MESSAGE
| DATE | 2005-05-26 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Re: [NYLXS - HANGOUT] Logo and motto
|
Slaying The Giant
One would think, after Microsoft has dodged the anti-trust bullet twice,
and with the increasing pressure on businesses to license software
through narrower and narrower agreements, that the competition to the
Microsoft Office and general business computing would be almost
non-existent. But despite all the hurdles being thrown at the
competitive process, Free Software advocates are making suprising
inroads on the business desktop PC, and might be in a position to
finally blow open the market in a way the government has so far failed
to do.
Free Software, for those of the uninitiated, is a development model
where programmers from around the world collaborate in developing
software for the general public. The software is copyrighted and
released to end users with a complete set of ownership rights which
allows for those using the software to make alterations to the programs
and allows for the distribution of the software to others. Free Software
is unhindered by per seat licensing, or any other restrictions on the
software use, accept that it restricts any of the users to
redistristribute the software without the source code of the products
and without granting similar rights to others.
Free Software, until now, has been used extensively on the internet, and
in fact is responsible for the birth of the interent itself. It's mail
services, networking protocals, application servers, and web servers
provide the foundation of the internet today, and did so at the birth of
the internet. That means nearly every computer user has used Free
Software extenssively. Everyone relies on this software for mission
criticle uses every minute of every day.
Much of the focus of Free Software has remained on the server side of
the IT world. But increasingly, it's the Free Software desktop which
should be getting the attention of your corporateexecutives and your IT
managers. Not only is the Free Software desktop ready for primetime, but
deployment of the free desktop in business, according to Free Software
proponents and businesses, will dramatically decrease your tech support
costs and positively effect your bottom line.
The recent developments which make it so important for businesses
toexplore this market is the development of the Open Office office
suite, the KDE and GNOME desktops, and the avalanche of recent
commercial grade applications which have been released in the last year
for desktop productivity. In addition, New York City has a large number
of home grown professionals who can support your businesses efforts and
help you migrate off the more expensive desktop solutions. These
products will finally get your business off of what has been described
as the 'upgrade escalator', the business model designed to entangle the
end users into purchasing constantly more expensive and larger software
updates. These consultants, in typical Free Software style, have learned
to collaberate together, and thereby give your business the kind of 24/7
support which your business might not be used to receiving, but have
always expected from the big players like Microsoft and Adobe.
The local organization to spearhead this effort is called NYLXS, The New
York GNU/Linux Scene. On their website, http://www.nylxs.com, you'll
find a huge selection of activities this busy folks have undertaken.
Among their efforts include the development of an educational program, a
program to help schools save money in education with free software, a
quarterly journal, several business expos, a weekly radio show, and
support groups. For your business needs, the most important effort is
what they have dubbed as 'The Free Software Chamber of Commerce'. What
is the Free Software Chamber of Commerce? The organizations president,
Ruben Safir, has described it as follows:
'The Free Software Chamber of Commerce is simply the best collection of
computing professionals in the City, banded together to help businesses
obtain the goals of reducing cost and increasing efficiency through the
use of Free Software. Our group of consultants and technical people eat
sleep and breath digital systems and are the most dedicated in the city
at providing you, the client, with the services and products you need in
this changing business economy. We provide everything for Telephony
service, to secure remote access, to advanced desktop, audio-video
andmundane web services. Most businesses haven't tapped even a quarter
of the potential of their investment into IT services. We can not only
unlock that other 75%, but we can do it under budget, and on time.'
But how can free software compete with the big boys, Apple and
Microsoft, on the desktop, where other businesses such as WordPerfect
and Lotus have failed? The key is that Free Softwaredevelops faster than
the big guys and produces better product. Look at the Open Office
business suite as an example. It's hard to imagine that Open Office is
barely a year old. And yet, it has nearly the complete functionality of
Microsoft Office, without any of it's security issues. The Open Office
Word Processor is simple to use, smartly designed and has full
integration with databases, graphic programs and spread sheets. It is
fast, efficient and easy to learn. It's presentation program revials
Power Point, and it has a full complelent of graphics, charting ability,
document revision control and groupware features. It was cleaved off of
Sun Microsystems Star Office and now has a life of it's own.
