Resentment to Purchasing Software - Split From Unrelated Topic on IT Professionals
-
I'm not sure I understand the resentment on mangolassi of purchasing software. I've worked in many environments and FOSS is not always the best option for real companies. They are situation where it makes sense, but there are alot of situations when it doesn't.
SMB doesn't factor in IT labor costs very often unless they are outsourcing, and even then they rarely think past next week. I've seen mature FOSS applications be terrible in an enterprise environment and cost the enterprise wayyyyy more than just paying for software.
I don't get the elitist attitude of completely avoiding paid software solutions, although I guess it makes sense for a company that sells IT man hours to use FOSS because shut is guaranteed to break and you won't have support. So you have to go to your NTG or whatever IT labor you use and open your pockets at $150-300 an hour when you have an issue.
-
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I'm not sure I understand the resentment on mangolassi of purchasing software.
I think you missed the entire point. First, there was no resentment, at all. Second, the topic is about "buying IT work", and has nothing to do with actual products like hardware and software.
-
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
So you have to go to your NTG or whatever IT labor you use and open your pockets at $150-300 an hour when you have an issue.
The same as with non-FOSS software. People go to pay for support with non-FOSS solutions way, way more than FOSS ones. This is one of those myths that people selling software repeat, but has absolutely zero foundation in the real world. While it's 100% off topic and unrelated to the discussion at hand, it's a myth that should never be repeated.
The obvious examples would be things like Windows or MS Office vs. Ubuntu or LibreOffice. The amount of support hours that you have to pay to an IT firm (or hours spent by your department) are vastly higher, on average, with Windows or Office than nearly any alternative. It's some insanity that has permeated IT through sales and marketing that has convinced people that by some logic if you pay for software, therefore it costs less to maintain. There's no logical connection between the two, in fact, logic says the opposite - companies making software that you have to pay for have to have more overhead to acquisition to accommodate the process (licensing Windows is so complex, even full time Windows people constantly need to seek consultants just on the purchasing process alone) and then you have vendors who know their customers are willing to pay and so create ecosystems around milking them for more and more funds. And that's exactly what we see. Windows, in the enterprise, is measured at numbers like "quadruple" the support cost of an Ubuntu install doing the same workload. And Office must be in the thousands of times more effort per install.
It's simply absurd to connect FOSS with "more cost to support". Sure, nothing about FOSS guarantees that it also requires less IT effort, but the nature of FOSS actually does encourage that and the ecosystems of paid software encourage more costly support. And the market, quite obviously, plays this out constantly.
-
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
SMB doesn't factor in IT labor costs very often unless they are outsourcing
They also fail to evaluate the labor that they do pay for. And emotional reactions like "I paid a fortune to install this, it must have free support or need less support" tend to win the day without any foundation, research, or thought. Ask the average SMB buyer, and they'll actually tell you that they thought that the cost of the software was paying for support. Call Microsoft and see if you got free support with that Windows 10 purchase.
SMB likewise tends to assume that expensive products will cost less to support so will spend money up front happily, to also spend more later. And simply bury their heads in the sand to avoid finding out that they were just throwing money away, twice. First for software they likely didn't need to pay for. And second for support that they shouldn't have needed [as much of.]
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
The obvious examples would be things like Windows or MS Office vs. Ubuntu or LibreOffice. The amount of support hours that you have to pay to an IT firm (or hours spent by your department) are vastly higher, on average, with Windows or Office than nearly any alternative.
I honestly don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I love open source stuff and use it when I can, but there is no chance that the random office worker is going to have vastly less issues with Ubuntu and LibreOffice.
I've managed Linux workstations for employees. For engineers who could script and some wrote their own software for the type of engineering they were doing (thermo, acoustic, fluid, etc). They still had a ton of issues. Whether it was a bug in not having something displayed when they logged in that wasn't fixed until the next dot release, or just times that GNOME would crash and they'd have to hard reboot. You're looking at this through a person who understands these things, not the normal office worker who has no experience with it.
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
SMB doesn't factor in IT labor costs very often unless they are outsourcing
They also fail to evaluate the labor that they do pay for. And emotional reactions like "I paid a fortune to install this, it must have free support or need less support" tend to win the day without any foundation, research, or thought. Ask the average SMB buyer, and they'll actually tell you that they thought that the cost of the software was paying for support. Call Microsoft and see if you got free support with that Windows 10 purchase.
Well that is what you call a fool. Salesmen making fake promises isnt exclusive to IT.
