What is it that list-moms say? Something like 'if you ask yourself if you really SHOULD respond to a message, you probably shouldn't'? Oh well... I can't help myself!
"Just a nit though, as long as the school is happy with their results it's not up to us to second guess them."
[open rant] Ummm, actually that should have read 'as long as I haven't been in their shoes, its not up to a conclusion-jumping anonymous poster to second guess them.'
The anonymous gentleman or lady has obviously never experienced paying for and setting up a Windows Terminal Services solution in a K-12 education environment. Also obvious is the person's relative inexperience with formulating ROI and COO conclusions.
As one reader has already pointed out, Windows Terminal Services introduces additional licensing issues above and beyond the normal OS licensing. Couple that with the fact that Win Terminal Services does not perform well for more than a handful of machines per server without add-on third-party server software (that, I might add, costs quite a bit) and you have quite a bill on your hands. And how many low-cost educational titles has the anonymous poster attempted to install and successfully use in a Win Terminal Services environment? At least I know that the educational software I can recommend to my client to use on the Linux side will work in a thin environment.
Frankly, I think that the article's author would have been well-served to include those omitted points and others,but the article wasn't as much about the OS as it was the software, so a mere mention of the cost study was sufficient. Anyway, anyone in a real position to judge the subjects of this article would have enough industrial insight to see those points as well as others and open with an experienced opinion, whether against or for.
If I'm wrong and the person actually has knowledge giving him/her the ability to know an affordable way to use Win TS, I still fault the person for not expounding upon such interesting knowledge.
And don't think that I'm a Linux nut of some kind. Actually, I support all three major OS types in a variety of settings (Win, Mac, *nix) and my pick among them at home is a happy mix between Win XP SP2 and Mac OS X. What some people (on all sides) don't understand is that an OS is a tool and not a religion. You must pick the right tool for the job. In the high school's case, picking a Windows Terminal Services solution versus the Linux solution mentioned would have been the equivalent of buying a $250 chainsaw to cut through a quarter-inch thick board rather than just getting out the old trusty handsaw. Both get the job done, but one of the tools is not only overkill, it costs more to maintain and takes longer to get up and running.
Yes, there are a million other unknowns here and yes, I could be wrong. However, I just feel that the idea the poster expressed simply came from inexperience with the situation and that more of us should realize when we do not have enough of the big picture to make a Apples=Apples vs. Apples!=Oranges judgement.
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Re:Flawed savings comparison
Posted by: irontech on May 29, 2005 08:34 AM[open rant]
Ummm, actually that should have read 'as long as I haven't been in their shoes, its not up to a conclusion-jumping anonymous poster to second guess them.'
The anonymous gentleman or lady has obviously never experienced paying for and setting up a Windows Terminal Services solution in a K-12 education environment. Also obvious is the person's relative inexperience with formulating ROI and COO conclusions.
As one reader has already pointed out, Windows Terminal Services introduces additional licensing issues above and beyond the normal OS licensing. Couple that with the fact that Win Terminal Services does not perform well for more than a handful of machines per server without add-on third-party server software (that, I might add, costs quite a bit) and you have quite a bill on your hands. And how many low-cost educational titles has the anonymous poster attempted to install and successfully use in a Win Terminal Services environment? At least I know that the educational software I can recommend to my client to use on the Linux side will work in a thin environment.
Frankly, I think that the article's author would have been well-served to include those omitted points and others,but the article wasn't as much about the OS as it was the software, so a mere mention of the cost study was sufficient. Anyway, anyone in a real position to judge the subjects of this article would have enough industrial insight to see those points as well as others and open with an experienced opinion, whether against or for.
If I'm wrong and the person actually has knowledge giving him/her the ability to know an affordable way to use Win TS, I still fault the person for not expounding upon such interesting knowledge.
And don't think that I'm a Linux nut of some kind. Actually, I support all three major OS types in a variety of settings (Win, Mac, *nix) and my pick among them at home is a happy mix between Win XP SP2 and Mac OS X. What some people (on all sides) don't understand is that an OS is a tool and not a religion. You must pick the right tool for the job. In the high school's case, picking a Windows Terminal Services solution versus the Linux solution mentioned would have been the equivalent of buying a $250 chainsaw to cut through a quarter-inch thick board rather than just getting out the old trusty handsaw. Both get the job done, but one of the tools is not only overkill, it costs more to maintain and takes longer to get up and running.
Yes, there are a million other unknowns here and yes, I could be wrong. However, I just feel that the idea the poster expressed simply came from inexperience with the situation and that more of us should realize when we do not have enough of the big picture to make a Apples=Apples vs. Apples!=Oranges judgement.
[end rant]
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