zahadum

zahadum

cto

This CIO is to be commended for doing what most F500 CFO's refuse to due out of ignorance or fear: demand a rational accounting of the wintel "investment" using proper metrics like TCO & ROI.

However, he is profoundly mistaken about the cause of the problem: it is NOT free markets; just the opposite!

windows did NOT become a dominant force on the desktop because customers freely choose to buy it!

as the DOJ lawsuit firmly established, microsoft broke the law at almost every turn to eliminate competition that was technically superior to it .... to the detriment of its customers.

estimates of the damages (due to lost productivity, increased inefficiency, stifled innovation, misallocation of capital, higher prices) are staggering - $100B is a VERY conservative figure. The true figure of the hidden costs over the last 10-20 years might exceed $1000 per user.

So yes ... while I do agree that CIO's now have a (belated) responsibility to correct their complicity in what has amounted to the cyberspace version of ethnic cleansing .... it would be the grossest kind of historical revisionism to play dumb & say "the free market did it".

As for his pilot .... here is my two cents: he will that the best value for money is to picks macs ... at least they can also run legacy apps (linux & windows) as well as the line of business stuff on osx.