The Best Enterprise Operating System

This will be my first post in a series discussing desktop operating choices for Enterprise use.

Today there are only three viable choices in desktop operating systems: Microsoft Windows, The Apple OS, and Linux. As far as I know there is not a single Fortune 500 Company or G20 Government that uses anything but Microsoft Windows as their Enterprise Desktop Operating System. Honestly, I am not sure why that is. I am trying to understand this imbalance.

This series will explore every reason that I can think of and that you, my readers, suggest. It is not my goal to evangelize one operating system or company over another, but instead to understand for myself the justifications for the choices that these large organizations have made. I will strive to be fair and balanced in my analysis. I really do want to know why MS Windows has risen to the top.

In the interests of full disclosure, I only use Windows at work. For my personal computing, I prefer the Apple OS. When the Apple OS is not available, such as in a netbook, I use Linux as well as Windows.

For simplicity in comparisons, I will consider Microsoft Windows XP (with Service pack 3), Apple OS 10.5, and Ubuntu Linux 8.04 as the baselines. I chose Windows XP over Vista based upon numerous reports on the web showing that most Enterprises have not yet upgraded to Windows Vista and are not expected to. One such report was given by Enterprise Security Today . I know that there are many distributions of Linux available, so I chose the one that is reported to be the most widely deployed in the world.

This is a list of the factors that I believe influence the decision:

Flexibility . The ability to make the desktop environment do whatever it is that your organization needs.
Software Availability . The ability to obtain applications to allow your users to be productive.
Security . The knowledge that you Enterprise’s information is available, has integrity, and is protected.
Requirement for a Compatible Office Suite . Organizations must be able to share documents both internally and between externally.
Support Availability . There must be an affordable support model that can scale to whatever your organization needs to enable your enterprise computing systems to function.
Cost of Entry . The price of desktop licenses must be affordable.
Cost of Maintenance . The price of desktop maintenance must be affordable.
Cost of Upgrade . The price of desktop operating system upgrade must be affordable. This must also include the cost of upgrading hardware to support security dependent operating system upgrades.
User Familiarity and Training . The price of enabling your employees to be productive on the chosen system must be affordable.
Someone To Blame For Problems . There is a desire to have a third party available to accept blame or take responsibility for any problems in your enterprise that are outside your core competency.
Stability . The Operating System must enable the organization to function without compromise.
Availability of Trained and Certified Technicians . There must not be a scarcity of talent to administer the chosen system.
Reliability . The Operating System must be there when it is needed and not hinder productivity.
Backwards Compatibility . The Operating System must support any legacy applications through the installation or upgrade path.
Performance . There must not be an unacceptable reduction in peak hardware capability based upon the operating system chosen.

Please come back over the next few weeks as I consider the specific points outlined above that influences this decision. I plan to cover one at a time starting with Flexibility.

Do you know of major enterprises that do not rely completely on Microsoft Windows? Do you think that it would be possible to run an Enterprise completely on Linux? Did I miss any critical success factors for an Enterprise Operating System? Please share your thoughts by leaving comments below. Happy Thinking…

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