The IT department of Helsinki made a deal with Gartner to study the cost of migration to FLOSS. Lo, and Behold! The IT department says the costs are too high but cannot reveal the details… Isn’t that suspicious that a “partner” of M$ is involved in hiding the costs? I smell something…
“Last week, the city denied the request, saying that the calculations are part of the trade secrets from Gartner, an IT consultancy.”
Isn’t Gartner the one who found GNU/Linux costs more everywhere yet many report much lower costs? Why did Helsinki hire those jokers?
Weren’t they wrong on all counts when they predicted “7″ would be the most popular OS on the planet by the end of 2011? Even NetApplications, another “partner”, have stated that has not happened yet (June 2012).
| OS | Share |
|---|---|
| Windows XP | 43.61% |
| Windows 7 | 41.59% |
Gartner is very confused about how well GNU/Linux is doing on the desktop depending on who’s paying them. In 2005 they said GNU/Linux and OpenOffice.org were quite reasonable for “greenfield” adoption and even reasonable for a segment of staff of a business. So, why doesn’t that reasoning apply to Helsinki? If Helsinki could save a bundle running OpenOffice.org on 80% of PCs, shouldn’t they do it? The problem is M$’s not following open standards. Shouldn’t that problem be solved once and for all time?
see Helsinki's open source proponents object to secrecy on software costs | Joinup.
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Why did Helsinki hire those jokers?
Perhaps your own bid was not received in time for their consideration, Mr. Pogson. Surely they would have preferred to hire you, since you are the one who first discovered that some 160 million Linux PCs per year are being absorbed into the world’s economy. No one else has discovered that even yet!
Weren’t they wrong on all counts
Only if you are willing to accept the web stats for Net Applications, Mr. Pogson. If so, then Linux still stands at less than 1%. Take your pick. The real answer, of course, is that Gartner is counting things in commerce, due to their business orientation, and the Net Applications or Wikipedia or other statistics sources are just keeping a popular score with no real discipline statistically.
So, why doesn’t that reasoning apply to Helsinki?
Presumably because Helsinki is not a greenfield situation, Mr. Pogson. They have probably had computers for quite some time now and wish to protect their prior investments as well as move ahead.
@ Clarence Moon
you never stop do you.
Why don’t you get your own facts and figures straight before knocking someone else’s.
Your 7 to 1 ratio on Apple’s profits to Samsung’s refers:
If you had checked your figures you would have seen that the ration is nearer just over 4 to 1 and not 7 to 1 but so what as long as it looks good that is the main thing.
@ Clarence Moon
Oh! Just in case you can’t find the sight again here it is:
http://mrpogson.com/2012/07/07/nokia-forks/
and have a look at the last comment on that sight.
and see if your ratios are correct.
If you are ever going to be taken seriously, JR, you are going to have to master the concept of context. Nothing you are posting here seems to have the slightest bearing on the actions of the Helsinki city council.
Please check the knobs on your radio. You are on the wrong frequency.
@ Clarence Moon
I could not give two hoots whether I am taken seriously or not.
How do you expect to be taken seriously when you cannot even calculate a simple ratio.
How else do I get your attention especially when you are spreading fud and then leave it.
I take it you are not prepared to correct your mistakes.
Clarence Moon
–Gartner to study the cost of migration to FLOSS.–
Simple fact of the matter they only commissioned one company to cost it. IBM does FLOSS migrations assessments as well same with many others.
Difference is since IBM and others really do the migrations there costs are not wild card guesses.
I have not seen one Gartner FOSS migration cost be anywhere near correct. Mostly because they take the absolute worst method to migrate. Ie we stop using non FOSS and straight up us FOSS how much will this ruin things. Where IBM studies work from planned introduction. Cost maths is vastly different.
Also Gartner also skips over costing what work should be done to clean up the system like cleaning up macros and other cross department issues. This turns out to be most of the cost in a migration to FOSS is cleaning up stuff that should have been cleaned up anyhow.
IBM and Redhat deals with non Greenfield Linux migrations all the time. 80/20 figures are IBM to non Greenfield. 80 percent of machines end up fully Linux and mostly care less what OS is used. 20 percent remain with access to windows of some form. Remain access it might be Windows on a terminal server and everything else done under Linux.
IBM also provides a white book with the information to perform your own assessment of your problems.
Now if this was a IBM study or one of the others who do migrations study saying too expensive I would believe it. Gartner since they don’t do migrations there costing are wild guesses.
Gartner also skips over…
My, my, Mr. O! You know what is in the report?! Why not tell the FSF and put them out of their misery? Quit wasting you time around here and get to some serious work!
Hiring a vendor such as IBM to advise you on whether or not to buy their product is a great idea, too. Put it on a 5 x 7 card and mail it in.
Clarence Moon IBM will quote for Windows or Linux options.
You know what is in the report? Mostly there are 6 leaked Gartner reports in the last 12 months. All read the same crappy way. Lets cost the worst possible way of doing a Linux migration.
Clarence IBM provides this. http://www.redbooks.ibm.com/abstracts/sg246380.html
And if you did deeper IBM publicly publishes the exact methods they use to calculate the migration costs.
Clarence Moon so IBM has no fear about having there methods reviewed neither does Redhat or any of the other Linux Migration specialists. So you could have collected all the companies that assist in migration to Linux assessment documents and had your own internal staff form a overall assessment from it. So being vendor neutral.
Gartner is not trust worth because they make people sign agreements never to publish there assessments so they cannot be peer reviewed.
In fact if you have IBM or Redhat do the assessment you are allowed to publicly publish the result. You paid for the assessment its yours to use how you see fit in there eyes Clarence Moon. Including have what ever companies you like review their costing.
Heck you are not even allowed to send the Gartner reports to a competitor company for a peer review. They are up there in the bogus rating.
What would you think Clarence moon if I did a vechical assessment on your car then told you that you were not allowed to show it to anyone. Its stinks right.
IBM might be a vendor they understand the fact they can be bias so allow peer reviewing.
Also you don’t call Gartner vendor neutral when it comes to OS. http://techrights.org/wiki/index.php/Gartner_Group
One of the largest share holders is bill gates.
Basically asking Gartner to review your usage of Linux is almost as bad as asking Microsoft.
So asking Gartner to write the report was conflict of interest. Helsinki was apparently too incompetent to know that or someone was pulling a fast one to prevent a Linux migration.
IBM has equal interest if you go Linux or Windows they profit either way. So really gain nothing recommending Linux when Windows would suit or vice verse.
So I stand by my comment if Helsinki had a report from some company that does not have a any particular reason to be bias to Windows or Linux I would accept the assessment as valid even if it told them to use Windows.
The fact there assessment is from Gartner is an assessment from a known bias source due to investments large enough to place board members.