Who is promoting Linux? and who isn't.

We read columns, articles, blogs all the time, telling us where companies should be adopting GNU/Linux, tossing out other OS's and using Open Source software to reap maximum savings.

I agree, many of the big companies who routinely do massive rollouts of desktops and servers in their wide and sundry assortment of office buildings, warehouses and satellite locations could indeed bring GNU/Linux into the "limelight" by choosing it for the next hundreds or thousands of desktop implementations at upgrade time.

But, where do these companies, and even smaller ones, get their advice? who tells them the way to go? Is it all inhouse admins, executives and techs? Nope.

Corporations love to pay consultants. They hire consulting companies for everything from office decoration to IT implementation to auto leasing choices.

Why aren't the consultants recommending GNU/Linux/Open Source? If they are such experts and learned on computer systems, they must have been exposed to GNU/Linux as well as many other OS by now.

Open source is on the Proprietary desktop with OpenOffice and FireFox as well as other apps gaining popularity.

Where are the consultants? What is it that keeps them from pointing big business toward GNU/Linux?

You can walk into many computer shops, and offices of service/support providers to ask them if they support GNU/Linux. The vast majority of them will be a fast and resounding "NO".

Why? (this is a rhetorical question) Is it because certain proprietary providers have made them an offer they can't refuse? Great prices on products,for resale, reduced costs in support and licensing for their business?

Of course they do. Proprietary OS/software providers don't just try to woo over the OEM market, that's just the first nickel in their business.

Support and service is where millions of dollars are made.

A change took place in American production and sales tactics happened when Ma Bell was busted up and AT&T began to sell telephones instead of leasing or renting them to customers.

I am old enough to remember the old phones when you got them from the phone company. The tech may have been old (by today's standards, high tech for back then) but it was solid, sturdy.

They built the phones to take a beating and just plain work back then. Why, because the phone company owned the phone and it was in their best interest to build a product that wouldn't need to be repaired or replaced often.

After the breakup, AT&T capitalized in the worst way on the idea of "planned obsolescence", which is intentionally making something that will have an expiration date. Their phones made for sale to customers were made to break or need replacement parts within a certain amount of time so as to require consumers to spend more money. The service field was re-invented.

The computer industry has taken that approach and run with it. Everything that is electronic and computer driven is designed to have parts that can be repaired, now a days more often replaced, to ensure continued revenue in the after-market area. Oh yes, they will tell you that using the cheap parts allows them to sell cheaper products and make the products and technology available to a larger group of consumers.
This is a happy ( for them) side effect. They get extended revenues on one product line and an excuse for making cheap crap.

There was the day when people were proud to pay just a little more for something that was known to be solid, sturdy and stable. High quality.

Unfortunately, so many consumers have either bought into and accepted the concept and practice themselves or simply resigned themselves to being victims of the trend that most people don't brag about the great product they got, they brag about how cheap they got it.

Call Mssrs Ballmer, Gates and Jobs what you will. They may be evil corporatists, but they are not stupid or alone. They have helped raise an entire industry to keep consumers in pasture.

They helped create an service and support industry that would sell their souls and allegiance to them for a dollar.

MS and Apple are not going to fix every customers computer or device themselves, no, they need middlemen, techs and consultants who pay tremendous amounts of money to be 'certified' to work on a computer and fix it and protect the warranty provided by MS or Apple or whoever. "You want to work on our products and not void the warranty? You want to get discounts on parts and access so as to make some of the money you spent on training for certification back? Dedicate yourself to us, serve us and we will make you rich."

OpenSource and GNU/Linux turns that model on it's ear. Anyone can get the information to be trained to work on and with OpenSource OS's and software. You can pay someone to train you or study on your own. You can take certification tests much less expensive than others and be a viable service provider in the OpenSource market. People may not have to pay for the software, but people are people and will always need help. They are willing to pay for it.

If we want to get OpenSource and GNU/Linux into the world of the 'big boys' We need to have the attention of the advisers to the Kings. Sometimes the old saying " It's not what you know, it's who you know" is more uncomfortably true than we want it to be.