TooMuchGreen

Back end systems don’t really move at the same pace of the front end (or the pace it thinks it does) and most major developments are less flighty to instigate and adopt, there’s too much at stake and it’s invariably such a mammoth undertaking to totally replace or migrate a full business enterprise platform it’s done only when absolutely necessary, i.e when the back end dies or available system resource restricts adoption of newer enterprise functionality with a resulting impact on cross-business integration and communication.

Microsoft software is renowned for lack of backward compatibility through various revisions which combined with an escalating requirement for more powerful hardware at every incarnation leads reluctance to adopt, this is one reason many NT4 Domain models are still in operation supporting front ends running Windows 2000 (I actually liked Windows 2000, it was stable, it was cheap and it worked well, no nonsense, no fuss). So what if Microsoft have pulled the plug on support and service pack release for their older products, if you’re a struggling small company without the wherewithal to upgrade you won’t, not because you don’t want to but because you simply can’t afford to do so. Cash is hard to come by in 2009 and if you can still send and receive email, surf the net, print and process your orders then fair enough, who needs Vista and the cost of a fancy new computer to run it. Increased favour for browser based application suites is also a consideration, Firefox is free to download and is totally cross platform.

Aside from inter-communication the main problem is that of stability and integrity for your systems, the internet opens up a whole world of possibilities for business and communication however it also brings with it a flip side of increasingly intelligent cyber crime and viruses, in a busy I.T department the predominant workload can quite easily consist of SPAM filtering, system patching and virus prevention rather than enabling development, which leads me on (as usual) to the alternatives.

Here’s a simple question – you’re going to buy a computer, would you prefer one which is prone to viruses, will be out of date in a couple of years, is a mess of cables, confusing to use and pig ugly – but is cheap (and nasty)…or would you be prepared to pay a touch more for a swish computer at the pinnacle of technical design running the worlds most advanced operating system, a computer which doesn’t get viruses or require an extra firewall, is intuitive to use and has double the estimated shelf life (or more) of the other? If so you should be looking at an AppleMac solution.

Admittedly the initial cost of a full Mac based business enterprise platform could be too pricey for corporates in the present climate, the accounts department may not be too happy even if the extra cost was marginal and the factored TCO over the next five years was a fraction of their present mainstream option, a five year vision may not be a consideration with budgets running from year to year, more may still be perceived as more……however, what if a cutting edge upgrade solution was provided free of charge? You’d be interested right?

In the open source world software is free…top to bottom, and stable….you can quite easily run your business on a flavour of Linux and kiss goodbye to both software licences and viruses, a doubly whammy. Linux will also breathe new life into your existing hardware, your computer hardware is fine, it’s only that bloated operating system which is choking it. The vast majority of new uber-cool netbooks run a version of Linux which highlights the innovation process of adoption we’re starting to experience, it’s only a small step from briefcase to desktop and the internet is already there with over 80% of the worlds web servers already presenting pages to us from the now ubiquitous LAMP stack (Linux, Apache, MySQL, Php).

Too Much Green provide LAMP services and offer a business ready Ubuntu desktop build offering comprehensive integration with your existing Microsoft network, if you’d like to know more check out the introduction to Linux or contact us through the solutions page for further information.