If this is the norm, I guess that is why SMB IT is paid like shit, because they tend to be shit.
-
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
SMB doesn't factor in IT labor costs very often unless they are outsourcing
They also fail to evaluate the labor that they do pay for. And emotional reactions like "I paid a fortune to install this, it must have free support or need less support" tend to win the day without any foundation, research, or thought. Ask the average SMB buyer, and they'll actually tell you that they thought that the cost of the software was paying for support. Call Microsoft and see if you got free support with that Windows 10 purchase.
Well that is what you call a fool. Salesmen making fake promises isnt exclusive to IT.
If this is the norm, I guess that is why SMB IT is paid like shit, because they tend to be shit.
Of course, that leads to that. If SMB IT is just turning to sales people and not doing their own IT and failing to even buy their IT properly from someone else, then they've failed in both aspects. Being an IT buyer still requires doing a good job in buying at a good price, from someone that does a good job.
-
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I honestly don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I love open source stuff and use it when I can, but there is no chance that the random office worker is going to have vastly less issues with Ubuntu and LibreOffice.
In the real world, working with small businesses, it's dramatic how many fewer issues we see. That's why flat rate support for Linux systems is lower, it takes so much less IT time to buy, license, install, and support. And I don't mean a "little" less, it's so much less.
Random office workers are a great example. They rarely do anything complicated and all they tend to need are their business LOB apps (they can't tell if they are on Windows or Ubuntu), web browser, and/or office tools. Often, people are switching on their own these days and don't even realize because they've already adapted to all web work. That's why we are finding Chromebooks in customer sites all the time, because they work and the customers don't even reach out to IT before deploying and people just adapt transparently.
Since end users don't interact with the OS in any meaningful way, most aren't completely clear that the OS has even changed. They use a start menu, desktop icons, or whatever to launch their apps and it's all transparent.
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
So you have to go to your NTG or whatever IT labor you use and open your pockets at $150-300 an hour when you have an issue.
The obvious examples would be things like Windows or MS Office vs. Ubuntu or LibreOffice.
I seriously have to question if people who like LibreOffice actually use it for business. It is terrible at so many things. This is coming from someone who has used an Ubuntu workstation with LibreOffice for the last 6 years while working for multiple companies. Microsoft Office is 1000x better, and makes collaboration much easier. I have spent so much time trying to get LibreOffice to work or read MS office documents (that everyone else uses), and there has been nothing but issues. Not to mention LibreOffice is slower than MS Office by a good margin. If you work with big documents, LibreOffice is a dog.
-
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Whether it was a bug in not having something displayed when they logged in that wasn't fixed until the next dot release, or just times that GNOME would crash and they'd have to hard reboot. You're looking at this through a person who understands these things, not the normal office worker who has no experience with it.
No one is saying that Ubuntu is perfect. But you have to keep it relative. Supporting Windows with it's complicated network stack, registry, lack of simple tooling, constantly broken update process, and ecosystem of broken security - all the issues you have with Ubuntu we have too, but all the issues you mention with Ubuntu we see happening easily 10x as often on Windows as on Ubuntu. It's not that Ubuntu doesn't need support, it's that Windows needs vastly more support for the same, and additional, issues.
It's dramatic. The reboots, crashes, bugs... the one thing we consistently find is that remote access to Windows is more stable than remote access to most Linux. Everything else, we find Linux more stable and needing far less IT interaction for any given problem. For the same issues, Linux takes a fraction of the time to access and fix.
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I honestly don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I love open source stuff and use it when I can, but there is no chance that the random office worker is going to have vastly less issues with Ubuntu and LibreOffice.
In the real world, working with small businesses, it's dramatic how many fewer issues we see. That's why flat rate support for Linux systems is lower, it takes so much less IT time to buy, license, install, and support. And I don't mean a "little" less, it's so much less.
Random office workers are a great example. They rarely do anything complicated and all they tend to need are their business LOB apps (they can't tell if they are on Windows or Ubuntu), web browser, and/or office tools. Often, people are switching on their own these days and don't even realize because they've already adapted to all web work. That's why we are finding Chromebooks in customer sites all the time, because they work and the customers don't even reach out to IT before deploying and people just adapt transparently.
Since end users don't interact with the OS in any meaningful way, most aren't completely clear that the OS has even changed. They use a start menu, desktop icons, or whatever to launch their apps and it's all transparent.
Linux is great, LibreOffice is garbage.
