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Windows to Linux / Open Source Software Migration
Why change?Do you feel like a hamster on the upgrade treadmill?
Linux is a hot topic - with Microsoft trying to force the transition to Windows Vista, despite numerous studies showing little to no benefit to the end users [1] [2] - only benefit to Microsoft, organisations are looking for alternatives. Linux has significant Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) advantages when handled correctly. This doesn't mean that one can jump straight into Linux - often you will see no TCO benefit and be disappointed unless you manage this in a sustainable manner. Indeed, you will find (mostly Microsoft funded) articles demonstrating that TCO for Windows is lower, but this is usually due to poor management of the Linux side, not comparing best practice in both cases. Are we alone?Indeed, no - when considering the possibility of moving to Open Source Software, neither we, as facilitators, nor you, as the client, are alone. Many people have actually already embarked on the implementation, or even have fully transitioned. We're not only talking small business here - a few examples are:
How?On the desktopINS offers expertise in transitioning to Open Source Software. We can offer advice on your particular installation. For different businesses, different solutions are necessary, and not all businesses are suited to a full Windows to Linux transition. What we do is look at your business, your processes, your software and people investment, and determine what the best path for your business is, and how far along the line you can and should go. The key to a successful migration is to get your staff on board. Throwing them into a new system is often a recipe for disaster, and can lead to a lot of resistance. Instead, it is often more effective to gradually bring in new components, demonstrating the benefits to staff, and finding champions amongst them.  To this end, we recommend beginning small - start with things like the web browser, changing from Internet Explorer to Firefox. Firefox [7] brings many enhancements to web browsing, and increases the security - you should suffer less from malware. Office 2007Microsoft Office 2007 is a major change, requiring significant retraining - and Microsoft wants to force you to upgrade, as this is how they make their money. A significantly cheaper option than upgrading to Office 2007 is to move to OpenOffice.org [8]. The cost of acquisition is zero, and retraining costs are minimal - the OpenOffice.org interface is much more similar to Office 97/XP/2003 than that of Office 2007 is.  Have you heard of Open Document Format? If not, perhaps you should. Open Document Format (ODF) is an international document format standard, ISO/IEC 26300:2006. As such, it is a well documented standard that will ensure documents created in it can be read in many years time. Can you still read your MS Works 1.0 or MS Word 2.0 documents successfully? INS is a member of the Open Document Fellowship [9], an organisation supporting the Open Document Format. What about other software?Every business has its own business critical software or systems that currently run on Windows. In many cases, there are Open Source alternatives or alternatives that run on other operating systems such as Linux. In other cases, it is possible to run these applications on one Windows PC/Server and share them to many using a variety of tools. Once you have found alternatives that free you from the Microsoft platform, it is easy to change to Linux - in many cases, your staff will hardly notice the difference, and you will gain:
In the server roomIn the server room, Linux really shines. Linux runs many of the servers that the Internet relies on to keep ticking over. Many technical teams use Linux because of reliability, ease of maintenance and the ability to easily scale services across servers. Every Internet service was originally provided by other tools - mostly Open Source tools. Why use a second best solution from a company still playing catchup? Why use products from a company in who's not interested in compatibility with real standards? Empower yourself with Open Standards and ditch vendor lock-in.  One of the techniques commonly used is virtualisation. INS have used virtualisation for many years, and understand many of the problems and complexity in managing virtualised servers. We also understand Xen [10], the Open Source competitor to VMWare, Microsoft Virtual Server and others. Using Xen, Linux and Open Source services, we can help you reduce the cost of doing business. Why pay for expensive software solutions? Invest in training and hardware instead. How can INS help?INS have a lot of experience with Open Source Software - we have been using Linux in-house exclusively, except for one or two Windows machines used for compatibility testing. We use Linux on Servers and the Desktop, and exclusively use OpenOffice.org and other open source applications. We can help you do the same - and lower your TCO. We will help you navigate these sometimes difficult waters, we provide training, and consultancy services for larger projects. We will help you navigate through the maze of applications and Linux distributions to make the right choices for your organisation. INS starts the process by examining your business requirements, your goals, and puts together a project plan to help achieve this. Then we will help you create a pilot project (in larger organisations), guide you through training your staff, and finally help you to achieve a full roll-out of the new systems. We will be with you every step of the way. What do you do next?Give us a call, or contact us through the form on the left hand side of the page - we'll get right back to you, and will give you a free initial assessment to see if Linux can help you. Footnotes
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