On Monday I had a wonderful opportunity to visit Air Product’s Allentown campus as a part of the Academy of Information Technology’s shadowing program. This program allowed me to see how a major corporation conduct’s their technology business. While I was observing the different things they were showing me, something became very clear - Windows isn’t going anywhere.
As they were showing me how they get their business done, I saw a common trend. They were using Microsoft this and Microsoft that. Literally everything they were doing was based around some Microsoft product. Sure sound like a monopoly, doesn’t it? Well, that’s just it. Microsoft offers the full package, while the alternative operating systems require a number of products just to complete the same tasks.
Microsoft is winning in the workplace since they offer the full suite. Microsoft owns the operating system, the database server, the programming language, the business programs; you name it and Microsoft has a solution for that need. Microsoft is tailoring their services directly to the business. I don’t see that same kind of marketing coming from the other companies.
Let me just give you an example of one use of Microsoft’s products in the corporate arena. The one person was showing me a database of inventory. That database was stored on Microsoft’s SQL Server and accessed through Microsoft Access. Once the data was loaded, the person was able to show me simulated inventory usage through a script written in Microsoft’s own .NET platform.
That kind of task would never be able to be accomplished easily on any other operating system. While a task like that could be done, it would require too much work on the company’s end. See, a corporation comes to Microsoft with a problem. Microsoft is able to completely handle the problem using their own software and they can sell the company the solution as a bundle. This is exactly what companies want. They don’t want to license from fifteen different companies. They want to go to a company which can offer them the complete solution for the best price.
This isn’t the only reason why Microsoft is winning the battle; they have a secret weapon up their sleeve, and that weapon is cost of transition. Companies over the years have had programs written directly for their companies’ needs. The programs were once and done jobs and they no longer need to maintain an active development staff. They only need to continue to support and maintain the existing programs. If a company wants to switch platforms, those programs would need to be rewritten for the new platform. To complete that transition, programmers would need to be hired, which of course does not come for free.
The hiring of programers is the problem. Air Product’s head of Global IT made this very clear to me. The days of developing programs are over. Air Products only hires people to continue to maintain their existing set of programs. Sure, once and a while they need to do some upgrades such as switch to .NET, but that’s an easier and cheaper transition than creating a program from scratch.
So far alternative operating systems have failed in both areas. Neither alternative OS offers the complete solution to meet business’ needs. Sure, you can get just about any task done on an alternative operating system, but the solution won’t all come directly from the operating system manufacture. Finally, just like any transition, switching operating systems comes with a cost. To switch, companies will need to reinvest in their software development and unfortunately companies just aren’t willing to do that at this point in time. Maybe in ten years companies will be willing to hire a dedicated development staff, but until then, an operating system transition is not feasible.
As a heavily alternative OS advocator, this news doesn’t come easy. However, I can’t deny the facts. Alternative operating systems just aren’t ready for prime time yet. Sure they’re fully ready for consumer use, but that isn’t prime time. The real prime time is use at a company. Until that occurs, alternative operating system will show little market penetration.
12 Comments
Well, I don’t know if this is entirely true. Sure, APCI switching to an alternative OS isn’t feasible. But, while attending the Dual Enrollment at PennState LV campus, they were running Mac OS on the, I believe database, system. Obviously they don’t need the same operations as a global chemical plant, but it shows some large (I don’t want to say businesses) organizations may utilize alternates.
As for Microsoft’s monopoly, congrats to Gates for maintaining it with such little court time. The only possible competitor I predict is Google Inc. So far they are offering many of M$’s services, for a much cheaper price and easier access.
It’s rather late right now, but I do want to be the first to say I don’t entirely agree with you. I will think up of a better rebuttal later on, but as I see it, this is the exact reason why people will eventually want to leave the Microsoft mega monopoly. People do like choices. Coke and Pepsi haved co-existed for many many years and will continue to do so.
