Seluque - Dosador, resinador, esmaltador, lubrificador, doming, bomba

Publications

Why isn't Linux a success?

Understand the reason for the most companies prefer to pay for using Windows, from Microsoft, in spite of adopting the program that has the penguin as a symbol.

It's free, safe against virus and other virtual plagues and, moreover, any user can modify its code. Every time people talk about Linux, the operational system created 15 years ago by the Finn programmer Linus Torvalds, the argument is the same.

But, even it's pointed as a good alternative to paid programs, as Windows, from Microsoft, and Mac OS, from Apple, Linux can't conquer the public. According to a search carried through the Yankee Group, expert in technology, only 1% of the computers in the world, about 900 million, use Linux, while 97% are equipped with Windows (the 2% remained use other operational systems). If we consider the use in servers, more powerful machines that centralize the information from several computers and turn it available in net, the situation is a little better. According to Gartner Dataquest, another international search company expert in this sector, Linux is used in 1.4 million servers worldwide, the equivalent to 16% of the total. But, even though, Microsoft still supplies the most popular system and holds a slice of 65% of this market (the remain, once more, is in hands of other manufacturers).

Why does it happen? If Linux is free and all its advantages, why isn't Linux a success and overcome its competitors?

Total Cost

First, the answer demands we ignore the ideological aspect of this issue, generally present at the speech made by the Linux maniacs, the legion of affectionate by the program that is spread worldwide and doesn't save energy to defend it, nor to exorcize the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, the favorite target of their attacks.

This way, it's easier to understand what happens based on the technologic aspect, what is really important in this case. "People have business discussions as if they were discussing a soccer match", says Sanjeev Aggarwai, senior analyst at the Yankee Group. Saying that, let's go to the point. Linux, whose symbol is a penguin, isn't a success, according to experts, because it has a lot of disadvantages. The idea it's free is an illusion. The user needs to have a great investment to adapt the system, to mold it to his necessities. It demands technician support, that isn't cheap, to installation and development. As there aren't many specialized professionals in Linux, the price of the service is higher, by the law of supply and demand. In addition, as the system isn't well known and it's unfriendly, the user needs to be intensively trained, what raises more and more the implementation costs. "Although it's free, Linux is a complex system, that demands high personalization degree", says Aggarwai. "That's why, the most of times, the cheap gets expensive".
The analyst says it's important to calculate the total cost of ownership of the system, called in informatics as TCO (Total Cost of Ownership).
It includes at the count not only the first acquisition value of a software or some equipment, but all the costs that influence its life cycle along the time, with values related to installation, updating, maintenance and training. And, at the time to calculate everything, Windows, from Microsoft, has an advantage. A search made by International Data Corporation, an American consultant company, shows that a net server installed with the plate developed by Microsoft can spend until R$22.000,00 in five years and, as Linux, can reach to R$30.000,00 in the same period. From this total, according to the data, 82,2% refers to cost with labor. It's a fact that the search was ordered by Microsoft and must be analyzed carefully. But it must be considered, in favor of Bill Gates' company, that the Linux maniacs never consider these costs when they defend the use of the system, and it isn't by random.

According to the professor Fernando de Souza Meirelles, the first of SATÃ - in Brazil, a recent example shows what we're talking about. At the beginning of the current government, president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, trying to please the left politicians, that practice an anti-Bill Gates speech, considered the evil of Yankee capitalism, raised the Linux flag. To stimulate the use of the software in the country, Lula stimulated the installation of the system in several areas of the federal administration, replacing Windows, which was used then. But the migration to Linux, besides being unproductive, had a high cost for the public safes. According to information from executives from the sector, the government hired about 2.000 programmers full time to make the changing. R$56 million are spent a year only in salaries and work incumbencies of the staff - the double of what the Information Technology National Institute tied with the Civil House consider that the federal government could save with the programs that hasn't bought in 2004. "They come up against difficulties because they've changed the technology without testing and adapting it first", says Haroldo Hoffmann, director of initiatives and strategies of IBM Brazil, manufacturer of informatics products.

Agility

With the companies it isn't different. Açotubo, for example, that's in the area of civil, naval and mechanical construction, used in its 220 machines the OpenOffice applicative, a kind of Office that runs in Linux, with text, calculation and papers presentations applicative. According to the technology manager of Açotubo, Hothenys Nascimento, the program started giving problems six months after its implantation. He tells that his clients couldn't open the files sent by e-mail by the employees. Even among the staff of the company there was difficulty to open internal documents.

Nacimento also says that the program was much friendless than the Office, from Microsoft, and the Mac OS X, from Apple. As the OpenOffice needs adaptation, the programmers, many times forget the lay users and use more complicated commands and applications. "We had some serious errors in spread sheets because the employees had difficulty doing their tasks", he says.

