Migration from Windows to Linux

Bill Sconce sconce at in-spec-inc.com
Thu Oct 28 10:03:01 EDT 2004


On Thu, 28 Oct 2004 09:07:46 -0400
"David Ecklein" <dave at diacad.com> wrote:

> To all-
> 
> Thanks for the leads.  This is indeed a big subject, an elephant is in the
> room, and there has been so little discussion of it.


You're right, and you do us all a favor to bring it up.  Many of us (well, me
anyway) have made our escape from Microsoft some time ago, and all to easily
do we find ourselves (well, myself anyway) simply feeling sorry for those who
are still trapped.  Not very helpful.

Viewed another way it should be a tremendous opportunity.  We are beginning
see the real interest out there in making the conversion, and the conversion
success stories are beginning to stack up.  (Did you know, for instance,
about the Merrimack Valley school district?)


> I was not addressing the third, somewhat subjective, part of  the
> migration - that of the migrating user's necessity to deal with all the
> system trivia and steep learning curve of the "paradigm shift", but this is
> obviously important.

I see one thing which maybe could help a lot:  tackling the "big" problem
one little problem at a time.  For instance, starting with something less
threatening that "taking away Outlook".

The "steepness of the learning curve" sounds daunting.  There's a lot to
learn and change, to be sure - but "steepness" is almost totally under user
control.  _IF_ we can take our time, and be non-threatening at each step of
the way.  "Here, kid, have a little bite of this nice Firefox, er, lollipop"?
A server or two (which folks won't even notice, probably)?  OpenOffice.org
on people's desks, side-by-side for a while?

"For a while" is one of the keys:  make that read "for as long as it takes".
You can have the conversion, and you CAN change people's minds, but it'll
have to be on their schedule - not today, and not tomorrow.  As long as it
takes, and to win their hearts and minds, you'll have to make them believe
that you'll stay with them, and that ABOVE ALL they won't be allowed to fail.

Hm.  That does seem to mean taking care of the Outlook conversion for them.
But that will hardly become necessary until they've already become convinced
that the entire conversion is a good idea.


-Bill
beginning to see that the interest out there IS growing at last



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