Tag: Microsoft

Comic from Stickycomics.com (thx!) - Creative Commons LIcense 2.0

25 year legacy of Windows, spend the next 25 on something better

Comic from Stickycomics.com (thx!) - used without modification under Creative Commons 2.0 License
Comic from Stickycomics.com (thx!)

Since the first time I’ve heard of Linux way back in the mid-nineties, I’ve always had a passing familiarity, but never really spent the same time getting to understand it the way I did with Microsoft Windows. It wasn’t that I was shy from a command line, to this day I use powershell or sometimes the standard command line to do much of my work. It was just that every business I ever worked for was already invested in the Microsoft universe.

I have always been drawn towards the Linux kernel, fascinated with both its technical simplicity that “everything is a file” and it’s very simple and transparent purpose to be a free stable product for the world. Linux has always been for people. There isn’t a large corporation that owns Linux. There’s no single entity that solely profits from its use, we all do. I believe that ironically it is the profit motive that may be the very thing that will see Linux adopted in greater numbers over the next decade.

Linux Mint - Easy switch from Windows
Linux Mint – Easy switch from Windows

But it’s not the profit of a single company that will drive this, it’s all of our profits. Microsoft has moved Windows into the Software as a Service (Saas) paradigm. We have all received our free Windows 10 update if we wanted it, and we are set to pay for the next update that Microsoft puts down to our desktops. What will be the cost for the latest update? Maybe it’s only $5, or maybe it will be priced competitively to Mac OSX at $20. No matter the cost that’s money out of MY pocket.

And that’s money out of my mom’s pocket. And my sisters. And the pockets of my customers or employers. Microsoft has heralded the end of paying for a brand new and radically redesigned operating systems every few years. Their call is loud but not too clear.

Microsoft wants you to run Microsoft Windows 10 on every single desktop, laptop, tablet, or phone you own for the rest of your life.

The faint echo of this call for the end of new desktop operating systems should just now beginning to be heard in the back of technologists minds. I have been in IT for 15 years and have at least another 25 years before retirement if I’m lucky. I’m a Systems Engineer for a living. If Microsoft charges my customer, employer, or family $5 per computer every year to update to the not-new Windows 10.whatever, someine is paying $125 for that machine.

This is assuming I don’t have to replace the hardware to run it. With the proliferation of long-life Solid-State Drives, my computers lifespan may be closer to 5 years now. And like most people I’m not doing sophisticated design work, and my modest i7 with 8GB of memory will likely see me through web browsing and looking at pictures.  If my hardware isn’t dead… do I really need a new computer or a new OS?

So why do I need to pay to update? Especially when I think about all the systems I’m going to maintain over the next 25 years. If I support over 3000 now… that’s $15000 in update costs over the next 25 years. Maybe that’s a small price to pay… but what if it’s closer to $20 per year, or you are an organization with 30,000 PCs?  That’s a lot of money over that period of time. And it’s not my money, I’m not a business owner… updates are taking away someone’s profits.

If I were a business owner and wanted my company to survive over the next 25 years then I would recognize the company will continue to need computers in some form for that time. Now a long-term investment in technology makes sense. If my computers hardware won’t be obsolete for 5-10 years, and most software runs in the web, why do I need to pay for an OS update? Outside of security fixes, applying OS updates doesn’t make sense. To introduce change in my practices just because my vendor wants me to is not what business friendly.

Wouldn’t that be great to have a business where the technology just gets out of the way of what the business does, instead of continuing the last 25 years of forced upgrades, retraining, and undesired changes?

Switching to Linux in an entrenched Windows environment was never and will never be easy. But now that Microsoft has signaled the newest change in our constantly-changing desktop environments, the long-term benefit of the switch to Linux really makes practical sense. The need for access to general-purpose machines in many businesses is not going to go away. The form factor and mobility of the devices may change, but there will still be a need for flexible multi-purpose devices in many businesses. It makes sense to really take a hard look at long-term supportability.

Microsoft is keen to the burnout businesses have with keeping up with technology. To their credit they allow a slower burn-rate by offering two tiers of Update Paces. One is aimed at stability, the other the newest shiny thing they can put out. The slower burn rate which makes sense for most businesses, is just the last step before they lose customers to free software.

