Giving up on Microsoft software for work - 18 months on

By Nick Hortovanyi

Its been 18 months or so, since I started on "Giving up on Microsoft software for work". It has been an interesting adventure, one fraught with skepticism from some, but with joy from myself. The big question I faced then was, "Was it possible to work without using Microsoft software?". The answer has been a profound "Yes", from a pure do things to get work done point of view, but "No" from getting billable work.

I'm still using a nice 17" Mac Book Pro and have been very impressed with it. During the time I've had it, a new version of Mac OS X 10.6 - Snow Leopard, has been released and the system is still performing fine with the hardware. I've had next to no trouble and everything is working great. Apple have even opened retail stores here in Australia.

This photo is from my recent Sydney trip (the store was extremely busy inside):

Our servers run linux of various flavours - SuSE Linux, RedHat and Ubuntu. Some are on-premise and some are off-premise on Amazon EC2. Email, calender, documents use Google Docs and our CRM is Salesforce.com. Its our intent, that unless it is a client end user machine, that as existing hardware reaches end-of-life, new hardware will not be purchased. However, cloud infrastructure will be utilised.

What has surprised me immensely, during this time, is even though we use no Microsoft software, how dominant it is on-premise. Even with the ill fated Microsoft Vista operating system, corporates aren't moving away from Microsoft in the vast majority of environments that I'm engaged with in my local state of South Australia. Sure there are a few linux servers but they appear to be the exception to the rule. Why?

Lets look at servers quickly. Why isn't linux deployed more often? The two main reasons appear to be that existing support contracts with the outsourcer doesn't allow it (well change the contract is my normal response) and secondly that there aren't enough trained administrators (it doesn't take long to train them). But its more then what I have just mentioned, its also somewhat religious. Its like a fraternity, an old school boys club to some degree, with the managers choosing the technology based on relationships and maybe not on technical merit to get the job done in an efficient & cost effective means. A large outsourcer here in Adelaide (anybody living here will know that it is HP Enterprise Services, formerly EDS) seem to promote Microsoft at the exclusion of Linux. Is this to keep others such as IBM out? Who knows!

Choosing Microsoft as the operating system on the server, invariable also means that only Microsoft development languages and tools will be used.

Lets look on the client. The desktops are running Windows 2003/XP etc in these corporates environments. There may be a few Macs, but they will be with marcomms people, if they have these in house. Whats surprising though, is that mobile devices, will be a mixture of different vendors, including Apple's iPhone. The iPhone is appearing in the hands of many executive managers.

What I have not looked into, in great detail, is besides Microsoft Office, what are the applications that are running on these desktops? Are they installed natively, are they supplied through a Citrix server or are they web based? The later, is how the majority of applications, that I interact with, have been deployed in recent years. They work in most of the popular browsers, independent of anyone type of desktop. Invariably, they will also have a desktop version that works on Mac, Windows or Linux desktops.

So what is going on with the desktop in these corporates? (Oh, I don't use Microsoft Office either and can write documents, do spreadsheets and prepare/present presentations.)

How old are these applications that only work on Microsoft desktops? Do they still satisfy the business requirements? Has the initial investment been written off? Why aren't they being modernised and turned into web based applications? Are the users complaining that they are unproductive because of the outdated interface?

Some interesting questions. To me if they aren't being asked, or when people ask them, they are being squashed. It suggests that the organisation is stuck in support mode, looking to preserve the status quo. Those that can drive the change, to innovate, to progress forward to the next paradigm will get frustrated and leave.

This is what happens with myself, when people say the solution has to be Microsoft based and linux, or other alternatives can't be considered. To me it is yesterday's thinking.

So even though, I myself have been very successful in giving up on Microsoft software for work, from an acquiring work perspective from potential prospects in my current geography, it is not presently a positive.

"When will it change?" is the question I've been asking myself a lot lately.

Giving up on Microsoft software for work - it was easy

By Nick Hortovanyi

I no longer use any Microsoft software at all to perform my daily activities. Am now completely Micrsoft free!

I've been able to be productive on both a Linux desktop as well as on a Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard desktop. Who would have thought it would be that easy? So this will be my last blog entry on "Giving up on Microsoft software for work".

The Mac Book Pro is performing very well. Even have a 3G USB modem so I can be connected from anywhere.

This week, I imported one of my Powerpoint presentations into Keynote. Tweaked it a little, with 3D transitions! Using the mouse caused me a little grief, so am now using the Apple remote. Works like a charm. Everyone has loved the presentations in Keynote, yes my content was good as well!

