Am 10. Nov, 2001 schwätzte Jim so:

> So lemme see if I have this right.  After dumping good money on the
> computers and software that doesnt work, no one is going to try to just
> install Linux on the old boxes?  Linux doesnt need the latest and greatest
> cpu and all the attendant hardware just to load and run superbly.

Financial services companies aren't gonna use the old hardware. They just
won't. Goes against their genetic programming.

> Training the employess to use KDE is NOT going to take an hour - not even 
> 10 minutes.  Sit them down and let them go.  They can - and will - be     
> as productive as they were on their Windows box.  As for personalizing,   

Employees at companies like George is describing aren't going to do anything
new without training. It doesn't matter whether or not they can figure it
out. Corporate culture goes against it for most of the people on the
desktops. Really controlling, anal environment from what I've heard.

If you've read snowcrash think of the skater chicks mom timing how long it
took to read a memo based on political objectives, not on need to understand
the memo.

> I agree that the almighty dollar is king.  Unfortunately when that dollar
> becomes scarce, even big companies seek cost effective solutions to their
> problems.  Locking themselves to a continual hardware AND software upgrade
> cycle will cause them to think twice.  No, maybe they wont switch 100% or
> even 50% this time, but they will look.  Next time, their choice will be
> more obvious.

I think this is the point that they've got to finally get. It's just that
Free Software and freedom, in general, goes against their corporate
structure. Eventually they'll figure out that freedom for them is indeed a
good thing.

ciao,

der.hans
-- 
#  http://home.pages.de/~lufthans/   http://www.DevelopOnline.com/
#  It's up to the reader to make the book interesting.
#  An author has only the opportunity to make it uninteresting. - der.hans