Before installing Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 on Windows Small Business Server 2003, it is recommended that you read this document to learn about the top known issues that you may encounter when installing the service pack. Although Windows Server 2003 Service Pack 1 has released, it is recommended that you wait to install this service pack until Windows Small Business Server 2003 Service Pack 1 releases. More details at Microsoft.com.
The reason many small businesses use Windows instead of Linux on a server is that either they are completely unaware of Linux or they don't know how to set it up. Remember, it's not like Linux is some fortune 500 company competing with Microsoft; it's more of a grass roots movement. There's no money for catchy ads on TV, so many people are completely unaware of what Linux is or what it can do for them. I was one of those people once! :O
Id always heard of Linux i just did want to switch coz i was in my comfort zone in windows btu I guess servers should be Linux because its not like you use them for browsing the net or playing games
With Small Business server I'd say the main reason they stay with Windows is because: a) It comes with Windows Server 2003, SQL Server, Exchange, and Sharepoint at a fairly low pricepoint. b) MSCE's are fairly easy to find, however try to find anywhere near the number with a linux certification. c) MS's marketing does it's job. MS is a marketing company and they're good at what they do, they've built SBS up to be an easy to set up, and it's what it's known for. Edit: Whoops forgot to include ISA server in the list of shipping components.
ISA is arguably a terrible product though. I've actually been ISA certified for years, and I've never deployed a single ISA box outside of labs. It's hard to find firms who want an edge router that is susceptible to viruses and takes a ton of resources.
Yeah I agree ISA is a fairly poor solution but for small business's which at least at start-up are fairly cash strapped, being able to pick up SBS for what they can and it being included the majority are probably going to use it.
In that light though, I don't see what's wrong with LAMPS (no pun...OK, pun intended). Linux, Apache, MySQL, Perl, Samba. All free, all open source, all widely supported.
The 2 biggest issues I see there is 1) MS is a heavily recognized brand and are able to better market to small business than the fairly segmented Linux market. And 2) I know quite a few businesses who don't trust free software. When they look at it and see it being given away for free they see no sustainable business model and get scared about future support issues. While point 2 may not seem like an issue if you've ever been using a program and had the company go out of business you'd know why some are leary about using a free solution.
Alright man, it's plain to see that you're an intelligent fellow. But where the heck did you get that info, straight from Redmond? The whole beauty of open source is that there will always be somebody to take over the project since the source code is public. It won't just be locked away on some vendor's dusty hard drive somewhere. The problems you've pointed out are all pitfalls of proprietary software if anything.
I've dealt with quite a few businesses that have looked at the issue. While it may seem irrational, sure anyone can take over developing the product, but there main concern is over who's going to support it. It's the same concern that Red Hat has banked their business model on and the same reason MS can make a nice profit off of support calls. Proprietary software runs the same pitfalls that a devloper can go belly up, but alot of companies I've talked to don't see how giving the product away can be a viable business and don't want to risk having a company fold and be left with no support or having to switch to a different Linux vendor. MS on the other hand most companies know that unless their is some major accounting fraud going on that they have a long lasting sustainable business model, and that they will be able to have their support issues handled by one company.
Basically what businesses and consumers are running into the same issue I run into on a daily basis selling wireless phones. You have some people come in and they believe a free phone is just as good as a $300 phone minus a few unneeded options. Then you have the ones that come in and say what's wrong with the phone that your giving it away and buy the $300 phone even if they don't need a camera/camcorder/insert other feature here because they perceive the free or low cost phone to be crap based on it's price point. Same thing I find with the Linux/Windows debate you'll have some people saying I don't need the features Windows includes and I want a stripped down, small operating system at a free price point. Then you'll have the company/consumer that even if they don't need the features included takes them because obviously there has to be something wrong with Linux for it to be available for free. While some companies have capitalized on this way of thinking by charging for the os on disc. There is still quite a few roads Linux needs to pass to win over these users.
Really? The only company I've heard mention that issue so far is Microsoft themselves. I can only speak from my personal experiences, but vendor support has never been much of an issue for any companies I've ever worked with. That is, as long as there's some kind of support available. In all fairness, 3rd-party support for MS products is often much better than MS's. In a worst case situation, Linux gives you the contingency of handling that situation yourself. If some doomsday scenario was to leave you with an unsupported, mission-critical piece of software, you could always hire somebody to fix it or even do it yourself. You don't have that luxury with proprietary software. My point is that even if your particular open-source airplane goes down, the terms of the license can act as your parachute. However, to my best knowledge this hasn't ever happend anyway. If a particular program was to be useful enough to base a business model on, and that development was to cease on that project, it would almost certainly be picked up by another group and development would continue. Yep. But Linux is not a corperation, it's more of a movement in which several corperations choose to participate. Many companies are perfectly happy with a 100% non-corperate Linux solution (i.e. Debian, Slackware). That means the product is 100% free, community supported, and of course there are plenty of firms that offer heavy-duty, for-profit IT support on even these free-only offerings. First of all, the product already belongs to us, as in you and I, as much as anybody else. There is no question of giving it away, since we already have legal usage of it. If you choose to purchase a Linux vendors wares, it's the support you're paying for (and maybe some proprietary software addons), not GNU/Linux itself. The code is released under the GPL, which gives us many liberties on how we use the code and protects those liberties quite eloquently, guarenteeing the availability of the code and the usage thereof. It's not a question of whether or not to posses Linux, but whether to utilize it. Secondly, Linux is Linux is Linux. If one Linux distro was to go the way of the dodo, Linux marches on. The software is interoperable (because it's the same OS!), and any distro can be tuned to look like | act like | feel like | be like any other distro. The only real difference between distros is focus. Which niche is the distro targeting, and what features they tend to put more weight upon. For the record, I think Red Hat is nowhere near the best Linux distro, and I don't feel it is indicitive of Linux in general. It's still a pretty good product, but I believe Suse, Mandrake, and many other distros surpass Red hat in many ways, despite common functionality. Try each out individually some time, and I think you'll see what I mean. This is perhaps the biggest misconception. Microsoft, by the terms of their own EULA, is in no way liable or responsible for their own code. In my opinion, the single biggest contributor to Microsoft's business model is breaking support with their own products, forcing perpetual upgrade. Aside from the obvious fact that the customer is the loser in this scenario, the product suffers in the process. An observation along this thread of logic, Microsoft software is in a constant beta state. Hear me out on this one: the moment their software gets close to being solid, stalwart and nearly perfected [Windows 2000], their profit-driven business model dictates that they must yank the carpet out from under their clients and add a new swath of bloated and useless features [Windows XP].
