I Could Not Have Said It Any Better at Robert Pogson

Sometimes I weep at the lack of vision in IT as when someone says they are an “M$” shop…

Sometimes I am pleasantly surprised as when Gartner blogged, “revolutions happen, when the “lower classes” do not want to continue in the old way and the “upper classes” cannot carry on in the old way. Enterprise information management and analytics practitioners do not want to process new and liberated data in the old way — they start using new technologies, sometimes in the cloud closet, but more often, openly. Upper management cannot carry on in the old way: companies have to compete and win in the data-driven economy. They are attracted by the shine of gold, a pure result of data alchemy.”

see Data Revolution, Part 1: Is It a Revolution?.

They were writing about big data and how people are trying to keep up with it. If price/performance matter we know GNU/Linux and FLOSS will have a shot. M$ doesn’t get a free ride when it comes down to sheer productivity of servers. You can see that in their SEC files where “Server and Tools” has the lowest margins of “Business”, “Client” and “Server and Tools”. At ~40%, it’s almost decent despite the free ride they get from their desktop monopoly in business.

My Mission

My observations and opinions about IT are based on 40 years of use in science and technology and lately, in education. I like IT that is fast, cost-effective and reliable. I do not care whether my solution is the same as yours. I like to think for myself.

My first use of GNU/Linux in 2001 was so remarkably better than what I had been using, I feel it is important work to share GNU/Linux with the world. I have been blessed by working in schools where students and school systems have benefited by good, modular software easily installed in most systems.

I have shown GNU/Linux to thousands of students and hundreds of teachers over the years and will continue in some way doing that until I die in spite of the opposition.