Re: I'm Looking for a Database Wizard!

["Robert G. (Doc) Savage" <dsavage@peaknet.net>]

On Wed, 2004-02-11 at 19:53, Harold Crouch wrote:
> Looks like I'll be sleeping with the enemy. The company is running
> Win2k, Access97 is loaded on all the workstations, and I discovered
> this afternoon that somewhere in the company there is a server running
> MS SQL Server.  Numerous people, both on this board and in private
> e-mails to me, have suggested that development would be easier and
> faster on Access than on the other front ends.  Much as I dislike
> using MS products, Access appears to be the best solution for this
> particular project.

Harold,

Don't be too hard on yourself. Neither Windows nor Linux is 100%
perfect. Each is better than the other at some things. Everybody knows
the vast majority of American businesses use Windows exclusively for
their desktop and backend systems.

There are noteworthy exceptions: Sun Microsystems, but that's hardly
surprising. IBM on the other hand was a big fish. They recently
announced they're dumping Microsoft across the board, with their first
priority being to convert all company desktops to Linux and Open Office.

Others are more pragmatic. Last summer Ford Motor Co. cancelled all new
purchases of Windows-based applications (like Biztalk) in their
manufacturing production systems. They'll keep using what they have, but
all new buys will be IBM hardware with Linux. They're keeping their
Windows desktops, and one of the world's largest Exchange e-mail
systems. Ford wants to improve their internal process efficiency by
adopting open standards, and to take cost out of their IT backbone.

My advise, for what it's worth, is to accept what you can't fight today.
Lay low, and wait until a "can't miss" Linux alternative presents
itself. A good target of opportunity would be when it's time for your
company to renew their License 6.0 "software assurance" subscription.
Writing that check will be unpleasant.

I've done a few competitive cost analyses between License 6.0 and Red
Hat Enterprise Linux 3.0 equivalents. In most cases a Red Hat solution
would allow them cut their software licensing budget in half. That's
serious money even for small firms -- money that might be better spent
on improved employee benefits, for example.

--Doc


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