> In my experience, switching over PC's to something like Ubuntu is no issue in most cases.
If it's an issue or not depends on the software people use to do their work. If 90% of it is spent in a web app and the rest is e-mail plus the occasional presentation or letter, then yes it's not a huge issue.
However many people in work environments depend on specialized applications that may not be available on linux. Then you not only have to change OSs but also end user applications.
I have been through a failed migration to Ubuntu from Windows. The new head of IT and CTO were huge linux nerds and wanted to transition promising huge cost savings. As it turns out LibreOffice plus Evolution could just not replace MS Office and Outlook. Our accountants refused after after a week of trying to use Calc instead of Excel. Sales and Marketing people found that Outlook had features that were not available anymore. A major internal FileMaker application was supposed to be replaced by a LAMP web application. That project languished for half a year before it was given up after it failed to become usable. It was never even attempted to replace the Exchange server. The designer never started to switch away from their Macs.
In the end it was decided that everyone could use the OS of their choice. So we now have mix of about 60% Windows, 30% Macs, 10% Linux on the desktop. The attempted migration cost the company a lot of money and time.
> haven't had any problems installing Linux on any business model Dell desktop
Installation is not the issue.
>Can we stop pretending Linux has no use for anything?
Nobody says that.
> performance
Firefox is faster on Windows than on Linux. Battery life usually also is better, though Macs are miles ahead there.
Not on any of my computers. I have windows 8 installed on a separate partition on my laptop and have literally only used it to upgrade the system and I installed firefox to browse the web while I wait for updates.
This pristine OS that has almost never been used boots up fairly fast, but then when I login it takes 3 minutes to load the start screen. Then of course the first thing I want to do is go to my desktop, but guess what? The whole OS chokes when I click the button to bring it up. I've gotten use to giving windows 8 a "warm up" period of about ten minutes, but this still doesn't help. I go to open Firefox on the desktop and literally nothing happens for 3 minutes, I end up pressing the icon again, then I get 5 FF windows, 2 mcaffe pop-ups, some crap from dell, and oh look! more up-dates. This is on a brand new dell with integrated graphics and an intel core i5 with regular HDD. Linux doesn't have any of these problems. Now I'm sure you can tell me all the tricks to getting Windows to run faster, but if I wanted to spend all day configuring my OS I would use Arch.
How many people work in your company if you don't mind me asking? In my experience, a lot of companies that have thousands of computers are employing people who aren't important enough to have a company Outlook account. Believe it or not many companies still use dos (and train the employees to use a command line dos interface in 3 days).
Plenty of companies can switch to Linux, maybe not your 15 person start-up where everyone has a specialized task, but plenty of others can.
Back when I used to dual boot, 2007, I would try playing UT2004 on Windows then on Ubuntu, it was always faster on Ubuntu. I even tried the Windows version on Wine on Ubuntu and it was faster. That's perception but a gamer's perception. When Valve ported Steam to Linux they found in their _initial_ port that it was...faster. They then found out why and were able to speed up the Windows version but the Linux version is still faster. If Firefox is slower on Linux this is a fault of Mozilla (remember the tolerant techies who fired a new CEO due to their intolerant thinking).
It was a few years back that FF was so sluggish in linux. (fast in Debian now)
That was the time I tried Opera. The difference in bootup time was like night and day, and it was quicker rendering certain pages, but in the long run those pages were outnumbered by ones Opera was actually slower at.
If it's an issue or not depends on the software people use to do their work. If 90% of it is spent in a web app and the rest is e-mail plus the occasional presentation or letter, then yes it's not a huge issue. However many people in work environments depend on specialized applications that may not be available on linux. Then you not only have to change OSs but also end user applications.
I have been through a failed migration to Ubuntu from Windows. The new head of IT and CTO were huge linux nerds and wanted to transition promising huge cost savings. As it turns out LibreOffice plus Evolution could just not replace MS Office and Outlook. Our accountants refused after after a week of trying to use Calc instead of Excel. Sales and Marketing people found that Outlook had features that were not available anymore. A major internal FileMaker application was supposed to be replaced by a LAMP web application. That project languished for half a year before it was given up after it failed to become usable. It was never even attempted to replace the Exchange server. The designer never started to switch away from their Macs.
In the end it was decided that everyone could use the OS of their choice. So we now have mix of about 60% Windows, 30% Macs, 10% Linux on the desktop. The attempted migration cost the company a lot of money and time.
> haven't had any problems installing Linux on any business model Dell desktop
Installation is not the issue.
>Can we stop pretending Linux has no use for anything?
Nobody says that.
> performance
Firefox is faster on Windows than on Linux. Battery life usually also is better, though Macs are miles ahead there.