Robert Pogson

In the latest quarterly report to the SEC, M$ reports client revenue for that other OS up 2% but operating income is down 1%. On the other hand, advertising is up $48 million (8% increase on $600 million = $648 million). I’ve seen the ads. M$ wants desperately for people to notice. They might notice but they’re not buying that they should chuck a perfectly good computer to buy a newer one or one with “7″ on board. They are out buying smart phones and tablets instead of stupid PCs bloated with stuff they don’t need like “7″ and rounded corners and transparency…

If people want to spruce up their existing PCs, I recommend Debian GNU/Linux. They can download an installer at Goodbye-Microsoft.com. They can then ignore the ads for $0 and spend their savings on hardware instead of software.

I found a story in The Register about the head IT guy for the state of Kansas. He tried to slide a degree by on his resume… The governor defended the hiring claiming academic credentials were not that important.

I decided to take a peek at the IT system in Kansas to see how it was faring. It turns out they have the normal sort of chaos I have seen in many places: each location doing its own thing causing much duplication of effort and incompatibility. The predecessors had come up with a plan to consolidate. They hadn’t been doing too badly, for government, with IT costs rising about 3% per annum. Interestingly when M$ had been telling the world they needed to buy the next release to lower IT costs, Kansas has experienced more or less flat IT costs for the last decade, averaging $685 per PC per annum. Clearly, they haven’t heard of Linux.

There’s no mention at all in the plan of GNU/Linux. The only constant was M$’s products. Their plan of consolidation included migrating everyone to the same version of M$’s office suite to aid compatibility. What a shame they missed the opportunity to lower costs thousands of times. They have about 25000 PCs. By using GNU/Linux they could likely extend the useful life and lower licensing costs dramatically more than all their consolidation efforts. By using GNU/Linux on the thin clients they could eliminate $millions from the annual budget. There’s not even a mention of thin client in the report. There’s not a mention of changing the desktop regime except to go to “7″ globally.

These days, Kansas is spending about $250 million per annum. Only $15-25million of that is for desktops. Clearly they are spending way too much on data-centres and networks. Consolidation will help them a lot there but they are missing out on huge savings by not changing the OS to GNU/Linux. The big failure of the plan is that they plan to stabilize expenditures at current levels instead of reducing them. Clearly, cost is vital to Kansas and they should consider migrating widely to GNU/Linux. They could do a lot more with less.

I recommend Debian GNU/Linux. It is flexible enough to do anything and works well on client, server and database.

When I shop for anything I look for price/performance. That’s why I waited weeks to receive a “four-way” switch at a reasonable price. That’s why I buy vegetables at harvest time when price is lowest. My freezer is full of them. Scarcely room for a deer…

Wintel is anxious that the price of computers stay high in spite of Moore’s Law and corollaries. They want the monopoly to live on. One potential solution to their problem is to “upsell” by adding features that seem desirable to some. An upselling campaign that started a few years ago was the idea of the ultrabook, you know, the netbook perfected… At the time Wintel was worried about GNU/Linux on small cheap notebooks so M$ forbade OEMs to install that other OS on large cheap notebooks and promoted the “ultrabook” which would seem to perform better and might sell at a higher price. Well, the ultrabooks are here and they’re not selling.

According to Digitimes, suppliers of ultrabooks have cut back orders 40%. What a disappointment for those who assume buyers are stupid and easily manipulated.

• If your CPU is idling do you need a more powerful CPU? Draining your battery faster? If you’re digging a hole should you dig faster, trying to get out?
• Is thinner and lighter any advantage over a netbook?
• Are you willing to pay $1000+ for less
• Do you look for the most expensive item when shopping?

I didn’t think so. Most people are somewhat like me. They worked hard for their money and want suppliers to work hard for theirs. The world does not owe M$ a living and should not buy over-priced systems. Look at price/performance and don’t count feature-bloat as a feature unless it’s something you really need.

Come to think of it, consider the OS when you shop. Should you pay $hundreds or so for something you can get for $0? I don’t think so. I suggest Debian GNU/Linux. It’s Free Software and it’s $0.