[AktiviX-discuss] Ufi-learndirect: what should I say?

[max]

>> Comments:
>>
>> Appendix 3 is fatally flawed!  One of the aims of the study
>> was to "compare the TCO of using OSS... against that of
>> non-OSS solutions".  However, the "Annual TCO per PC" costs
>> in the table in Appendix 3 suggest that there is a saving to
>> be made in "Consumables" simply by using OSS!  Impossible!!
not really. i haven't looked at the table, but i have had first hand 
experience of how some printers use less ink when using F/OSS drivers (less 
wasteful automatic head cleaning cycles at switch on/off). not a tremendous 
saving, but hey... and if you have a decent network going you won't need 
those floppies or zip disks anymore! and what about having one or two 
networked printers rather than a printer for every machine (which was the 
situation at one uni department i worked out - they couldn't get windows to 
do print sharing over the network!)

>> This anomaly must, therefore, cast doubt on whether any of
>> the other figures are truly comparable.  For example, are
>> BECTA really suggesting that schools saved money on hardware
>> simply by using OSS?  Similarly, I would have expected to see
>> a significant cost saving on software between schools that
>> use OSS and those that don't, but on this evidence, only
>> relatively small cost savings are attainable!
hardware costs can be saved, as alan said, but also with the magic x-terminal 
setup (ltsp.org). e.g. a 1.5ghz machine serving 5 other desktops (and 
probably managing quite a few others). the 'other desktops' being pentium 1s 
in the main.

and yes, my experience (providing support to various orgs as the seeds for 
change linux person), is that amazingly, the helpdesk-type support costs are 
so much lower. people just seem to ask for help a lot less. my guess is that 
they feel more confident just trying stuff out once they realise they won't 
lose their docs or crash the whole network.

another support time consideration that i'd never considered until i went to 
the circuit riders conference last year was licencing and re-installing. the 
techies at the conference (all of whom provide support to various small 
groups and charities) spent most of their time complaining about doing 
software audits to check everything was licenced, and re-installing windows 
(and therefore all the data and other software) regularly. I asked a few to 
work out how much time these two things cost them. answer 60%-80% of total 
time. so there's your 60% support cost saving already!

max