On 10/9/2011 9:39 PM, Jeff Liebermann wrote:
On Sun, 09 Oct 2011 22:00:38 -0400, Michael
wrote:
In in the professional world, no one seems to add the labor cost of the
armies of support personnel needed to keep the Windows machines running.
Adds a tad to the price.

I don't have much contact with IT except when they get into trouble.
As far as I can determine, most of IT consists of supporting users,
not machines. As near as I can determine, the level of user support
is about equal, whether Windoze, Mac, or Linux.

- 73 de Mike N3LI -


The support costs I've noticed, starting with IBM 360/65 (1973), are
people followed by people followed by people. Somewhere below the
people is hardware.

Been in the middle of it since 1975 starting as a programming assistant
in a college data center. Where we presented decks to the priests.

As a programming assistant the most frequent things I saw were questions
from the grad students like - "How do I make it fit?", "How do I make it
fast?", "Why doesn't it work?". Users who would spend 18 hours a day
dug into the math of what they were trying to solve, but refused to
spend 4 hours once learning the tool they used to solve the simulations.

I knew nothing of what they were trying to prove. But I always managed
to get the programs to fit, run fast as possible, and not "doesn't work".

Some things never change.

tom
K0TAR

Disclaimer - this comment is about academics and offices, not data centers.