What Messman thinks will happen when Microsoft ships Vista

NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: DAVE KEARNS ON NOVELL NETWARE TIPS
09/27/05
Today's focus: What Messman thinks will happen when Microsoft
ships Vista

Dear networking.world@gmail.com,

In this issue:

* Novell CEO expects flood of customers when Microsoft releases
Vista
* Links related to Novell NetWare Tips
* Featured reader resource
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Today's focus: What Messman thinks will happen when Microsoft
ships Vista

By Dave Kearns

While there were - as I mentioned last issue - lots of good news
and good feeling coming out of the recent BrainShare Europe
get-together in Barcelona, Novell CEO Jack Messman once again
took the opportunity to place his foot deftly into his mouth.

<aside> It was just two years ago at BrainShare in Salt Lake
City that Messman declared Linux to be an "immature" operating
system. </aside>

This time he laid out the grand strategy for selling Linux to
the enterprise as a desktop operating system rather than a
server platform. I wasn't in Barcelona, but according to a story
in The Register <http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7574>,
Messman declared in his keynote that 2006 will see widespread
adoption of Linux on the corporate desktop, catalyzed by the
release of Microsoft Windows Vista and the high costs associated
with upgrading to it. The story quotes Messman as telling the
audience: "The window of opportunity for migrating will be when
Vista comes onto the market. The cost of migrating from Windows
XP to Vista will be higher than the cost of migrating to Linux
and that will push migrations to Linux."

While it might, indeed, be true that migrating from XP to Vista
would cost more in terms of hardware upgrades and software
licenses, I do think Messman is overlooking two things. First,
retraining your IT staff and all of your users to install,
maintain and use Linux will be an expensive proposition.
Training them on Vista would be a small incremental cost.

But the major thing Messman overlooks is that there's no
obligation on Windows desktop users' part to migrate or upgrade
at all.

Both Novell and Microsoft have well documented proof that users
are often very reluctant to upgrade or migrate. There are
thousands and thousands of NetWare 3.x and Windows NT 4 servers
installed throughout the world. There are even more NetWare 4
and NT 5 servers as well as countless NetWare 5, NetWare 6, and
Windows 2000 servers. In fact, I'd be very willing to wager that
NetWare 3, 4, 5 and 6 servers vastly outnumber Open Enterprise
Server installations, and that there are a lot more NT 4, NT 5,
and Windows 2000 Servers installed worldwide than there are
Windows Server 2003.

People (at least rational people who need to live within a
budget) do not upgrade their operating systems simply because a
new one is available. But, in addition to budgetary concerns,
many people don't upgrade or migrate because they can't. They've
tied their business' success to one or more applications that
simply aren't available, or can't be ported to a different
platform. Somewhere in between are those who resist upgrades and
migrations because they feel they know their current system very
well and can't afford to invest the time needed to learn a new
one.

Intelligent organizations pick the applications that they
believe best satisfy their business needs and then choose an
appropriate platform for them. If you have the applications
running on Windows 2000 or Windows XP and aren't ready to
replace those desktops with ones running Windows Vista would
your first choice be to throw out the apps and the investment in
Windows training by replacing your desktops with Linux? Or would
you, rather, keep what you have while perhaps exploring other
options? If there was ever a mantra that's common to IT folk the
world over, it's "if it ain't broke, don't fix it!" Windows
Vista isn't going to solve Novell's revenue problems. But
perhaps the next CEO will have a different idea. We can only
hope.

The top 5: Today's most-read stories

1. McAfee, Omniquad top anti-spyware test
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell6964>
2. Ransomware: How big is your risk?
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7733>
3. How to solve Windows system crashes in minutes
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7734>
4. Mass. finalizes plans to phase out Office
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7735>
5. The rise of the IT architect
<http://www.networkworld.com/nlnovell7181>

_______________________________________________________________
To contact: Dave Kearns

Dave Kearns is a writer and consultant in Silicon Valley. He's
written a number of books including the (sadly) now out of print
"Peter Norton's Complete Guide to Networks." His musings can be
found at Virtual Quill <http://www.vquill.com/>.

Kearns is the author of three Network World Newsletters: Windows
Networking Tips, Novell NetWare Tips, and Identity Management.
Comments about these newsletters should be sent to him at these

respective addresses: <mailto:windows@vquill.com>,
<mailto:netware@vquill.com>, <mailto:identity@vquill.com>.

Kearns provides content services to network vendors: books,
manuals, white papers, lectures and seminars, marketing,
technical marketing and support documents. Virtual Quill
provides "words to sell by..." Find out more by e-mail at
<mailto:info@vquill.com>
_______________________________________________________________
This newsletter is sponsored by Sybase
Data Explosion

It sounds so simple: if you collect enough business information,
you'll glean valuable insights that can drive both revenue
growth and competitive advantage. Along the way, however,
companies are discovering that managing the explosive growth of
online data can prove a formidable challenge. Here's how to
assess your data management style, and maximize your
opportunities to turn online data into business opportunity.
Click here for more on taming the data explosion.
http://www.fattail.com/redir/redirect.asp?CID=115850
_______________________________________________________________
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<http://www.networkworld.com/go/trendmicro/trend_frr>
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