AD. It really was a better AD than AD. Alas, no. Perhaps the thought of lost revenues prevented it? In any case it never happened. And there isn't any other way under Linux that is simple to use that lets you duplicate AD.
I have to support Windows systems in the organization in which I am an Administrator. And just recently I have also taken on the task of supporting Apple Mac systems as well. And although the Macs can work in the MS Office environment with Office for Mac, they don't work as well as the Windows systems when it comes to total system integration. But, they are hands down superior to trying to do the same thing with Linux.
I beat against this wall for about 14 years trying to convince this non-profit organization to move to Linux. But about a year and a half ago decided it was a battle that just cannot be won. It seems there are no developers in the Linux world who are interested in creating a true business capable and friendly interfaced system able to do what AD + Outlook/Exchange + Sharepoint can do across multiple systems spread around the world.
Oh, and did I mention easy to configure?
Too bad really.