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I honestly don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I love open source stuff and use it when I can, but there is no chance that the random office worker is going to have vastly less issues with Ubuntu and LibreOffice.
In the real world, working with small businesses, it's dramatic how many fewer issues we see. That's why flat rate support for Linux systems is lower, it takes so much less IT time to buy, license, install, and support. And I don't mean a "little" less, it's so much less.
Random office workers are a great example. They rarely do anything complicated and all they tend to need are their business LOB apps (they can't tell if they are on Windows or Ubuntu), web browser, and/or office tools. Often, people are switching on their own these days and don't even realize because they've already adapted to all web work. That's why we are finding Chromebooks in customer sites all the time, because they work and the customers don't even reach out to IT before deploying and people just adapt transparently.
Since end users don't interact with the OS in any meaningful way, most aren't completely clear that the OS has even changed. They use a start menu, desktop icons, or whatever to launch their apps and it's all transparent.
Yeah that first statement is very divisive. I'm giving you a real world example, you can't say "in the real world" like what I mentioned is something from a fairy tale.
Your second point now I really don't believe because you can't just "use a start menu or desktop icons". You need extensions enabled for that (unless you're using some other distro but you mentioned just Ubuntu). The extensions break frequently between releases. And are nowhere near what people would used to seeing anyway.
-
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I have spent so much time trying to get LibreOffice to work or read MS office documents (that everyone else uses), and there has been nothing but issues.
This is a huge part of why you see it as not working. You aren't trying to change your ecosystem, you are trying to use LibreOffice as MS Office, rather than using it apples to apples. Try using MS Office to read LibreOffice files, it's not good either.
Actually switch to LibreOffice, don't go halfway, and you'll be amazed at how totally great it is. As powerful? No, MS Office is the best when it comes to total features. But the average company has literally zero people who use those high end features, and those that do use them it's generally extremely isolated people within an org. No "normal" office worker can even start to touch the power features of either platform. For normal workers, meaning the 95%, not the 80%, both do anything that they need.
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
This is a huge part of why you see it as not working. You aren't trying to change your ecosystem, you are trying to use LibreOffice as MS Office, rather than using it apples to apples. Try using MS Office to read LibreOffice files, it's not good either.
Actually switch to LibreOffice, don't go halfway, and you'll be amazed at how totally great it is.Until someone outside of the company sends you a file. You can't say that exclusively using ODF files or even writing xlsx/docx files with libreoffice fixes the issue. Sure maybe for the random spreadsheet or word document you'r eusing internally. But business rely on external information. A lot of that comes in the form of office documents.
-
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Your second point now I really don't believe because you can't just "use a start menu or desktop icons". You need extensions enabled for that (unless you're using some other distro but you mentioned just Ubuntu). The extensions break frequently between releases. And are nowhere near what people would used to seeing anyway.
Just works "out of the box". For real. No extensions, no extra work. We use it every day, both at customers and internally. It's actually that simple. We can give it to people with zero training or knowledge of Linux, they don't need any training, at all. Anyone who can actually be functional on Windows can use it without the slightest issue.
We also use Raspberry Pi OS sometimes. But Ubuntu mostly.
The icons on the side are a bit different, but it takes moments to get used to that. I'd prefer Cinnamon for that sometimes, but as people move away from apps to just using the browser, it becomes less and less of an issue.
-
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I honestly don't know how you can say that with a straight face. I love open source stuff and use it when I can, but there is no chance that the random office worker is going to have vastly less issues with Ubuntu and LibreOffice.
In the real world, working with small businesses, it's dramatic how many fewer issues we see. That's why flat rate support for Linux systems is lower, it takes so much less IT time to buy, license, install, and support. And I don't mean a "little" less, it's so much less.
Random office workers are a great example. They rarely do anything complicated and all they tend to need are their business LOB apps (they can't tell if they are on Windows or Ubuntu), web browser, and/or office tools. Often, people are switching on their own these days and don't even realize because they've already adapted to all web work. That's why we are finding Chromebooks in customer sites all the time, because they work and the customers don't even reach out to IT before deploying and people just adapt transparently.
Since end users don't interact with the OS in any meaningful way, most aren't completely clear that the OS has even changed. They use a start menu, desktop icons, or whatever to launch their apps and it's all transparent.
Linux is great, LibreOffice is garbage.
I've seen LibreOffice Calc handle huge spreadsheets (thousands of lines) fine, and then choke on smaller ones. I'm not sure what the defining factor is lol.
