unixwiz

As I was going through some “junk” mail today, I picked up a HP/Compaq mailer/catalog. Not sure why I got it, as the last HP thing I bought was my HP DeskJet 952C Printer back in 2000. Anyways, as I was flipping through it I notice one thing in common on every single page that had a computer on it: “HP/Compaq Recommends Microsoft Windows XP Professional”. It wasn’t just on one page, but on every single page and in probably a 17+ point font. Why do they need to put that on every page? I seem to remember reading something a long time ago that said that Retailers had to put that wording on all their material to get some special pricing from Microsoft. Even going through some vendors web sites, it is on all the pages there as well

For the most part most people don’t know of other OS’, with probably the exception of Mac. But I would like to see some other computer vendors start offering other OS’ on their machine besides just MS Windows. In my perfect world you could buy a PC/notebook from a major vendor sans the OS and then you could buy/download the OS you want to have installed. (I say download as every one should be using Solaris/OpenSolaris especially now that they are getting wireless and pcmcia to start working .)

Another OS I would love to be able to buy to run on any x86 is MacOSX. I have started to really like this OS for desktop use, especially for older people. One it is based on UNIX, two it has a really slick GUI, three virus’ that effect the MS Windows environment don’t do anything to it, finally it is fast. The other thing I like is the cost of it, let me explain with a little comparision:

Now lets look at Apple’s MacOSX:

Now if I totally ignore XP Home edition, because there really isn’t a version of MacOSX like it, we can see that MacOSX is a way better bargin. What is interesting is that if nearly all “PC’s” in the world are running MS Windows and you usually can not buy a computer from a major vendor with out Windows being on it, why is it so much more expensive thatn MacOSX? A single user license of Windows is $170 more than a single user license for OSX, even if you bought an Upgrade copy of Windows you are still paying $70 more for an Upgrade which means you have to have previously bought another Windows Product.

Now the interesting part comes when you get in to family pricing. Now days, most familys will have one if not more computers in their house, especially if they have college students or have upgraded and gave their old ones to the kids, etc. For example I have 2 IBM Laptops and two “x86″ desktop machines (and various other Sun,SGI and Dec equipment). One laptop runs Windows 2000 and very slow at that, the other one runs Solaris Express (aka Solaris 11) and Windows XP. The first desktop runs Solaris 10 exclusively whereas the other runs Solaris Express and Windows XP. Now add in my girl friend’s machines and we have a total of 5 machines in the house that run Windows XP at one time or another. If we were to upgrade to “Microsoft Vista” and the price where to magicly stay the same as it is for Windows XP, to upgrade those 5 machines to Vista would cost us over $1000 (after tax was added). Whereas if I were to “junk” all the x86 machines and replace them with Mac’s and a new version of OSX (or OS what ever) were to come out and it’s pricing were to remain the same it would only cost us $199.00 to upgrade our 5 machines (or assume that Apple would allow MacOSX to run on generic X86 machines).

Now why doesn’t Microsoft offer a family pack upgrade? Do they really think that a family can afford $1000+ to upgrade PC’s, not to mention if they are using Microsoft Office and it’s outragous prices as well. (Shameless plug, go get Sun’s StarOffice 8 it is only $69.95 compared to $499.00 for Microsoft Office Professional 2003. StarOffice has been working well for everything I need to do since version 5.2 and it will do everything you need to do as well. If you are really tight on money you can download OpenOffice for free. OpenOffice is what StarOffice is based on.) Maybe that is why there are so many people still using MS Windows 95/98/ME/NT/2000?

So what is the point to all this, Why does software cost so much? Just in the last couple of months Sun has made their flagship OS, Solaris, free for everyone. Not only did they release their OS for free, they are releasing most of their software for free as well. You can now get Sun Studio 11, the C/C++/etc compilers for free now as well. Which is really cool. So if a company like Sun can do it, why doesn’t other companies do it as well? But I think the coolest piece of software that Sun is going to offer for free download is the SunRay Server software. The reason this is cool, imagine having a bunch of SunRay’s around your house with a SunRay server sitting some place. You could then move about your house and have access to your desktop anywhere. As an example say you were wanting to cook a meal that had a complicated recipe and you did not want to print out the recipe to take to the kitchen, so you bring up the recipe on your SunRay that is in your office and then you go in to the kitchen and put your SmartCard in and presto your desktop shows up in your kitchen and you can cook your meal by following the recipe and maybe even a video of some one showing you how to do it. Another cool thing about a home SunRay setup, pretty much $0 software cost to it. There is no cost for the Operating system as Solaris is free. No cost (soon) for the SunRay software as it will be free. The only thing you are going to pay for is hardware. A good new PC can run a couple of SunRays well (just bump up the memory) (I have a test SunRay server at my house running on a Dell PIII with 512 meg of ram running Solaris 10). Next no virus’, instant file sharing in the house, and the best part, the SunRays are completely quiet and cost a fraction of the amount of putting PC’s everywhere in the house.

Since this has been a long post I am going to put some footnotes in:

1. All prices were pulled from the respective vendors websites as of January 15, 2006 at approximatly 22:00 and are in US Dollars
2. The free software from Sun is free for use, but does not provide any support, other than web forums, etc. If you want actual support you have to pay for it.

Interesting, M$ Winders, MacOSX, Rant, Solaris, Sun, Sun Ray Interesting, M$ Winders, MacOSX, Rant, Solaris, Sun, Sun Ray