[Linux4christians] OT: Soon, majority of users will no longer use IE

[Pastor David]

>     Would not an "obscure mainframe" or the provider of the "obscure
>     mainframe integration package" want to meet the need of their customer 
>     or risk losing them?
> An interesting, but incorrect assumption. The software and the mainframe 
> have already been sold to the customer. Losing that customer would be of 
> minimal impact to profits. Customer can't move because they already sunk 
> money into the mainframe and supporting products. Unless someone can 
> give them a cost effective exit from this situation, they are stuck with 
> their current IT architecture.

What is the typical lifetime of a "mainframe" these days?

Replacing selected tasks of a mainframe with sub-systems as 
a way to
extend the life of the mainframe in tough economic times 
would seem
a win-win for a business and an open opportunity to wean 
them of
monopolistic/proprietary solutions.

> 1% of that 1% would not make you anywhere near wealthy. Let's use some 
> absolutely unrealistic BEST CASE figures. There are approximately 300 
> million people in the US. Let's make the unrealistic assumption that 
> there is one computer for each of those people. 1/10000th of that is 
> only 30,000 customers. Let's assume a through the roof profit margin of 
> $20/unit. That works out to only $600,000. Which is enough to employ 
> about 6 developers per year or 1 developer for 6 years. (More likely 
> somewhere in between as you won't make all your sales in one year, but 
> you will have repeat customers looking for upgrades.)

You left out all of the business, educational, cyber-cafe, 
and other computers.

> Keep in mind that full time employees have costs above and beyond their 
> base salary including Social Security, Healthcare, equipment, office 
> space, and other costs. $100,000/employee may actually be low. Expanding 
> into Europe entails a great deal of cost related to international sales. 
> Most other areas of the world (e.g. Africa, China, Australia, India) 
> tend to be lost causes for small businesses due to non-use of computers, 
> piracy, because they'll grab the FREE (as in beer) software, or because 
> their population is too sparse in comparison to their land masses to 
> make marketing and distribution cost-effective. 

Really?  Someone needs to tell our high-tech sector that - 
the one that
makes massive profits overseas.

Here are some examples of growth that include international 
markets:
http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/software-equities-enterprise-technology-enterprise_tech_0129_red_hat.html
Cognizant Technology Solutions Corporation Class A (NASDAQ: 
CTSH)
Google (much as I wish it were not so).

> Have you already forgotten about Germany's attempts at moving to Linux? 
> They were bullied into delays, delays, and more delays. They finally 
> deployed 100 out of 14,000 desktops in 2006. The plan was to be at 80% 
> Linux by 2009. As of last reports, they are at 1,000 out of 14,000 
> desktops. 

Microsoft is facing a slew of new court cases in Europe ... 
Linux is not the
only ones bogged-down.

> Again, Linux offers them nothing. They have existing, profitable 
> markets. Why would they break into one with no money behind it?

RedHat?

> Never assume that coordination is zero cost. There are very real costs 
> to businesses in everything they do. Just picking up the phone and 
> talking with another company is costing them money. Needing staff to 
> compile and support new versions of software is a massive cost that 
> can't be justified unless a company can reasonably expect returns in 
> excess of those costs. So they turn to a studies group like Gartner. 
> Gartner says 'no', so they ignore phone calls from the distro makers.

RedHat?



-- 

Have an http://Ultrafidian.com Day!  Pastor David
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Personal Site: http://bibleseven.com
"Before the Beginning was God. At the Beginning was Wisdom.
After the Beginning angels & man took a big dumb-pill." dmc
10 Acres & 2400SF Home For Sale in Florida - ask me.
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