Open desktop mechanic

Linux company still runs Windows????

Wednesday Apr 12, 2006

I assumed that Sun's "eat thy own dogfood" policy wasn't terribly unusual. So I was suprised to learn that Novell still runs Microsoft Windows on many of its corporate desktops. In the spirit of fun competition, I wonder if Johnathan or whoever has the numbers and authorization could publish:

How many JDS (SuSE Linux based) desktops do we run?
How many JDS (Solaris/OpenSolaris based) desktops do we run?
How many GNOME desktops (including Sun Ray) do we run?
How many Windows "dual boot" desktops we run?
How many GNOME (Linux and Solaris based) desktops have we delivered to our customers?

I don't have the answers but it would really surprise me if we didn't beat SuSE both in number of SuSE based (JDS1,JDS2) desktops and number of Solaris GNOME (JDS3+) desktops deployed internally. We certainly have a lower percentage of Microsoft Windows and Microsoft office desktops! I wonder if SuSE could let us in on what is taking them so long to migrate away from MS Windows. The obstacles to their migration could be useful for others in the open source desktop community. I'd have to admit that Sun doesn't have as much experience with internal migration from Microsoft Windows because most of us could never justify migrating to MS-Windows in the first place.

[5] Comments
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Posted at 10:39AM Apr 12, 2006 by bnitz in Open-Source
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The major product for novell is novell netware. And most of the netware client is running on windows. You need windows for develop, for test and for supporting these software. I know JDK developer need windows to test too, ... But only thing they need is a terminal server account... But netware client need administrtor priviliage to install and test, the developer have no way but dual boot.

Posted by Daniel on April 12, 2006 at 11:23 AM GMT+00:00 #

Daniel, I see your point. So it would only be a fair comparison if we subtracted all of the desktops required for netware. Anyway if you work for SuSE/Novell good luck in the migration. For most of us, migration is not only feasible, it is cost effective and it saves quite a few headaches!

Posted by bnitz on April 12, 2006 at 11:31 AM GMT+00:00 #

I was browsing Novell's site with Konqueror and noticed their site isn't fully compatible with it, which happens to be the default browser in SuSE 9.3.

Posted by Torbjorn on April 12, 2006 at 11:46 AM GMT+00:00 #

the url which didn't work correctly in konqueror is: http://www.novell.com/products/linuxenterpriseserver/ click on the "more+" links.

Posted by Torbjorn on April 12, 2006 at 11:48 AM GMT+00:00 #

Brian, Tested COMMERCIAL NLD 9 and have found their FREE NOS 9.3 Pro and 10.0 products worked FAR better! DUMB! NOVELL's forthcoming 10.1 release should permit 'viable' GNU/Linux transistion for the global computing masses. Appreciate current efforts by SUN on hardware and software fronts, this is interesting! 'DCD' on track for Q3-2006, Keep you posted!

Posted by William R. Walling on April 15, 2006 at 04:16 AM GMT+00:00 #

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