But even if businesses decide they can’t break the dependence on their Windows investments, do you know who will? The IT staff that runs them will start to feel pinched by too much Microsoft if they haven’t already. If a geek is obligated in any way to support their friends and family, then the smart ones will recognize that which is easiest and least expensive to maintain will be their friend. Especially if they’ve spent the last decade updating those same friends through XP to 7 to 8, then 8.1 and now to 10.

When was the last time the latest OS was so sexy that grandma wanted an upgrade? With Windows success rate it’s about every seven years from XP to 7 to 10. Grandma doesn’t care about the latest bauble in the OS… any feature she wants is likely an app or website. She doesn’t want the software to change, the teller at the bank doesn’t care. People don’t care what’s so awesome about the new version of this or that, they want it to do exactly what it did yesterday.

If you’re a Windows Admin, do yourself a favor and pick up some Linux skills now. It may not be obvious today, but 25 years from now we’re going to look back and recognize how much time and money we all saved by not tethering ourselves to Windows for the rest of our lives.

 

Commerical computer software is not sustainabile, particularly in developing countries when compared with free and open-source softare (FOSS)

This is my introduction to a project that I have proposed as a goal for my third year extension as a Peace Corps Volunteer. Although originally created as a project for a single school, my recent introduction to the Ministry of Education’s ICT department has provided a new possibility of spreading the use of free and open source software within the kingdom. I am now furthering this project and using it as a component for a www.Coursera.org class that I am attending online.

 

 

The United Nations Millennium Goal #2 : Ensure that, by 2015, children everywhere, boys and girls alike, will be able to complete a full course of primary schooling

 

Every developing country’s education system will share a single key component in the future. This component is the inclusion of computer technology inside the classroom and within academic structures. All future classrooms in developing nations will have some connection to modern technology, weather through computers meant for students, teachers, or administrators.

 

Any large corporation or institution that currently has developed technical infrastructure will cite the cost of training staff to switch to Free and open-source software as a key component of its failure to supplant traditional purchased software. The costs of maintaining commercial software extend years beyond initial purchasing, covering specialized hardware, software upgrades, and vendor-specific training required to operate the technology. The commercial software industry has within its best interests a continuous cycle of software purchase, software update, software obsolescence, and software replacement.  These costs are a recurring burden on institutions, and once a specific technology or vendor has been implemented within that institutions it is tremendously cost-intensive and technically overwhelming to change.

 

As developing nations invest further into technology for classrooms, their is a choice available to these nations that is not available to currently established countries and institutions. The choice is between software that is Free and open-source software (FOSS) versus expensive commercially available software. Developing nations have a unique opportunity to prevent being trapped int he cycle of continuous costs associated with commercial software. These countries are in a position to train engineers, architects, programmers and technicians on FOSS before they have any dependency or reliance on purchased and entrenched commercial software.

 

Swaziland is a country with an extremely youthful demographic population. It is estimated that over 25% of the population are children that have been orphaned because of the HIV and AIDs epidemic. These children through the assistance of international donors such as PEPFAR and the Global Fund are being exposed to a free primary school education that has never before been available to the children of this country.

 

Swaziland is ranked by the UN as a middle-income country. Due to many factors much of this income remains out of the hands of the severely impoverished. The majority of Swaziland’s citizens live on approximately $2 per day. With the incredible income disparity and poor conditions of many rural schools, there is little or no money for technology infrastructure, and no money for proper training of staff. Without the finances to continually purchase new or updated software, the use of commercial software for improving educational systems in developing nations is an unsustainable tool for use in meeting the UN’s development goal.

 

My project proposes that implementation of training on free and open-source software through the Swaziland Ministry of Education will present an opportunity within the public school system to break from the need for purchasing expensive software.  This training presented by members of the Swaziland Computer Society (a technical user group) will be directed at those schools within the country currently operating a computer lab for students. These instructors will gain the knowledge necessary for installing, configuring, and troubleshooting selected Linux operating systems, and other open-source software selected by the Ministry of Education.

 

The milestones for this project are:

  • Creation of a presentation conveying the benefits and significance of moving the country’s educational system to FOSS
  • Scheduling a viewing of the presentation to the Swaziland Computer Society
  • Scheduling a meeting on FOSS with the Chief Inspector of ICT for the Ministry of Education
  • Preparation of training materials to be used in class
  • Acquisition of funding to finance first series of training classes
  • Selection of teachers for training class
  • Completion of the training class
  • Follow-up with training attendees on implementation results

 

The timeline for this project from beginning to the successful completion of the first training lesson will be no more than 10 months long, dictated by the Swaziland school calendar.