VB Expressions

Consulting – Computer Systems and Networks

White Paper — Are Alternate Operating Systems A Good Business Option for Small Business?

There is also no question that the most publicized security problems affect computers running Microsoft Windows®.  Some enthusiasts and solution providers propose that the security-conscious migrate to alternate operating systems, which have a “better” record.  The Macintosh OS/X and Linux systems (described below) share this “secure” reputation.

And, there is no question that Microsoft charges substantial license fees for its operating systems for desktops and servers, and more for client access licenses for users to access server capabilities. As prices for powerful hardware continue to drop, these license fees can make up a significant fraction of the cost for new computer systems.  

Casual research will reveal that there are widely-available alternate operating systems which can provide the sorts of services that Windows provides but with no upfront license fees. These operating systems are generally referred to as “Linux” operating systems, named after the original programmer, Linus Torvalds, and the UNIX operating system that he imitated with his work; there are many variations, normally called distributions, available free for download (over a fast connection, to be sure!) 

So, since security and costs are so important to our small business customers, why doesn’t VB Expressions recommend the use of the Macintosh and/or Linux operating systems?  Let's examine costs first for these alternate platforms individually, then discuss security jointly, since the two alternatives share much in common there.

The Macintosh Hardware / Software Platform

Until recently, Apple placed their tightly-controlled Macintosh operating system only on expensive, non-standard hardware. They provided optimized hardware drivers and were able to tune their applications for their hardware. Apple is often the sole supplier of compatible accessories, and they exploit that advantage with premium pricing. A good example of this is the web-cam, used in business for online conferencing and customer service. On the Windows platform there are perhaps a dozen suppliers of this peripheral, with prices ranging from $30 to $120 based on features. The only supported web-cam for the Macintosh is Apple's iSight, at a closely controlled cost of about $150. (And no, contrary to what recent commercials may imply, not all Macintoshes come with web-cams.)

This cost and supply model has historically been a barrier to business use of the Macintosh. Proprietary hardware costs can be traded off against low-cost operating system software. However, the Macintosh operating system is not free to use without licensing*; and, since it is only available on new PCs from Apple, it is simply included in the offered system price. The periodic Macintosh software "point" upgrades (code-named after felines - Leopard, Panther, Jaguar - recently) are also not free, while their scope is similar to the free Service Packs for Microsoft Windows® products.  

Apple's restrictive hardware practices have resulted in a low market share of the PC industry, perhaps 5% of new PC units in use in 2006, according to MacWorld. This after "growing at double digit rates" throughout the year.

Conversely, Microsoft Windows® has since 1998 commanded the lion’s share of operating systems installed on PCs. Hardware is available from multiple vendors, at many price points. The capabilities of Windows have consistently improved since it was introduced, matching or exceeding on generic hardware what Apple offered on its closed platform. Microsoft also has provided very powerful yet low-cost programming tools for Windows that have greatly expanded the pool of programmers for Windows. 

This has led to a huge gulf in the availability of software for business and home use that will run on a Macintosh . Even the most avid Apple fan would not suggest that most software programs come in Macintosh flavors, although Microsoft (!) provides the most important offering, a version of its Microsoft Office® business suite. The availability of vertical applications, defined as those programs custom-produced for a specific industry, is nil on the Macintosh.  

The single most important application today, and one whose absence is likely to hurt users the most, in the default Windows Web browser, Microsoft Internet Explorer®, afterwards referred to as IE.  Many non-Microsoft business sites require IE to function, and as services and applications move more and more towards Web interfaces, the first platform that will be developed for and tested will be IE. The Macintosh platform at one time did have a version of IE, but development and distribution was ended after Version X (10) was released. Although other browsers have a significant share of usage, IE will remain the safe choice for maximum compatibility for the foreseeable future.

The explanation is simple: once software vendors find their market on a highly available, capable and reliable platform, as they find in modern versions of Windows, it is not in their business interest to support alternative low-volume environments. In other words, doubling your hardware, software, support and maintenance costs to gain access to a small potential market is a bad business decision. 