Another big misconception. Linux is not some stripped-down wannabe Windows. It's actually a free clone of Unix, which is quite a different beast. At first, people just wanted to able to have the power of Unix on their home PCs, instead of just at universities and large companies with cash to burn. Over time, through the efforts of dedicated volunteers, Linux has not only become a freely available Unix that will run on a vast array of hardware configurations, but has actually surpassed Unix in many ways and will continue to do so. Just because Linux can be used non-graphically does not mean that Linux is a non-graphical OS. As a matter of fact, there are literally hundereds of different interfaces one can choose from to suit their needs in a desktop environment, from thin and sleek to epic and full-featured. I prefer KDE, one of the two most popular and widely-used Linux desktops. As you can see from the screenshot, it's not some afterthought that allows Linux people to use a GUI with their meager, console-driven OS. Every asthetic feature and customization shown in the picture below is native to KDE; none of it is provided by 3rd party software. P.S. - My apologies, dialup users! :O
I didn't mean for Linux to sound like a stripped down windows I'm basically saying people are paying for the new bloated/useless features like you mentioned in your first response. I've used Linux, but as a person who runs a business and deals with a variety of businesses small and large quite frequently I've run into quite a few more into the mid to large size enterprises that are spending thousands on support incidents whether it be from MS, Oracle, RIM, Red Hat. These are companies that are running Win Server 2003/SQL/Exchange for their infastructure because a) they know who to goto for support and the majority of their support issues are handled by one company. b) most are on software assurance so as soon as a new version of an MS product comes out they have access to it during the RC phase and when the final version comes out upgrades are included in their SA license so they can upgrade when their ready. Also another major issue with clients I've dealt with is the amount of MSCE's they have hired, if your IT dept. is MS trained chances are their going to reccomend MS products being used. And since the IT dept. is already trained on MS products the TCO is going to be reduced as their is no need for them to learn a totally new OS. The final problem that I've seen with businesses not wanting or willing to goto Linux or Unix is the lack of software support. For example for a company running BlackBerry's and wanting to use an Enterprise Server they have to go with Win 2K or 2K3, there is no support for linux or unix. Until these issues are resolved *nix will remain a second tier OS to quite a few organizations.
You're right about that, I guess I misunderstood you. Good call. Believe it or not, I've also worked with/for many companies of varying sizes, including enterprise, government, SOHO, nonprofit and education, even a project with JPL. I've seen a lot of different setups, and most are at least a hybrid of Windows and some form(s) of Unix, and perhaps some proprietary mainframe stuff (e.g. AS400). Across the board, every organization I've worked with which has any Windows infrastructure has problems with that infrastructure, regardless of the technical abilities of their IT/MIS staff. Even by the most forgiving measures of a server OS, a mission-critical system that must be rebooted regularly is ironic. Especially when that system is also prone to instability and viruses. It seems the prevelent attitude is that Windows is just "good enough". Meaning, the glaring flaws are aknowledged but accepted as a regular part of computing in general. BTW, do you realize the discussion we are having has been the same old debate since the mid 90's? I agree that Microsoft techs will push Microsoft products, that's a given. But as for the TCO point, I strongly disagree. It's very hard for Windows to compete with any Unix-like solution on the grounds of TCO, let alone a free one like Linux or BSD. Consider that even if you were to go with a proprietary Unix like Solaris, it takes something like 1/40th the amount of technicians to manage a Unix network network as with Windows. Whether or not the IT dept. is trained is not an issue, since training for one individual couldn't cost nearly as much as paying 39 technicians. And that's not even considering factors like licensing, downtime, scalability, portability, product life cycle, and vendor lock-in. ...unless they utilize Linux-powered smart phones. In that case, it would operate flawlessly with any OS, not just Linux. If you want to mention lack of software support, why don't you bring up network calandering software (e.g. Outlook)? Linux does in fact lack good network calendering software. The only clear solution on the horizon is Mozilla Sunbird. Although Sunbird looks like it may smoke Outlook at its own game, it's still a very early beta and won't be done cooking for some time. Other than calendering though, there really aren't any glaring examples of Windows software that doesn't have a native-running equivilent in Linux. Strange times, eh? I think the misconceptions are much stronger than the real issues, which is an issue in itself. Microsoft is quick to misinform, and that hurts us all -- especially since Microsoft tends to be a counter-innovative company. Even if you hate Linux because Linus Torvalds stole your girlfriend in high school or something, any way GNU/Linux improves benefits everybody ...regardless of whether or not you run it.
