Hidden Cost of Enterprise Computing

I'm really fascinated sometimes how many people talk about Linux. This definitely includes your truly - we often talk with our emotions and with some sort of will to make to a headlines. It is not bad to be passionate about something, but it leads sometimes to overvaluing the issue on hand. I make such an error myself at times.

Take for example the article I just read. Adrian Kingsley-Hughes from Datamation (IT Management publication) wrote an essay, in which he discusses the hidden costs of using Linux operating system. What he does though, is mixing quite a few things in one bag, and not the good way. He mixes the problems that home users might have and implementing them to enterprise users, which is wrong. There's quite different approach in enterprise IT departments to computing and infrastructure. Here are the things that author is quoting as "hidden costs", that are not reflected in "free" Linux:

1. Uncertainty
2. Time (whatever that means)
3. Support issues
4. Choosing the distribution to use is also depicted as the cost
   

While he's right on some points here and there, he seems to be missing to be consistent - and mainly he mixes enterprise problems with generic Linux issues. Here's what I'd think:

Uncertainty: while there are some problems with some hardware when using Linux, it is hardly an issue for an enterprise users. Home users may not have the required knowledge or expertise to check that hardware they want to buy or already posses is supported, but no enterprise IT professional will choose the combination of hardware and software that wouldn't work together. The hardware used in many enterprise companies is often limited to a few single vendors, which also limits the number of platforms needed to be supported. When choosing Linux to use in specific areas in IT, the person would test that it works, and if it doesn't - the product will not be purchased. That's just basics. For the sake of the example, if Windows system wouldn't answer the technological requirement (such as, say, an easy scripting platform), and Linux would, then Linux would be better technological choice.

Time: that's foolish argument. To install the operating system requires some level of knowledge in computing. If some home user have problems - that's one thing, but to consider that an IT personnel in enterprise would have difficulties with "installing" an operating system on production systems just seems very unlikely. Any software that is considered to be used, would be first tested and checked for any obvious problems. So getting something utterly problematic into the production cycle, seems very unprofessional and has nothing to do with Linux.

Support: that's probably the favorite issue of many journalists and will probably stay like that for awhile. Being exposed to different vendors and different suppliers and different support teams, I'm here to testify that there are good Linux support teams and terrible Microsoft support teams. And there are also vice versa. And there are bad "hardware support" vendors and good "hardware support" vendors. And the pitch of all this: it has nothing to do with the price paid for support, nor the openness or closeness of the product. It's just the result of getting good vendor or bad vendor.

Choosing the distribution to use: that's not an issue for enterprise users at all. Almost all the time when you get the hardware from a hardware vendor, he'll either support specific distributions or all of them or none. So the choice would be primarily due to IT department taste. And to think that a choice would be done by people who don't know anything about Linux is again the signs of professionalism (or lack of one). Why do people think that sometimes, that there's no need in professional personnel?

There's more: as I'm looking for a job a the moment, I've been in contact with many hiring agencies. And the curious fact is that they say, that no IT department will take today someone who doesn't know Linux or Unix. Even if they have an MSCE certification!!! That's exactly the opposite situation of what was on the market 4 years ago. You see the trend here? IT departments even in Windows-only places want people who know Linux. That means, that enterprise is well aware of Linux as the contender on their infrastructure, and want to have the expertise in-house.

So here's the verdict: there's no Linux vendor that "hides" any of these "costs" in word "free". An enterprise which would like to purchase Linux solution, will go to big vendors such as Red Hat and Novell (and maybe Canonical one day), and buy the software with support, just as it would do with Microsoft or Mac solutions.

So, hidden costs? Not in the professional IT departments in enterprise.