This proprietary hardware strangle-hold has changed somewhat with Apple's recent move to Intel processors for their PCs.  Powerful computers with the latest Macintosh operating system (actually a 1.x release on the Intel platform despite being numbered 10, or X) are available, still ONLY from Apple, still ONLY in a limited range of options, but at very reasonable costs compared to their previous offerings, even roughly equivalent to hardware from other vendors. (Looking at the extensive and expensive recent advertising campaigns and the still-limited sales volume, it would seem that these hardware offerings are being heavily subsidized by other Apple products like the iPod. It is also interesting to note that Apple dropped the "Computer" portion of their corporate name in recent months.) 

Apple and others are saying that the move to Intel processors will make Windows applications available for the Macintosh.  By running a "virtual" Windows PC on the Macintosh, or by alternately booting Windows and Macintosh operating systems, it is certainly possible to use Windows software on Mac hardware.  But, is this really cost-effective?

Note that one will STILL be responsible for obtaining a Microsoft Windows® license to legally use the software, and also licenses for any Windows business applications.  It is also safe to assume that there will be NO THIRD-PARTY APPLICATION SUPPORT for Windows software running on an Apple PC. Even Apple did not support their alternate booting tool in the first release of OS/X for Intel processors.  Using a Macintosh to run Windows software would appear to be MORE costly than on a Windows machine with little business benefit. (And note that any security problems in the Windows environment could affect the reliability of the Mac side as well.)

So, because most third-party application software AND the most compatible Web browser are Windows-specific, the business appeal of the Macintosh is low. The operating system costs are not substantially less, and hardware choices are immensely less. User familiarity is lower than for Windows as well, correlating to higher basic training costs for a business to use a Macintosh. 

The Linux Hardware / Software Platform 

So what about Linux? It runs on standard PC hardware, and many versions are available at zero upfront license fee. These factors would seem to overcome some severe problems above for the Macintosh alternative. But do they? 

Although Linux has always targeted the same hardware as the Windows platform, it uses a different hardware driver model. This requires redevelopment (by someone) of the core software required for an operating system to even start up. With the plethora of Linux versions, and the resulting low market penetration of each, each just with a fraction of even the Macintosh market share, hardware vendors do not have the resources to develop, test and optimize drivers for Linux to the level of those available for Windows. 

This often leads to extreme startup failures for the Linux adopter.  A tedious installation may not boot into a usable desktop following apparently successful completion. When the systems boot, or are tweaked to boot from a DOS-style command window, most often the drivers are sub-optimal, developed for a generic version of the hardware. This means you will get lower screen resolutions and limited hardware acceleration for video cards, fewer settings for audio cards, etc. Getting full value from ones hardware investment is often a great challenge.  

We have also discussed above that many Linux distributions (as they are called) are available with no license fees. So how does the provider do that? How do they man the phone lines, answer the mail/email, host/maintain the Web site, and add product features? The answer is: “community.” The free distributions are all-volunteer efforts, with organizational costs underwritten by the academic institutions, or by companies who offer FOR-PAY support for the otherwise “free” software.  So if you have a problem that you can’t solve yourself, you turn to the “community” and see if a volunteer has time to help you, or avail yourself of paid after-market support. 

There are also licensed Linux distributions, where annual support fees are extracted up-front, in a business model inherited from the now nearly extinct UNIX world. This can make the user experience similar to that of Windows, but with a similar upfront and a recurring support cost for this specialized software. One can also pay for Linux to be pre-installed on hardware, but generally this is only possible for the licensed distributions. 

So why would businesses eschew the better known Microsoft and Apple operating system offerings if Linux operating system support is costly or thinly available?  

The answer offered by Linux advocates is “Open Source” application and server software. It too is offered with no up-front cost. One can find “Open Source” office suites, email clients, browsers, database engines, email servers, etc., if one searches. There are often many alternatives. Entrepreneurs and academics constantly start these “community” software projects, similar to the way that Linux itself is developed and supported, as experimental market probes, training scenarios and "vanity" projects.

"Open Source" software may be available only on a Linux platform, driving adoption of the operating system. But in truth, most significant Open Source projects have been ported to the Windows operating system as well, and most will run on a Macintosh, too.   But, unfortunately the programming tools available to Linux and Open Source programmers are not as advanced as those made available for Windows by Microsoft (and others) for the Windows platform.  In the “community” tradition the tools are often created by the volunteer efforts. 

The resulting shortfall in programmer productivity is reflected in programs that are in my experience less user-friendly, even clumsy, and more resource-intensive when compared to their Windows equivalents. And although many Open Source programs offer “compatibility” with similar Windows applications, there are sometimes efficiency-sapping exceptions.  

