How to Run a Microsoft-Free Shop

Give them all of that freed-up disk space back. Return money saved onlicensing (most Linux applications require a capital purchase andsupport, but little in the way of ongoing fees). At the film companyDreamWorks, Ed Leonard has ported the entire graphics animationdepartment to Linux; Shrek was created on a "renderfarm" (a powerful,refrigerator-size rack of servers) that had 800 processors runningLinux. Leonard took the money he saved by not having maintenancecontracts and used it to buy far more inexpensive Linux PCs. He saysthe money he has saved will allow DreamWorks to replace desktops andthe renderfarm every two years instead of every five.

STEP 10 We continued to take inventoryof the switch to Linux, and when we muffed it, we promptlyadmitted our error.

Now be brutally honest. If a conversion to Linux doesn't save money orimprove the business, admit it in your analysis - and possibly stop theprocess. You're not doing this as a crusade. In many cases, honestlyadmitting it was an even swap will win more supporters than trying tofudge benefits that may not be there.

STEP 11 We prayed for knowledge ofbusiness goals and the power to carry them out.

Now you can put the documentation to work. Show what moving to aMicrosoft-free shop can do. Turn all that data into a slickpresentation created on StarOffice Impress. Michael Tiemaan, CTO ofLinux vendor Red Hat, recently did such a presentation for a customer.The customer had done a high-volume transaction on a $2.5 million,32-processor server using Windows applications. Even then, thetransaction took two weeks to finish. Red Hat and the customer puttogether an alternative: 10 two-processor servers running Linux. Alltold, it cost $500,000. The transaction now completes in one day.