On Sat, 2006-10-07 at 16:26 +0100, Andy Green wrote: > And then there's this: > > http://smallbusiness.itworld.com/4383/nls_networking061005/pfindex.html > > ''...I estimate each Vista user will cost your company between $3,250 > and $5,000. That's each and every Vista user. ...'' As someone who is now helping clients plan for Office 2K7 and Vista Upgrades, as well as someone who makes *good* money selling and deploying SharePoint and other Microsoft Collaboration technologies, I think this number actually is a bit on the conservative side. I base this on my own knowledge and experience with these new versions. I'm in the Vista / Longhorn / Office 2K7 / SharePoint 2K7 / Project Server 2K7 beta programs through my job. These new versions are not only more expensive than their predecessors, they are also more complicated to install, configure and maintain to fully leverage the technology. That means most companies will also need larger quantities of profesional services to get these tools set up to be useful. That's good for my company <sheepish grin>, but we're also making no bones about telling our clients up front that the upgrades will indeed be expensive. ...What amazes me is that people seem so willing - even eager - to pay these premium prices when comparable (often times superior) technology is available to them at only a fraction of the cost, even when including the professional services needed to deploy and maintain everything! Microsoft makes extremely addictive Kool-Aid and you gotta hand it to them for the way the market (yup - some of it is definitely questionable or even illegal and they still manage get away with it). Knowing what I know, they would be near the bottom of my list for the majority of technology deployments. When asked directly by clients for an honest answer, I tell them the truth (without bashing anybody) and even then they still buy MS in the end. Truly mind boggling... I'm also a regional practice lead for virtualization technology (mainly VMware and Virtual Iron) for my company. I've been having a great time ribbing our MS liaison in the office about the fact that our lab runs all of the Office 2K7, Longhorn and Vista stuff on VMware Server hosted on Fedora Core 5 without so much as a hiccup. We're going to upgrade to VI3 next week, but will still keep 1 server as Fedora and VMware Server to run a few things. Looking forward to FC6 with lots of anticipation! Cheers, Chris -- ====================== "Never murder a man when he's busy committing suicide." -- Woodrow Wilson