-
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
This is a huge part of why you see it as not working. You aren't trying to change your ecosystem, you are trying to use LibreOffice as MS Office, rather than using it apples to apples. Try using MS Office to read LibreOffice files, it's not good either.
Actually switch to LibreOffice, don't go halfway, and you'll be amazed at how totally great it is.Until someone outside of the company sends you a file. You can't say that exclusively using ODF files or even writing xlsx/docx files with libreoffice fixes the issue. Sure maybe for the random spreadsheet or word document you'r eusing internally. But business rely on external information. A lot of that comes in the form of office documents.
We get this all the time, and it makes no difference. Seeing someone's "should have been a PDF but they dont' understand file formats" Word doc with slightly different formatting doesn't impact anyone. And if people are randomly sending Word files back and forth, we address the misuse of technology rather than spending lots of money to give them the right tools to the wrong job.
Are there times you HAVE to work with editable files with outside firms? Sure. Rare, but they certainly happen (but it's certainly not the standard use case.) Are there times when those companies absolutely refuse to not use MS Office file formats, yes. Of those two filtered situations, you still have two options... one is to have MS Office in isolated cases where needed for that use case; or just accept slightly different formatting.
It's not like LibreOffice doesn't do a job well enough that most users don't even notice until someone is doing an arbitrary side by side formatting comparison.
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Your second point now I really don't believe because you can't just "use a start menu or desktop icons". You need extensions enabled for that (unless you're using some other distro but you mentioned just Ubuntu). The extensions break frequently between releases. And are nowhere near what people would used to seeing anyway.
Just works "out of the box". For real. No extensions, no extra work. We use it every day, both at customers and internally. It's actually that simple. We can give it to people with zero training or knowledge of Linux, they don't need any training, at all. Anyone who can actually be functional on Windows can use it without the slightest issue.
We also use Raspberry Pi OS sometimes. But Ubuntu mostly.
The icons on the side are a bit different, but it takes moments to get used to that. I'd prefer Cinnamon for that sometimes, but as people move away from apps to just using the browser, it becomes less and less of an issue.
Ok. How many workstations is NTG managing?
-
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@IRJ said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
I have spent so much time trying to get LibreOffice to work or read MS office documents (that everyone else uses), and there has been nothing but issues.
This is a huge part of why you see it as not working. You aren't trying to change your ecosystem, you are trying to use LibreOffice as MS Office, rather than using it apples to apples. Try using MS Office to read LibreOffice files, it's not good either.
Actually switch to LibreOffice, don't go halfway, and you'll be amazed at how totally great it is. As powerful? No, MS Office is the best when it comes to total features. But the average company has literally zero people who use those high end features, and those that do use them it's generally extremely isolated people within an org. No "normal" office worker can even start to touch the power features of either platform. For normal workers, meaning the 95%, not the 80%, both do anything that they need.
The problem is that you cannot force people outside your org to use LibreOffice, and even forcing people inside your org to use something far inferior is extremely difficult.
Another issue that you didnt mention with LibreOffice, is the lack of collaboration when working on shared documents. I can much easier collaborate and work simultaneously on MS document.
Can you save a few bucks a month per user using LibreOffice, sure? It will cost you more support hours and you will get less productivity. So you will lose money to use a far inferior product, not to mention that you cannot easily share documents outside your org. As you mentioned, LibreOffice and MS Office have compatibility issues and the rest of the world uses MS Office. So prepare for issues every time you deal with someone outside your org (which is daily, obviously)
-
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@scottalanmiller said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
@stacksofplates said in When Does It Stop Even Being IT: Buyers vs Doers:
Your second point now I really don't believe because you can't just "use a start menu or desktop icons". You need extensions enabled for that (unless you're using some other distro but you mentioned just Ubuntu). The extensions break frequently between releases. And are nowhere near what people would used to seeing anyway.
Just works "out of the box". For real. No extensions, no extra work. We use it every day, both at customers and internally. It's actually that simple. We can give it to people with zero training or knowledge of Linux, they don't need any training, at all. Anyone who can actually be functional on Windows can use it without the slightest issue.
We also use Raspberry Pi OS sometimes. But Ubuntu mostly.
The icons on the side are a bit different, but it takes moments to get used to that. I'd prefer Cinnamon for that sometimes, but as people move away from apps to just using the browser, it becomes less and less of an issue.
Ok. How many workstations is NTG managing?
Thousands, in many different environments. So it's many hundreds of different scenarios. So we see a fair number of workstations, with hundreds of different business and environmental scenarios.
