Leaving Redmond
Let me quote freely from this USA Today blog post on the eve of the Microsoft Windows 7 launch that my colleague Bob Sutor Tweeted my way earlier today.
According to a survey conducted by Boston research firm Chadwick Martin Bailey, of 145 IT pros 51% plan to standardize on Windows 7 for laptops and desktops. Thirty-eight percent intend to do so with netbooks over the next couple of years.
But at what cost?
- Opting out of Windows 7 can save the typical American business with 20 or fewer employees up to $40,000.
- Government agencies crunched by budget shortfalls can save big by avoiding the switch to Windows 7; with 14.7 million state and local government employees and 2.5 million federal workers, saving up to $2,000 per employee would be a huge relief to government spending.
But as the story continues, rather than jump over Vista from XP to 7 (which in many cases will require significant hardware upgrades), why not leave the Windows merry go round, dump it altogether, and move towards a lower-cost alternative?
Say, for IBM and Linux distributor Canonicals’ new Ubuntu offering.
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