Re: Help to Promote Linux! - Economics....

Joel Robinson wrote: > Lets not forget that M$'s Small Business Server is $1500 for : > > 5 user NT Server > 5 user SQL > 5 user Exchange > 5 user Proxy 1.0 > and other goodies > > And 25 user is $2500. Thats the limit, then traditional pricing starts. > > Sorry but BillG is going to get the low end of the market while Informix > continues to study the Linux opportunity and want the business case > presented on a silver platter. First, Informix runs on NT. ODS and OWS both run and IMHO are far, far superior to SQL. Second, 5 user license is not enough for a corporate server. Unless all you have is 5 people in your corporation. ;-) Of course, that's NT 4.0 Wait until 5.0 exits. Then all bets are off. Of course if you are not familiar with Microsofts methods, they give you a great deal in licensing your desktop for large corporations. Then after the agreements end.... WHAM! their pricing kicks in. They figure that its cheaper to pay the licensing costs than it is to migrate to their competitors who may or may not exists after being starved out. One corp I did some work for had a sweet deal of a $40.00 desktop package. After the contract ran out, the price went up to $300.00. Yet I digress. Linux represents a lot of question marks to corporations. There is a huge paradigm shift in marketing and support that needs to be addressed. Informix isnt the only company which has asked to see the demographics of the Linux market. That's why the survey is more about why people chose Linux and what they feel is missing from Linux that would let it go mainstream. If you want to know more, subscribe to the IIUG list and ask questions. Some of them might get answered. Currently Bill G owns the low end. What he is trying to do is expand that really low end, aka PC database to the low end corporate world. Since he's selling the OS, he has a distinct advantage of bundling the other packages and control the whole thing. That's why the justice dept. is going after him. Just say no to Bill. -Mikey BTW, The rumors of my wiretaping Mike Saranga's office phone are completely false. The SEC beat me to it!