As for the office environment, I can see Apple very easily gaining usage in more and more areas. It will no longer be the creative people using it. Ever since OS X came out, UNIX nerds started to pay more attention to it. The problem with Linux is, it is too difficult for the average person to use. I want to boot it up, plug in a usb device and start using it. I do not want to find an RPM, install it and hope for the best. Or worse yet, find the src, untar it, compile it, make it, and become root to install it, all from the command line!! This is highly unacceptable for desktop market. Apple has done a great job with making the system easy to use. And powerful enough for geeks to tweak with. It is the best of both worlds.
While I do know where you are coming from, as my department is all Apple lovers (well they converted me pretty much) and our over-seas salesmen loves Apple as well, it is very hard to talk to our developers and convince them to switch to new platforms. Personally, there are ways around that (Qt comes to mind), but again, everyone is used to using Windows. People don’t like change. However, with Vista being delayed because it needs to be rewritten (I am sure it will be delayed way beyond the release of Leopard), I think Apple can fully take advantage of this. I hope they don’t fuck up like they did so many times in the 90s. Even Billy G was afraid of Jobs then and thought Apple will become dominant. He was excited to write software for Apple at the time. Boy I wish things were different then.
As for using MS for everything using their suites, I find often enough, their suites are too powerful for most consumers. You spent $500 for something, and 90% of it isn’t used. People are willing to spend less money, but of course training and such does cost more money in the long run, as MS likes to point out on several occasions, I still believe for basic OS/Office Tools, the average computer user is savvy enough to know how to use a new program, even operating system if done correctly.
The more advanced stuff, IT staff should have the ability to at least use Google to figure things out. I am right now re-designing our corporate intranet. It was on a shared off site server! Now it is in house, on a Red Hat Linux Server, using PHP and MySQL. All of these are robust enough even for corporate needs. Granted, my company is rather small, and the uses are minimal what we do on the server, I know several places where using LAMP is the way to go.
Just remember, seeing one company shouldn’t spoil your hopes of Windows failing miserably as we all hope ;-).
Well looks like I lied and I did write a rebuttal after all. I guess I got myself all wound up! Well, I think that’s all I need to say, and I do look forward in hearing what you have to say in response and others have to say as well.
Jon –
It wasn’t so much as just seeing one company it’s see a multi-billion dollar global company. Imagine one day the decide to stop using microsoft… IT would proably take them 5 years to get everything fully switched, and during the process of that they really wouldn’t be able to afford the productivity losses, from down times and such.
Also if a company was to switch to using open source software, there would be no one liable for crashes and such, where as if they are using Microsoft software, and something goes horribly wrong, Mircosoft is liable for the problem. In that situation the company would be able to contact microsoft, and they would have to fix it rather then the IT department wasting time creating a fix and then distributing it.
Finally Linux is really easy to use, I’ve had no problems installing any RPM files, and there are about a million linux forums out there with 500 geeks each that will instantly answer any question that you might have. My guess is, if you’ve had trouble, penguins don’t like you
Necrobard,
I have no problems with Linux, I think it’s a great operating system. However, I feel it should be used by geeks or very savvy people. Not in an office setting. I work in IT, and I get constant calls about how to use a fucking calendar in Outlook. I get such trivial dumb questions on a daily basis, Linux is going to really annoy them to death. Linux needs to be easier for Joe Six Pack to use, while still maintaining it’s geekiness at core so people like us will still love it.
As for switching, you are still seeing it wrong. You don’t switch an entire company all at once. When a department needs to be replaced, you replace them with something else. Rather than replace their old crummy Dimension 4400s with 9000s, get the Apple instead. Slowly, but surely you can replace an entire company. And most people buy from Dell, Gateway, etc., Microsoft will tell you to call them instead. And those peoples whose computers do go wrong, the employee doesn’t do shit, IT will still have to call Microsoft, Dell, whomever to get it resolved.
At this point, I think the GPL is Linux’s weakest point in not going mainstream. There are a few open source products my company uses, but they are all servers and run in the background that only I and my manager handle. As for why GPL is the problem, it is companys don’t like the word free in the sense there isn’t support. Yes forums are fine and all, but as you said, you can call Microsoft up and get shit replaced, get tech support, and usually get quick turn around. Yes I have received quick turn around on problems by posting on the appropiate forums with Linux, but it is far from ready for desktop usage in any office. If there are 20 employees or 1000, it isn’t ready.