If you have been holding off, maybe give it a try. I think you will find that a lot of what you do, is through a browser now anyway. So go for it!

Giving up on Microsoft software for work - Mac Book Pro arrives

By Nick Hortovanyi

After a long wait, it finally arrived last week. I'm now the proud owner of an Apple Mac Book Pro.

I had ordered close to the top of the line Mac Book Pro (MBP), 4GB of Ram, High Resolution 17" monitor, 7200 RPM 200GB hard drive.  This meant that the order had to be assembled in China, because it was a CTO (Configure To Order) as there was no stock in Australia. It did take approximately three and half weeks for it to arrive. Maybe the earthquake in China had impacted on production.

I unpacked the machine, plugged in the power and turned it on. I watched the introduction animation, and then proceeded to fill out the details for it's setup. It all just seemed to work. The monitor was very crisp and the LED backlighting makes for a very bright and readable display. The only mistake I made, was that I should have shortened my home directory name to nick, instead of using the default of the concatenation of the first and last names giving nickhortovanyi (if anybody knows how to change this, please let me know).

I turned on the Wireless Mighty Mouse and connected it. You have to change the configuration, to get the right mouse button to work. I also noticed that with the touchpad, that by default, not all the new touch movements and gestures are available. You need to enable them manually, which was a good thing as I could see the video instructions on how to use them.

Now for some connectivity, I turned on the Time Capsule and installed the AirPort Utilities program that came on the Timecapsule Disk. Started the AirPort Utility and configured network connectivity on the Time Capsule, established WiFi security and then I had internet access from my MBP. I proceeded to download some videos, (no guess here, it was the PC vs MAC ones in HD) to test out the connectivity speed. I was getting near maximum throughput of the ADSL 2+ link, so was happy with the WiFi performance. I had also plugged my Cannon printer into the USB port of the Time Capsule, where the printer was immediately recognised.

Next, I turned on Time Machine and pointed it to the Time Capsule. There was ~18 GB to backup, which got interrupted a couple of times as I was playing with the machine. It had completed by the next morning and every now and then I do notice the icon moving, signaling that it is backing up. One hopes, that in the advent that it is really needed, that I will be able to use it for recovery.

I installed and setup all the software that I need for daily work, such as Sametime, Twhirl (a twitter client), Open Office and Firefox. I choose to use the current Open Office 3 beta version, as it is Cocoa based, and also for Fire Fox, version 3 Release Candidate 2. The main reason I prefer Fire Fox over Safari, is that I could not find good integration with del.icio.us in Safari, for my shared bookmarks. For email, I decided to try the standard Mail client, instead of installing Thunderbird. Am still at this point trying to work out how to add a HTML email signature, but believe I may have a means through a link from the Feedburner site.

The Address Book and iCal (Calendar), integrated nicely with my Nokia N73 through the USB cable using iSync. I downloaded the latest software from the Nokia site and was then able to also gain access to my music and photos on the Nokia phone. Now, one thing that I wanted to do was integrate, my Google Calendar and found this article. It worked, I now had my Google Calendar entries on my phone. It would be nice, to be able to add a calendar entry locally and have it also sync with Google Calendar.

Having also purchased iWork '08 (for the price why not?), I thought I'd best install it. The applications Keynote, Pages and Numbers all seem to do their respective jobs with the Apple elegance that you expect. As I'm giving up on Microsoft software, I decided not to purchase and install Office 2008 for the Mac. I haven't proven a need for it yet. Open Office and iWork should be more then sufficient for my work activities. I'd already proven that Open Office on the OpenSuSe linux desktop was a viable alternative.

The Finder in Mac OS X 10.5.3 picked up the Samba shares, that our Linux server were publishing and I was able to mount the drives. I could also access all the web based applications that I needed.

The big question that I needed to answer, was could I use my new MBP as my primary work vehicle? The answer was Yes, if I used a Linux virtual machine for Java development for some of the IBM software that I support. Thus I tried out VM Ware Fusion for the Mac. I didn't try Parallels as it does not have support for multi-cores CPUs, that I could find.

There are a few less keys on the keyboard, and some difference for where the menus are located on the Mac for a particular application. Thus I'm finding that I'm using more keyboard shortcuts. I asked on twitter how to do alt+PrtScr and was pointed towards this handy link.

I've had no need to power on my old Windows XP based notebook. In fact, I've unplugged it and put it to one side. Having taken the plunge to give up on Microsoft software for work, I'm finding a wealth of new software that works and enables me to achieve the tasks I set out to do.

All in all, I have found my new Apple Mac Book Pro to just work.