Date: Fri, 25 Feb 2005 10:30:29 -0800 From: "Ted Mittelstaedt" <tedm@toybox.placo.com> To: <freebsd-questions@freebsd.org> Subject: RE: Is Yahoo! moving from FreeBSD? Message-ID: <LOBBIFDAGNMAMLGJJCKNMEIJFAAA.tedm@toybox.placo.com> In-Reply-To: <1229915242.20050225184420@wanadoo.fr>
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owner-freebsd-questions@freebsd.org wrote: > Jerry McAllister writes: > >> Well, that same odor seems to come on those winds from the northwest >> as well. If you are a middle manager, you don't have to justify >> paying scads of money to buy an MS "solution" and any screwups are >> just the way life is. But your neck is on the line if you buy >> anything else - even if it is free. You have to justify it first >> and defend it every day regardless of how much better it might >> perform. So, managers cave. They want to keep their salaries and >> get their bosses off their backs. > > It's a bit more complex than that. Companies like IBM and Microsoft > will assist managers in justifying their respective software > or hardware > solutions. The manager is not alone in arguing in favor of these > solutions. If the manager chooses something like open source, or any > unsupported solution, he's on his own, and often he loses. That might be true but what is also true is that when such managers win, they win very very big. So big that in the sum total of things, their wins bring in far more money to the company than anything that the conservative managers do. CEO's of companies generally don't get to be in that position until they recognize this, with banking and a few other fields the notable exceptions. Most of them would love to see more of their middle managers stick their necks out more and take some risks. Many of the largest companies regularly hire consulting companies and send their people off to seminars in an effort to promote this. All of this gets down to basic risk reward. Nobody ever got big rewards by playing it safe. Nor did anybody make it for long taking reckless risks. Open Source/FreeBSD isn't playing it safe, but it isn't a reckless risk either. Ted
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