Sales talk cloaked as advice !

From: Mark Sykes (realnews_at_network.org)
Date: 10/08/03 

Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2003 06:15:59 +1000

Mr Kastner makes no reference to the corporate trend of migration to
open source.
Here in Australia Telstra has stated their intention to do so ..

http://news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,7480637%255E15306,00.html

COLES Myer has followed Telstra's lead and begun flirting with
open-source software, such as Linux, as the retailer rationalises its
IT
operations.

In what could be another blow to Microsoft's hegemony of the desktop,
Coles has a number of Linux pilot projects on the boil.

Commenting on recent moves by Telstra chief information officer Jeff
Smith to pilot Linux on desktops, Coles Myer CIO Peter Mahler said:
"We
are having a good discussion on it. His people are talking to my
people".

Mr Mahler said the newly revamped Coles Myer IT team was looking at
open
source technologies.

"It is probably a route that we want to go down. Microsoft has asked
me
about it. I'm keeping them guessing," he said ...

=========================================================
http://www.techweb.com/centers/winserver/news20.html

Why You Need To Replace Those Windows 98 And NT Machines

By Peter S. Kastner, Aberdeen Group
InternetWeek.com

More than 50 million aging PCs sit on desks in corporate cubes and
offices around the world.

They were built and sold before the millennium; in fact, many were
bought circa 1998 because of anticipated Y2K problems with even older
Microsoft DOS and Windows 3.1 PCs. Small businesses often purchased
consumer machines with Windows 98, and larger enterprises installed
Windows NT desktops as the "fat clients" of Y2K-generation application
enhancements.

Fast forward to mid-2003. Those machines -- dusty monitors surrounded
by sticky notes and keyboards that show distinct signs of harboring
biological activity -- are still in operation, which is the problem.

If all of those PCs just died with a hard-drive whine and a puff of
smoke, the IT and corporate management issue would be simple: Buy a
new computer with an up-to-date operating system. However, PCs don't
all expire on some arbitrary date, such as the day the computer is
completely depreciated. The computers keep running, more or less, the
way they have for four or five years -- which is why so many
executives have repeatedly used the low-risk "no way" answer to
requests for a new generation of business PC replacements.

'Software Never Wears Out'
Non-technical executives believe that as long as the PC hardware keeps
running, the PC software will keep running. This is true, but only in
a vacuum under laboratory conditions.

The fact is that software does wear out. PC software is programmed and
supported by businesses that need to be efficient and profitable, just
like their customers. Ford only guarantees spare parts for five years
after a car is built. Guess what? Microsoft will only support an
operating system for five years after it is introduced.

There are two parts of Microsoft's support policies that the CEO needs
to understand clearly. First, Microsoft products that are past their
support dates cannot have support contracts, so telephone remediation
ceases, and there are no new service packs to fix bugs. Second,
security hot fixes are no longer provided, meaning that newly
discovered security bugs in non-supported products won't be fixed by
Microsoft and, thus, become an attractive entre for hackers.

The virus W95.Tenrobot is a memory-resident file appender that only
infects files when it is executed on a Windows 95/98/Me system. It was
discovered last month and is a "latest threat" at Symantec's security
web site. W95.Tenrobot gives a hacker remote access to a computer
through IRC. This virus shows that old software is still very
attractive to the bad guys.

Windows 98 and Windows NT have no facilities to indicate that a
machine has been hacked, unlike more recent versions where at least a
trail is left behind.

Windows NT 4.xx goes into the non-support stage on June 30 and Windows
98/SE on January 16, 2004. It is logical to assume that support
reductions by other hardware and software suppliers will be influenced
by those dates.

Act Two: The Auditors Enter
Corporate desktops that are left vulnerable to security problems of
unknown risk represent an unacceptable information technology
practice. A Big Four accounting firm partner indicated to me that his
firm's auditors, as they did during the Year 2000 period, would look
askance at clients running mission-critical business processes on
unsupported and vulnerable computers.

Followed By The Lawyers
The corporate law partner I spoke with asked to see a copy of this
article, saying his firm had a lot of old machines. He said that some
circumstances, such as knowing that the use of old PCs might result in
an enterprise catastrophe, could lead to a claim of negligence. But
his more insightful comment was that no corporate executive wants to
become a laughingstock by doing something stupid that harms the
business, yet is avoidable.

Looking down the road, I think keeping Win 98-era PCs around much
longer will move from the executive's prudent category to the stupid
category.

It's A Great Time For A PC Replacement Cycle
If you buy the above arguments and are still reading, then I have good
news: Mid-2003 is an auspicious time for starting or accelerating a PC
replacement cycle:

Windows XP Pro Service Pack 1 is out in the field and working well. No
stability problems here. A great client OS on today's more powerful
desktops -- and laptops.

Windows Server 2003 brings a new round of support servers, notably
Exchange 2003 and SQL Server. These use network and server resources
more efficiently.

Office 2003 will be out in a few months, along with new collaboration
options. Definitely worth evaluating.

Intel's new Springdale chipset will soon inaugurate an 18-month period
of platform and software image stability. Features include a fast,
800-MHz front-side bus, better graphics, and more efficient Ethernet
processing.

Intel's Pentium 4 microprocessors with Hyper Threading are now
mainstream. They are better at dealing with the multi-tasking that is
prevalent in the operating system, as well as thread-aware
applications.

About one-third of corporate PC purchases this year will be laptops.
The Intel Centrino wireless laptops feature a long battery life and
have the benefits of wireless productivity.

At Aberdeen's PC Deals, managed small-business PC prices on our
reference desktop -- which includes Windows XP Pro and Office XP Pro
licenses -- run from $1,250 to $1,400 this month from the top
suppliers. That works out to roughly $2 per day over three or four
years in capital asset costs. Moreover, a new PC has much lower
ongoing management costs than the late-90s generation; total cost of
ownership is down appreciably.

Time For Action
Last year at this time my company was filled with those old PCs
described above. Management did not at all like spending hard cash in
a down economy to upgrade our PC ecosystem. However, we analyzed the
business situation and concluded that we could not afford the
aggravation and potential disruption to our knowledge worker-driven
business by not upgrading. Tough medicine, I concluded, but common
sense.

For those businesses that are at the tipping point -- especially the
small-to-medium ones lacking a 24-by-7 global IT operations department
-- it is time to crank up the planning for the recession-disrupted PC
replacement cycle and get with the 21st century.

Tell the C-level executives that your organization may be able to limp
through the next year, but at an increasing risk to individual
productivity and business-process continuity.

Peter S. Kastner is executive vice president and chief research
officer for the Consumer Digital Technology Practice at Aberdeen
Group. Kastner leads Aberdeen's research in hardware platforms,
pervasive computing, and semiconductors. His primary research focus is
on workgroup, departmental, and Internet edge servers; blade servers;
Infiniband; personal computing; and consumer IT products. He has more
than 30 years of IT industry experience in both user and vendor
organizations.

Aberdeen Group's PC research can be accessed online at
www.aberdeen.com/pcdeals, or e-mailed to registered users. Send
comments by e-mail to pcdeals@aberdeen.com.