Friday, October 29, 2004
Why it's time to begin to say goodbye to Windows
BBC NEWS | Technology | Concerns over Windows cashpoints and BBC NEWS | Business | UK report says Linux is 'viable'
Recently the organisation I work for decided to switch its telephone network back to a Unix rather than Windows server basis. The feature set is basically comparable, and there was already an investment in Windows server equipment. The reasoning, though, was compelling: if a virus disabled our NT servers, it would leave us without telephones and without email. By adopting a second operating system, we spread the risk.
This, of course, bucks the trend of ever increasing integration and more and more generalised systems.
It's something that repays wider consideration. Over the years, commercial concerns large and small have been working to reduce the number of different computer systems they operate because of the overheads in terms of support and licensing. One of the hidden costs of any corporate takeover is the cost of getting the two company systems to talk to each other. At the same time, sales driven businesses have been diligently buying into the upgrade cycle because they want the competitive advantage of the latest database, the latest direct marketing tools, the latest... well, you get the picture.
As the dominant player in the marketplace, Microsoft has been able to leverage all these considerations to put its client software on the desktop and its server software in the back office. This is despite the fact that, for most applications, Microsoft was not offering the best product. Remember OS/2? Never a hit with its original target of the desktop market, it has been the mainstay of ATMs for a long time. Ever considered using Linux? You may be leary of running your business on a free operating system. NASA, though, run all their systems on it, as they don't consider NT to be sufficiently reliable for their mission critical programmes. Ever used an Apple Macintosh? For nine out of the ten most common tasks that desktop users want, the Macintosh is easier to use, requires less training and gets results faster. But 95% of computers still run Microsoft products. Remember Novell networks? Back in the 90s our Novell 3.11 network used to go for years without having to be reset. When we moved to Windows NT, we, like everybody else, got used to frequent downtime.
You've probably heard the old joke about Microsoft claiming that if they ran the automotive industry, cars would now have improved to the point where they did 638 miles to the gallon. Then General Motors (in the joke) counter that if Microsoft ran the automotive industry, all the lights on your dashboard would be replaced by a single 'General Car Error' light, and while you were driving along the motorway you would occasionally have to stop and reinstall the engine.
It's only funny, of course, because it is partly true. Computers offer year by year increased performance beyond anything that is available to business in any other sector. But they offer a level of reliability that is below anything that businesses would accept from any other sectoral supplier.
IBM used to run an advertisement slogan "Nobody ever got fired for choosing IBM". This was in the 80's and 90's when a lot of small businesses got their fingers burnt when their local PC supplier suddenly went out of business, and their exclusively imported Malaysian computers were no longer supported. Microsoft has inherited the spirit of the IBM slogan: when choosing a platform, most companies may agonise over their hardware supplier, but they will choose Microsoft without seriously thinking over the alternatives.
But there is a fundamental difference between choosing a single supplier for a hardware offering and choosing a single supplier for software. Simply, there is no single catastrophe which could wipe out all of the hardware you ever purchased. Even if IBM had gone completely and irretrievably bankrupt without any warning (think of Enron), the hardware you had already purchased would continue to work. In fact, entrepreneurs would have quickly bought up the outstanding support contracts and business would go on almost as usual.
For software, the picture is very different. One virus could bring your network, your desktops, your phones, and anything else which is run on the same operating system. And in this case, going with the majority supplier puts you more at risk. 99% of viruses attack Windows systems, and the vast majority attack only Windows systems. Currently there are no known viruses for Unix based Mac OS X.
What's more, software is supplied in only partially working condition - something you also wouldn't accept from any other sectoral supplier. Bug fixes and, for Microsoft, security fixes are frequent. And they are not the kind of thing an entrepreneur could pick up if Microsoft ceased trading. Again, the lesson of Enron is that nobody is too big to fall.
The time has come, I think, for business to begin to disentangle itself from the Microsoft world. It may make sense to have the same operating system on your desktop as in your server, but it makes more sense to build robustness into your Information Technology. By all means keep Windows for the desktop (although Mac OS X has more attractions for me), but let us consider carefully the benefits of other options, especially open-source systems like Linux, which free us from a single supplier and take us back to the relative robustness of separating the front room from the back room.
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