[ale] advice needed.

[Brian Pitts]

Joshua Kite wrote:
> I think we're missing part of the story here.  What differentiates the 1000
> user versus the 20 user solution?  That is, does your marketing organization
> believe that it is not possible to sell a small company on the effort of
> implementing a Linux server and solution due to cost/support/etc?
> 
> One somewhat legitimate obstacle to selling a Linux-based solution is that
> smaller organizations may not be able to justify the cost of having a Linux
> sysadmin when they already have a windows admin.  If that is the challenge
> with the smaller companies, then the VM solution is compounding the problem
> and not solving it, because your customer must now have a windows admin who
> can become familiar with Linux and also VMWare or similar software.
> 

I think the reason for VM is that the admin no longer has to be familiar
with installing or configuring up linux or the application, since it
ships set up. I'm not convinced that's always wise, but it seems to be
the idea behind e.g.

http://www.vmware.com/appliances/
http://www.rpath.org/

-Brian