On Wed, 2010-02-10 at 19:09 +0000, Lester Caine wrote: > Shawn McKenzie wrote: > > Lester Caine wrote: > >> Since a large section of our USER base is still tied to W2k and does not > >> have access to install other software, the call for IE6 to die is STILL > >> somewhat premature! > >> What is needed is someone to kick M$ to sort the mess out by at least > >> allowing IE8 to install on W2k machines, rather than telling hundreds of > >> councils they have to replace ALL their computers :( > >> > >> The alternative is to convince M$ controlled councils that Firefox is OK > >> and that using it will not invalidate their contracts - but then all the > >> work currently being done to convert legacy setups to work with *IE7* > >> would have to be scrapped and reworked on Firefox. Many of my customers > >> have only just got funds to start an *IE7* roll out! Redoing all that > >> work for IE8 is yet another problem for which money is not available. > > > > Support of any type for Win2K is over in 5 months. Better upgrade. > > With ALL councils in the UK having to cut jobs to meet their budget allocation, > there is no way they can afford to waste money on replacing perfectly functional > kit! I'm at a site in the morning that have just MOVED dozens of W2k machines > into their relocated support office simply because replacing them is out of the > question. They are closing down an office to save money! Simply because M$ say > something is not a good enough reason to waste money. YES going open source > would be a very good idea, but then all the staff would have to be retrained and > that is another budget string with no available funds :( > > -- > Lester Caine - G8HFL > ----------------------------- > Contact - http://lsces.co.uk/wiki/?page=contact > L.S.Caine Electronic Services - http://lsces.co.uk > EnquirySolve - http://enquirysolve.com/ > Model Engineers Digital Workshop - http://medw.co.uk// > Firebird - http://www.firebirdsql.org/index.php > Going open source does not mean so much re-training. Just something as simple as choosing Firefox over IE, or Open Office instead of MS Office 2007, you actually get software that's free and more familiar with the proprietary MS software they used to use. Database systems can be replaced with Open Source solutions, and can be supported for a much lower price. There are open source email clients which are nearly the same to use as Outlook. Even if they switched to Linux as an OS (which would require training in most cases I think) you could still run a lot of the legacy apps that the public sector is so full of. And there's the added benefit of not being tied into closed formats, which is a very serious and expensive problem for the public sector, which often has strict requirements on the durations of records and documents, etc. Thanks, Ash http://www.ashleysheridan.co.uk
