[rescue] VirtualBox anecdotes - was Re: A wee bit off-topic

[Lionel Peterson]

Keep an eye out for computers sold with "Windows 8.1 with Bing" - those PCs
have free (as in beer) copies of Windows, no paying a windows 'tax'.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/2158665/microsoft-announces-windows-8-1-with-b
ing-for-low-cost-pcs-and-tablets.html

And going forward, MS announced that anyone that evaluates a Windows 10 before
release will get a free permanent license for windows 10 for the machine the
evaluation was run on when it is released later this summer. The so-called
'Microsoft Tax' is going away.

http://m.slashdot.org/story/295719

In China, India, and Russia, where you claim Windows is effectively 'free'
(due to rampant piracy), people still choose Windows over other, equally free
operating systems like Linux... So the reason windows is so popular in those
countries can't be price alone, but also *perceived* value/functionality of
windows vs. linux.

Didn't I recently read at slashdot that the German city (Munich) that cut over
to Linux ten years ago is considering switching back to Windows because, wait
for it, the incredible savings of using a free operating system didn't
materialize (in part, along with other reasons)?

http://www.neowin.net/news/munich-germany-realizes-that-deploying-linux-was-a
-disaster-going-back-to-windows

Over the last ten years Munich spent 14m Euros developing and maintaining
their LiMux Linux environment and saved an estimated 11M Euros in Windows
costs:

http://www.zdnet.com/article/munich-sheds-light-on-the-cost-of-dropping-linux
-and-returning-to-windows/

A conversion back to Windows is estimated to cost Munich over 3M Euros plus
infrastructure investments. I found no information regarding the conclusion of
Munich's reconsideration of their IT platform, I assume it is on-going.

None of the above should be construed as being a discussion of technical
superiority, inherent quality, or suitability to a particular task of either
Linux or Windows operating system.

Lionel

On Jun 22, 2015, at 2:54 AM, microcode at zoho.com wrote:

>> As you look at a map of the world, the most
>> populous countries (China, Russia, India, USA) are majority Windows users.
>
> Uh, yeah but that's because the people in the first three countries get
free
> copies and the people in the last country get to pay for a copy of it (but
> not the actual media) on every "computer" they buy whether they want it or
> not.