Just because Digg is floundering under the weight of “I just switched to Linux” submissions, it doesn’t mean that Linux on the Desktop is making significant inroads in corporate adoption.

Here’s the kicker. Microsoft Exchange Server is a honking great MONSTOR of a standard in larger businesses, and for good reason. While I’d probably kill myself if I had to pay for it or maintain it, as an end user, there is much to love about what Exchange does.

Got a desktop and a laptop? No problem. Exchange server will sync your inbox, folders, contacts and calendar.

Use a mobile device? No big deal. Add a contact to your phone, and it will sync to exchange server, and that contact will be added to your outlook contacts.

Your PC died from virus infections? ( Well of course it did.. it’s running XP ).. Just get another one, configure outlook to your exchange server and bang, you’ve got all your stuff back.

Need to setup a meeting with someone? Find them with Exchange Servers central directory, and check out their calendar to find a good time for a meeting.

In summary, life is sweet when you connect your Microsoft OS PC or Microsoft OS mobile device to your Microsoft Exchange server, and crank up your Microsoft Outlook application. Even your Microsoft Office installed Mac can get in on the act with Entourage. How lovely.

Switch to Linux? You’re screwed.

You have three options:

1) Use Evolution Mail which supports the full Exchange feature set through the provided connector.. except that the connector is horrible! It’s buggy. It’s slow. It’s unreliable.. it will drive you nuts.

2) POP or IMAP to the exchange server. It’s better, but forget about calendaring and contacts integration. Calendar events arrive as emails and you loose a feature you’ve become very accustomed to. Group calendars? Forget it.

3) Depending on the security settings of your Exchange server, you might be able to connect using Outlook ( running under Wine emulation ), either directly or through a VPN.. Yuck.

So how do you solve the problem of connecting a Linux desktop to Exchange Server? You don’t.

The problem isn’t Linux, the problem is that you’re buying into the belief system that Microsofts has chosen for you. Not only are you spending out the wazoo for Exchange server, but as a knock on effect, you’re spending out multiple wazoos for MS Office so you can connect to exchange server! Then of course, you’re primarily sticking to Microsoft OS, because what choice do you have!

Dee-De-Dee!

Let’s look at MS Office first. You need it, right?

Wrong.

You need to be able to work on Word and Excel spreadsheets, but you don’t need Office for that. Suns OpenOffice can do all that for you. Available for Mac, PC and Linux, Open Office is a VERY MS Office compatible productivity suite, and it’s FREE. I say “very” because some people tell me it’s not - but I can honestly say that I’ve never in my usage seen any issues.

Let’s do some cost analysis on that:

If you have 10 employees, setting them all up with OpenOffice costs 10 x $0 = $0 If you have 100 employees, setting them all up with OpenOffice costs 100 x $0 = $0 If you have 1000 employees, setting them all up with OpenOffice costs 1000 x $0 = $0

Get it?

Upper management wouldn’t go for it? OK - price out what will happen if you buy MS Office for THEM, and whatever other subgroup you choose ( perhaps accounting? ), and give the other zillion people in your organization OpenOffice. Trust me.. Money talks.

Ah - but what about EMAIL you cry! Microsoft products are the only thing that reliably connect to Microsoft Exchange server!

You’re right - so ditch it.

Go and look at Zimbra. It’s an Open Source Exchange Server KILLER, and Yahoo recently bought it for a gazillion dollars. Why? They haven’t really said, but I imagine it has something to do with a reply to Gmail rolling out IMAP. Things could get interesting if you’re one of those people willing to sacrifice privacy for free services.

Zimbra is easier to install. It’s easier to maintain. It’s easier to scale.. and if you switch someone from Exchange to Zimbra they truly won’t even realize you’ve done it. Appointments, group calendars, contacts - it all works just the same. They truly won’t see any difference from their end. Oh - that’s not true.. if they use the webmail application they will get a shock. It makes Exchange Server Webmail look like a bucket of boiled excrement.

Then what?

Your C-level guys can use Outlook or Entourage just as they always have. PC people using OpenOffice can use either Outlook Express, or the Evolution Mail Beta Your Mac people can use iMail and iCal.. they’ll love you forever. They could alternatively use a Beta version of Evolution. Your geeks can now use Linux, and use Evolution

Then we’d get to see some truly AWESOME Digg articles, about how corporations who look at their internal usage find that 40% of their employees only use the internet, email and office tools - so can easily be switched to Linux for cost savings, security, productivity gains, and so they can show off their spinning cube desktop thingy and wobbly windows to PC and Mac users ;-)

The bottom line is that when Corporations release the strangle hold they put on themselves by using Exchange Server, the results can be nothing but great.

Breaking: Digg crashes under weight of I switched to Linux posts, but nobody spends enough time explaining why they did!.

If I had to hand tweak every application, if my system crashed every day, if I had to reinstall from scratch every 6 months, if I still needed a Windows machine for certain things, if it needed more powerful hardware, if it ran slower, and if I had to buy all new peripherals I would still choose something like Ubuntu* Linux over Windows XP or Vista.

The fact that NONE of these are the case should put things into perspective.

People don’t switch to Linux because they wake up bored one day and can’t think of anything else to do. They do it because regardless of the inconvenience, the time required, the unknowns, they have to do SOMETHING to improve their relationship with their PCs.

There are people out there who love Windows, but I think that most simply tolerate it. Tolerating Windows is what you do if you don’t have a Mac**. That’s just the way it is, and the unexplained disk activity, slow downs, crashes and viruses are just part of the deal.

You don’t “switch” to Linux, you ESCAPE Windows.

For those like me who sit every day in front of a Linux Desktop that they are proud of, switching is not an academic, nor sterile process. It’s an awakening into feelings of liberation, empowerment and even astonishment at working with a glorious OS that is free, and “the man” doesn’t have a piece of.

