HP has been a favourite company of mine for decades. In nuclear physics they made nearly indestructible power supplies, high-precision lab electronics and then computers. Now, I read on their site the usual stuff about recommending that other OS. Now, they trumpet “Do the Math”, recommending business adopt “7″ on new PCs to lower costs.
I can do the maths:
- it costs almost nothing to run GNU/Linux on the old machines – if they die, chuck them and use new thin clients at less than half the price of HP thin clients
- of course folks spending a ton of money keeping that other OS running may see “7″ on new as an option but they have far better options
HP knows about thin clients? They are the leading supplier. They know you can run them very nicely with GNU/Linux, yet they recommend that other OS. Does GM recommend Cadillacs? No. They make them for people who want an expensive car. It is silly to recommend the most expensive line for every customer. There may be some customers of HP for whom “7″ on new machines is the best choice but they must be in the minority or “7″ would be doing a lot more to pump up the PC industry. Instead “7″ is holding the PC industry back my putting a pricey roadblock on renewed IT.
This is the continuing soap-opera that is M$’s marketing schemes. They persuaded HP to put a damper on sales of GNU/Linux in 2002/2003 for a few shekels. When is HP going to learn that they should be working for themselves and their customers, not M$? The same could be asked of ASUS, MSI, Dell, and others who know there is a good market for GNU/Linux but they hold it back at M$’s behest. I think 2010 will end this nonsense. It’s about time.
More maths:
- $100 thin client
- $125 monitor
- $25 keyboard and optical mouse
- $25 worth of a good server
$275. That’s all the hardware will cost to put a good thin client seat on your LAN. The box could last you ten years, the monitor almost as long. Why are you spending $1000 per year per seat running that other OS on thick clients? You can add software for every client in seconds. You will rarely need to reboot. Students, secretaries, salespeople can move around and log into their sessions without losing their page. One person can manage thousands of seats. The secretary can plug in a new thin client/keyboard/mouse if one should fail. Why continue to bleed money for IT when there is much more that can be done for much less? Do the maths, please!
Stop recommending and accepting the recommendation of “7″ on new and shop around. You can find people who do not “recommend “7″”: IBM, RedHat, Novell, and hordes of others. Get off the wintel treadmill.