And it's free for the download. Say good-bye to all that time and money
spent tracking license keys. Spend that time and money on something more
important, like your business.
Another example of productivity software for the modern Free Software
Desktop include the K-Office Suite. It's a spin off of the KDE Desktop
initiative originally produced by Troll Tech. While the KDE Desktop is
technically superior, very windows like, and stable, it's crown jewel is
K-Office. It is installed with nearly every KDE environment, and it also
has Spread Sheets, Word Processors, Database tools, and more. Businesses
that work with KDE miss nothing but restrictive licensing and high
costs. Users find itintuitive and it never crashed.
It's Free Software rival is the GNOME project. GNOME also produces a
productivity suite which include GNUCASH, a quicken like program for
book keeping and accounting, as well as it's break through mail
andcollaboration client Evolution. Evolution provide your business with
a beautify crafter user environement for calendaring, scheduling, mail,
and more. What it doesn't have is the suseptability to email viruses. In
fact, this is the common theam to Freew Software. Security is built in
from the start.
And so is networking. Unlike the primitive Microsoft desktop. Every
application on the Free Software desktop is network ready. This is a
huge advantage for the businessman on the go. Anywhere they login into
the GNU/Linux system, they are able to run their desktop remotely. The
miracle behind this is the X windowing system out of MIT. X windows
allows users to run their programs from anywhere in the world. In
combination with VPN encryption, you can quickly and securely run your
office desktop from Mars.
Marco Scouffier, another member of the NYLXS Free Software Chamber of
Commerce explains it this way:
'When MIT create the X desktop, the goal was not to just create a means
to display applications locally at the keyboard. That level of
application was done nearly a decade earlier at Xerox Parc. Instead, the
key to X was to design in as an applications server which could provide
centralized security and computing power to lightermicro systems around
the globe. The result of this is what we now call X. And through the
security and capabilities of X, we can provide with free Software
services which cost thousands, if not millions of dollars through Citrix
on the close priopitary platform. It's even possible through Virtual
Network Computing to run a windows desktop remotely through a standard
DSL line.'
Previous attempts to move Free Software into the mainstream has been
hindered by three things. First, there is the problem of the Microsoft
Monopoly. Second, there is the perception that Free Software is for
computer geeks, and third is that there is limited support. It seems
likely that two of three of these barriers have been breached.
Joe Maffia, or the accounting firm, Rosenzweig and Maffia LLP
(http://www.rm-cpa.com/), tells a story very differntly than one hears
about the problems with ussage. Mr Maffia had hired Free Software
consultants from NYLXS not long ago, and he has found them to be the
most useful and cost effective IT professionals they've ever hired. In
addition to developing the most stable backend network that they've ever
had, Mr Maffia has found that the GNU/Linux desktop has great potential
for his business and his clients. They have implemented the PHPGroupware
Server on their intranet for calendaring and collaberation. And they are
looking at other Free Software tools for their business, including SQL
Ledger (http://www.sql-ledger.com/), Open Office and several project
management solutions. Mr Maffia swears by the Free Software he has
integrated into his business.
´As accountants, we are always looking for the technology edge which
will make us more competitive and which will allow us to provide a
higher quality of service for our clients. Free Software, with the help
of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce, gives us that edge. The VPN
solution implemented by Brooklyn Linux Solutions has not only extended
the productivity of our workers by providing fool proof remote access at
minimal costs, but it is causing us to look at both customer marketing
and customer services in a whole new light.
We are now looking at the Internet as a means to give products and
services in a fashion only the big companies had done before. For
example, we are an official Oracle and Net Ledger provider, and we've
had some success with this product. However, we now see that we might be
able to provide even a higher level of service for clients right off our
network through a single DSL connection. The solutions we implemented
for our own office ussage might be a cornerstone for a whole group of
potential clients, especially small businesses who find the cost of
running and maintaining enterprise file servers and mail systems
prohibitive. Because we are free from restrictive software licenses, the
up side of integrating office management solutions for clients with our
already world class accounting services is something with huge upside
potential and very little risk to our current busines model.¡
In addition, Mr Maffia raves about the different attitude Free Software
providers bring to his organization. ´From the very start, things were
very different when we interviewed Free Software professionals to hel us
with our back end network. They immediately evaluated everything from
the point of view of what would enable us in our goals of providing
service for our clients They made our priorities their priorities.
