We scored one more for a migration of a Windows based network to a Linux based one. The nitty-gritty’s yet to be done. The situation currently at the company in question is typical of many SMEs.
When a company pays for a vendor lock-in, they buy not only into the upgrades/support, they also “buy in” a assured End-Of-Life date for the product. Though it’s natural that any product reaches it’s EOL sooner or later, open source based products usually follow a evolutionary approach to progression and growth.
I’ve seen Sendmail installations that have withstood the march of time and have been maintained and upgraded regularly without the need for any redeployment, massive reconfiguration or any increase in IT budgets. I’ve seen software systems deployed at a time when the term open source was not at all coined running the show without any complaints.
Open Source based solutions really work wonders on a SME’s infrastructure breadth, stability, budget. The only weak link in such deployments are the availability of skilled people to maintain and enhance the services.
This is where we come in. We do take out a lot of headache for SMEs (and a couple of Large corporates too).
BTW, we have an interesting internship programme for students, freshers who wish to learn more about Linux deployments. If you’re interested do drop me a mail