For all these reasons, the company decided to migrate from Linux to Windows, even aware that could have a high cost to make the changing. It invested R$40,000 to start the process. Nowadays, about 70% of the computers already have the Windows XP, from Microsoft, the most recent version of the system. The migration might finish only in 2007. But, according to Nascimento, it's already possible to see some advances at the management of information. The documents available in Word or in Excel spread sheets, with prices and quotations for the clients, can be easily accessed and read now. "We already can have more agility at the clients attendance", he says.

In the case of Ativo.com, company that makes on-line inscriptions to sportive events and used to use Linux in its server tells that the system got the updating of its site a drama. According to Christian Kittler, executive director of the company, at each alteration at the site, all the structure needs to be modified, demanding a lot of hours of developing and making it difficult to fulfill the stated periods with the clientele. Without talking about the extra expenses that it demanded. "We managed to spend around R$120,000 in developing and we couldn't carry out new projects", says Kittler. "Due to the technologic issue, we managed to lose clients". He says that the company couldn't spend more money at each new project. And then it decided to make a last unexpected outlay. But at this time the money - around R$30,000 - was applied to defray the migration of the site to the Microsoft Windows 2003 Server and the data base Microsoft SQL Server 2000. With the new technology, according to Kittler, it got easier to implement new services and make it possible offers for the clientele.

The entrepreneur Rogério Souza, partner of Usinanimada, animation, video, illustration and design production studio, located in Ribeirão Preto, in the country of Sao Paolo, preferred to pay to use the system Mac OS, from Apple, instead of using Linux. According to Souza, the company searched for other operational systems, but it concluded that in its area of activity, that demands a graphic interface with more resources and a large capacity of processing, the Mac OS would be ideal. "I'm very happy, I don't change the Mac for anything", he says.

The independent specialists say the Linux isn't for everybody. Despite the evolution of the system, there are few applicative for the companies use in their computers yet. But it's clear that there are the ones that adopt the system and are satisfied with it, mainly when it's used at the server. And, in case of big companies, that need millions of licenses, the costs of adaptation of the system can be dissolved and turn the use of Linux more advantageous. The usage of free software by the big companies represents, above all, a victory for its defenders. In Brazil, "Casas Bahia", "Lojas Renner" and "Telemar", for example, use the system and, besides the economy they've made, they guarantee the gained productivity. The list is long and it includes, surprisingly, companies like "Carrefour", "Pão de Açúcar" and "Petróleo Ipiranga". "Casas Bahia" informs that had an economy with the payment of licenses of 6 million dollars. "Telemar", one of the biggest telecommunication operators of the country, use Linux in its charging and says that can save 27 at the expenses with maintenance.

Pirates

Even some small and medium companies decided to follow the same way. That was the entrepreneur Jesimiel de Oliveira Seluque did. He's the owner of Seluque Equipamentos, company from Elias Fausto, in the country of Sao Paolo, that works at the area of industrial automation. The ten computers of the company and its server used to use the original programs from Microsoft, but inexplicably they blocked very often. Then Seluque found out the reason of the problem. The original programs had been changed by pirate ones by the third team that used to give technician support to the company. "It was a trouble after another", he says. "We couldn't emit a forma bill of sale".

If he wanted to rebuy the licenses to install the programs from Microsoft, that cost R$17,500 in 2001, Seluque would have to invest more R$15,000. What, according to him, would be impracticable at that moment. And in addition, he wouldn't to convey with the old ghosts, then he opted by the migration for Linux. The entrepreneur says that spent only R$1,500 at the installation and until now he hadn't had unpleasant surprises. "I have nothing to complain about", he says.

Among the small and medium companies, however, Seluqeu is the exception that confirms the rule. But, even though, the big producers of worldwide softwares, like Microsoft and Apple, can't ignore that Linux has its market, mainly when it's spoken about servers. Not by random, Bill Gates has created a specific area to follow it closely. It's Bill Hilf's responsibility of developing products with the Microsoft technology to run in Linux environment. He's the market strategy general manager of Microsoft, and he's doing this with his programmers team. "The coexistence of the two systems is a tendency", he says. Even the programmer John Maddog Hall, president of Linux International, entity without lucrative purposes dedicated to the free software, is and adept of the peaceful coexistence of the mainly operational systems existents in market. "If you have a system running well, it doesn't worth to convert it", he says. "It's necessary to analyze what makes more sense for each company".

It's good to know, anyway, that the predominance of the paid systems isn't a result of the economic power of the manufacturers, as lots of the Linux defenders seem to believe. It isn't either a result of billionaire publicity, because there isn't any advertising that helps to sell bad products. If the most people opts by paying for something that could be obtained freely at the market, it's because it seems the relation cost-benefice of the paid programs is higher than the free software. After all, the market can't be so imperfect to the point of the companies change the cash without having a good reason for that.

Source: PEGN - PEQUENAS EMPRESAS GRANDES NEGÓCIOS - JULY 2006
www.globo.com/pegn