They've acted as partners in our enterprise, rather than victems of
their enterprises. And we couldn't be happier¡.
And accounts in the New York City area aren't the only ones who are
benefiting. Lawyers find that not only does Open Office make asuperior
Office Application, but that the built in encryption available on every
Free Software Desktop lowers the exposure to neglignce law suites do to
lost laptops and mail viruses. SuSe Linux (http://www.suse.com) comes
with an option to encrypt local hard drives. This protects the Law Firm
from having their computers stolen or lost, and finding the private
information in the hands of others.
Professional Graphic Artists also benefit from Free Software. Marco
Scoffier raves about the the GIMP and Blender. The GIMP is the Raster
Photo Editor free with almost every GNU/Linux distribution. Several
times more powerful and Photoshop, and with built in Perl and SCHEME
language support, Marco claims that there is almost nothing he can not
do with the GIMP for online graphic support. Furthermore, the use for
work in the print media is also impressive. Marco is also an advocate of
BLENDER. Blender is a 3d graphics and animation program with python
hooks for advanced gaming graphics and digital animation. He has given
several ectures on it's use and interface across the tri-state area. His
latest lecture was at the Long Island GNU/Linux Group in Farmingdale LI.
Government is another area where Free Software is poised to benefit
everyone. NYLXS, as an organization tried to get their software into
Brooklyn Borough Hall, but ran against the kind ofresistance often seen
when trying to market Free Software. On his election, Marky Markowitz,
the Brooklyn Borough President, made a call for technical assistence
because they had a large need for IT solutions, but no budget. NYLXS
sent to Borough Hall three of it's best people, Kevin Millani, Jon Bober
and Ruben Safir. Their experience was rough. As Mr Safir tells the
story, ´First, when we first contacted Borough Hall, they told us there
was no way that they would consider anything but a Microsoft solution.
Later, I was able to get in an see Scott Cotton, who was in charge of
this area for the Borough Presidents Office. However, when push came to
shove, they just wouldn't do what was reasonable. These private
companies came in and dropped propietory solutions on them, companies
like Con-Ed and SIAC. And despite the fact that we were willing to come
in, train them and install everything they needed, free of cause, it all
seemed to boil down to fear, and the fact that one individual in the
office was particularly found of an old version of a contact management
system several years old, and not that good. This kind of closed
mindedness is going to cost the City thousands of dollas over the near
term future, and it won't provide them a single service that NYLXS and
Free Software would provide them instead.¡
Others in the Free Software community are pointing out other obvious
examples where New York City Government can be cutting costs and
enabling the governments. During this urgentyear, facing a huge budget
deficiet, the Police Department is trying to figure out how it is going
to invest in an IT infrastructure suited for the 21st century.
Currently, the police department is still working with typewriters and
paper forms. Free Software, with it's free word processors and
enterprise ready databases and it's high security can save the city
millions of dollars in computing costs, both on the installation side
and on the maintemence side. Is New York City smart enough to leverage
this natural resource with and protect its budget. The NYLXS Free
Software institute is ready to find out.
Peter Siegel, another member of the Free Software Chamber of Commerce is
pursue this now. Mr Siegel is very clear about the advantages which Free
Software will bring the NYPD. Currently they are working with
Typewriters. The manpower alone, by using moderns computing systems is
obvious and we can substantially save the city money in these desperate
times even with Microsoft Office. But iwith Free Software, we can
improve on the costs to the city by millions moree. First, we can run
these systems on inexpense or old hardware which is being discarded by
every major company in the city. Secondly, they will never ever have to
pay for a license free. Never on the current product, or future
products. And finally, city employees will have complete discression in
the future maintemence and development of these systems. This will make
the cities empoyees more efficient as they customize the tools for their
unique ussages. And after all, nothing is more unique than the City of
New York¡.
> Ruben
|
|