You can’t really use a college as an example for alternative OSes. Most colleges are open to change and are willing to embrace new technologies. And besides, most colleges have a near unlimited spending budget to play around with. Switching platforms comes easier financially for them.
You’re talking about regular computer users, though. Sure, the regular user doesn’t utilize all of Microsoft’s suites’ features, but businesses (specifically corporations) certainly do. When I was at Air Products they were using features that I didn’t even know existed in Microsoft’s products.
I’m not completely basing this off of one company. I visited PPL last year, and they were the same way. Even my mom’s former employer, Bosch Rexroth, was an all Microsoft shop.
While this does sound like the logical approach, this isn’t how companies operate. Everything needs to be standardized. The hardware, software, and servers all need to adhere to one set spec. Supporting two different platforms would be too much for a company. While they certainly wouldn’t switch over night, a platform switch would need to be completed in a relatively short timeframe to be a success in the company’s eyes.
Hi Ronald, from a guy who lives about 10 miles from Air Products. There’s no disputing the ubiquitousness of Microsoft software. But judging from your picture, I’m close to twice your age and I remember when a trip to Air Products would have yielded an article with IBM in place of every occurrence of Microsoft in your article. In fact it was just about the time that people started talking like this that the decline of IBM began.
What you will begin to see is not an OS transformation but more data and apps interfaced through the “browser”. 10 years from now it won’t matter if you’re using Windows, Linux, OS X, or GoogleOS, and the money will be made by the supporters of the portal to the data. The connectivity change the Internet has had on computing is phenomenal in the last 10 years, and it’ll be the same over the next 10.
Wow. I never even considered IBM failure. I guess it’s because I never really had the chance to experience IBM’s monopoly.
Regarding the move to the web, you make you a really good point. Slowly all of our technical data will be moving to the web. We’ll no longer need to rely on these massive in house data servers. All of our data will be on some other service. Companies will love that because they’ll no longer have to maintain servers themselves. They’ll just outsource that part of their business to someone else.
Windows, Office, SQL Server, and .NET are all different products. Alternatives exist at all levels on multiple platforms, so achieving the same end result (simulated inventory usage) could be accomplished easily with other software. The real problem, as you point out, is that corporations are entrenched in MS products and don’t realize they can use free, open-source alternatives without paying *any* licensing fees (or very little compared to the millions they spend on MS products).
Exactly! The tasks could be done in other applications, possibly even more efficiently than Microsoft’s products, but corporations just don’t get it. They think everything has to be standardized, when in reality a hodgepodge of products may complete a task better in the long run.
You hit it on the head there with my point of switching…
Back to linux, I personally don’t find it difficult to use. And I also agree with it not being the best choice for Joe Shmo office user.
Well I use my own company as an example, as my only other sorta real job I had was at University and as you already mentioned it is a poor example to change. Since a lot of students run stuff they just do as they please, because school officials don’t care long as it works. As where I work, we are a small bunch, but we are not that open to change when it involves our customers. Our software that controls our hardware that we make is soley windows based. our office is windows based. and we only support windows. granted if someone came in with a mac, or linux and needs to access the network, we will happily help. as for changing the office, it won’t happen, unfortantely. the only thing i can think of is if .NET fails, we may change programming architechtures. and if that happens, it very well be Qt and that can be compiled in Win/Mac/*Nix easily. Which platform we recommend I don’t know. As I said earlier, me and my manager are mac fans. There are big fans in our company and would love to see it change–but we know its a dream and wont happen, so yes i see a lot of truth in your post. It will depends though on the industry. If we didnt have software to maintain and run, i think its possible.
There was something else I wanted to comment on but I forgot, I am stilly sleepy and need really to get back to my, umm job
One Trackback/Pingback
[...] Windows Will Always Be in the Workplace [...]
Post a Comment