My post last week on the difficult economics of Windows-to-Linux desktop migrations in big organizations (http://www.linux.com/feed/119684) like government agencies drew a fair amount of reader comments, all of it commendably polite and reasonable.
It seems to me the most interesting point is that while Linux migration may not make much financial sense short term, in the long term – or very long term – the switch can yield cost savings by virtue of the fact that it breaks Microsoft’s proprietary lock-in. In other words, you pay through the teeth to move to Linux now, but you get that investment back eventually because you no longer have to pay monopoly rent to Microsoft.
This argument makes perfect sense, but economic theory and empirical observation of real-world software industry behavior both suggest that it might not work in practice.
It seems to me the most interesting point is that while Linux migration may not make much financial sense short term, in the long term – or very long term – the switch can yield cost savings by virtue of the fact that it breaks Microsoft’s proprietary lock-in. In other words, you pay through the teeth to move to Linux now, but you get that investment back eventually because you no longer have to pay monopoly rent to Microsoft.
This argument makes perfect sense, but economic theory and empirical observation of real-world software industry behavior both suggest that it might not work in practice.
Link: interopnews.com
Categories:
- Linux
- Windows & Microsoft