Do people switch to Linux from a Mac? Some do, but it’s often about principles than the nut and bolts. No, the vast majority of Linux Desktop adopters are Windows people who simply YEARN for change. The growth of Linux on the desktop is pure and simply evidence that many people DO NOT like, and are no longer willing to PUT UP WITH Windows.

There is a tipping point at which a Windows user will look for something else. Joe Average will probably buy a Mac, but the reason why many Linux Desktop users are geeks is because they are the people who have the perception that they can get Linux up and running.

The irony of the average Ubuntu User’s Profile

Ironically, the typical Ubuntu user is in some ways least suited to the OS. “Your granny” or other “normal” people who just surf the web, check their gmail account, skype, IM and do some basic document work is actually the perfect candidate for something like Ubuntu right now.

The Walmart and Sears $199 Ubuntu PCs are a perfectly positioned product, combining cheap hardware that adequately runs Linux with a the low tech savvy consumer. Likewise, something I’ll blog about soon is my Media Center based on a $329 Dell. I got it up and running in 40 minutes with Ubuntu including all the bells, whistles and codecs. No glitches, no problems, no tweaks, no issues. It just installed and worked.

It’s us geeks who want to take it to the limits that have to get under the hood, but that’s also why Windows wasn’t working out for us.

Fixing Linux issues is a doddle compared to fixing Windows issues

Seriously. To any Windows user who thumbs their nose at the need to get down and dirty with the Linux terminal, I say, “Well at least we CAN!”. What do you do when something mysteriously stops working in Windows?

• 1) Reboot
• 2) Reinstall application
• 3) Reboot
• 4) Reinstall associated applications
• 3) Reboot
• 4) Reinstall OS

Not exactly, but my point is that fixing an issue with something under Linux is a matter of using Google to find the fix, then some copy and pasting some commands from some helpful soul out there. This level of ease and visibility is simply unavailable for Windows.. sometimes you are just SOL.

Don’t tell me I’m wrong because that argument doesn’t stand up. I’ve used Windows heavily from it’s initial release through XP and I’m telling you that I had problems that made me want to throw it out the window.

Oh.. that’s because I’m dumb? SWEET! A dumb person who can’t even keep Windows running properly can install and fully maintain 5 functional bleeding edge Linux machines including desktops and web servers - SVN, Rails, LAMP, mongrel clusters, NFS and SSHFS all over the place and more eye candy than you can shake a stick at, not to mention a suite of productivity tools that could design and launch the space shuttle. Tell the world, you don’t have to be smarter than dumb to add printers, webcams, midi devices, drives or any other peripheral to a Linux box. WooHoo!

If you don’t get the point, feel free to come over and I’ll stick it in your ear.

Open Source Changes People

I didn’t get it at first.. I didn’t understand why people hovered on forums giving help and spent their time creating free stuff.

For years my income revolved around an online store that sold niche technology. I hooked up a developer community and a user community, and I took a cut of the sales. The site actually had a policy of “NO FREE STUFF”, so you can imagine, I didn’t “get” Open Source. For a long time I couldn’t understand how people monetized open source, and then realized that for many that is not the motivation for many people involved in the thousands of Open Source projects. I’m not sure that I understand it to this day - but I’m a part of it now. Giving is Receiving in many walks of life.

Don’t work in a cluttered, dingy office with no natural light

Good advice I think - probably no arguments there. Well nothing else that you interact with is an extension to your physical environment as much as your PC.

If you had a paranoid person looking over your shoulder all day interrupting you constantly to have you confirm every step you try to take, you’d likely kick the crap out of them. Why tolerate it from your PC, and even worse, why put so much trust in an operating system that NEEDS to be paranoid to stay healthy?

Sure, I sometimes have a fight with Linux, but I always know I’m going to win.. and I’m fighting for something I care about - not just tolerate. Creating an operating system environment that you love and that works FOR you is nurturing yourself at such a deep level that it’s almost life changing.

I would not be where I am today without Linux

Over dramatic? No. Expanding the horizons of my virtual work environment has expanded my entire business horizons.. I’ve expanded my desktop four fold alone.

Have you tried Rails development on Vista? It’s like pulling teeth. I just don’t think I’d have a Rails based business if my head was stuck in an XP box.. and for sure switching to Rails has changed the amount of enjoyment I have in my life.

Hosting? Yikes.

Look and Feel? My desktop looks just like Vista IF IT CRASHES. Yup. My FALLBACK look and feel is identical to Vista. My primary look and feel is like a Mac on steroids.

If you think Linux is for servers, you’re a few years behind. Last years Ubuntu out-of-the-box has all the UI bells and whistles of OSX Leopard and makes Vista look about as attractive as a turd on a beach.

So to summarize..

When technology is such a central part of our existence, why should we put up with something that does not enhance our lives?

It’s that simple! If you don’t LOVE your PC, do something about it. I’ve been using Linux long enough that I’m passed the stage of believing that everyone should use it, but I’m still squarely in the camp that XP and Vista are not good enough.

Switch to Linux, buy a Mac - I don’t care, but stop compromising. Raise your expectation to something above “tolerable”. Things are getting worse not better. The long awaited Vista has made “intolerable” so much more achievable for the average Joe, with it’s horrific hardware requirements, bad peripheral support and sub-XP levels of security.

Enough already!

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Additional Reading:

• Analyzing Microsofts OS by Linux standards

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*About Ubuntu. Yes, it’s the newbie of all newbie distributions. So what? It’s outgrowable? I don’t think so.

** I like Macs.. I’ll never bash them, but I just don’t NEED one. I don’t need to drop that kind of money to get something that I’m happy with.