For the same reasons discussed in the Macintosh section, the availability of third-party customized vertical applications (dedicated to a business) for Linux is essentially non-existent.  It is too costly for a software vendor to support the many operating systems we describe as Linux.  There has also never been a version of Internet Explorer for Linux.

Can you run Windows software on a Linux PC? Many advocates say that the "community" has provided a solution: the WINE compatibility library. "Simply run WINE and you can load up those applications without re-buying them!" In truth, WINE has low compatibility with Windows; a recent look at the WINE Web site shows that it is updated every two weeks on the average to fix bugs. The WINE "community" is by necessity limited to "reverse engineering" of Windows, so a WINE user will always be limited to older versions of Windows software on their Linux desktop. Any application software you do run in WINE (because it is not available as Open Source) will have to be licensed.  And as was said about running virtual machines or dual-booting Macintosh PCs, always assume that there will be NO THIRD-PARTY APPLICATION SUPPORT for Windows software running on WINE (or any other) compatibility library. And WINE does not and will not support Internet Explorer.

Finally, a Linux desktop generally is set up to mimic either the Macintosh or Windows look and feel. There are major differences, however, requiring a training effort to overcome the lack of familiarity. 

So, while the first license cost can be low, and the hardware platform is standard, the total cost to run Linux on the desktop is probably comparable to Microsoft Windows®, if you consider the labor cost of getting it to run efficiently on your hardware and training your staff. If this does not stop you, then you have limited your choices for software. (If one has a Linux-knowledgeable staff, server implementations of database software are possibly cost-effective due to lower license costs.) So where is the business advantage?

Then, why else would one use Linux or a Macintosh? Many cite security as the driver. Let’s examine that next. 

Security – Macintosh/Linux Versus Windows

The “better” security records for the Macintosh and Linux rely on one major reason and one (perhaps) minor historical reason.

The major reason that the (current) Macintosh and Linux operating systems have a better security record is simple: by default, end users have NO RIGHTS to install programs or change any operating system settings. In some of these alternate systems, the user who does have rights (the administrator or root user) cannot use the graphical user interface, and is limited to a tedious terminal-style interface for administration.

If this limited administration capability appeals to you, Microsoft’s new Vista operating system offers Windows compatibility with a similar user rights model.  However, it may surprise you to know that current versions of Windows CAN EASILY be configured so that users are similarly limited in what changes they can make to the system.

The (perhaps) minor reason for the better Macintosh and Linux security history is “obscurity.” Writers of malware (viruses and spyware) want the maximum satisfaction / profitability from their work (evil as it is) just like you and me. If you are depending on your (ill-gotten) gains to support your life-style, why would you target the Mac or Linux operating systems? Users of these systems constitute a minority of your “market”; their systems that are intrinsically harder to penetrate because of default user permissions; and in the case of the Linux user, they generally are more sophisticated users.  In January 2007, slimly-financed researchers / "would-be security experts" have publicized one bug in Macintosh software for each day, lending credence to the "security by obscurity" theme.

The truth is that Microsoft was tripped up by their own efforts and their overwhelming success. Many of the spyware applications I have encountered have the marks of the Microsoft-produced programming tools! Making powerful programming tools affordably available to all comers, and powerful operating system capabilities broadly available to unsophisticated end users, has had unintended consequences in terms of negative publicity. Microsoft is still scrambling to recover!

It is relatively easy to configure the current versions of Windows and most but not all Microsoft software applications for limited user roles, making the security footprint essentially identical to Linux or the Macintosh operating system. Unfortunately, third-party products from major vendors such as Intuit and Kodak, and many smaller vendors, often require some “tweaking” to work successfully.  This is where skillful providers such as VB Expressions come in: we can help YOU  iron out the “bugs” in limited user rights without abandoning the Windows platform.

Conclusions

Microsoft Windows® offers tremendous value to the small business customer despite its upfront costs. For maximum hardware availability; hardware performance; software availability; and software familiarity; the Windows environment is virtually impossible to beat.  If YOU have an alternate strategy proposed to you, please give us a call. We will keep an open mind, with YOU in focus, and help YOU obtain best value for your investment.

* Darwin is the Open Source kernel for the Macintosh operating system, and it is freely available to use.

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Last modified: 03/17/07