Blackmoor Vituperative

There’s a really interesting article at SearchOpenSource.com about FSW Inc. switching to Linux. (FSW is a Connecticut nonprofit that offers people healthcare and social services.)

What makes this article different from most that I read is that it doesn’t just mention Linux, Firefox, and OpenOffice. These are great, and they’ll meet the need of 90% of the small businesses out there, but for large enterprises, they need more. They need virtualization. They also need something to replace Microsoft Exchange. This article doesn’t go into exhaustive depth on the decision making process FSW went through, but it does touch on these issues, and mentions what products they considered. This is good ammunition for IT directors out there who want to reduce their agency’s costs and increase their reliability by moving their core infrastructure from Windows to Linux.

The article also doesn’t gloss over the work involved. It’s a lot of work, make no mistake. But at the end of this phase of the transition, FSW saved $100,000 on their HIPAA compliance effort. That’s not trivial, and the great thing is that those savings carry forward — every time it would have been time to upgrade, or renew a license, FSW will save again.

This is really a great article. I think it does a lot to dispel the FUD that Microsft spreads about TCO.