Dear CIO/IT managers,
This CPTTM CIO newsletter is to bring useful news to you, CIO/IT managers in Macau, for references without obligations, so that you can do your jobs easier and better! Hope you like it. if you'd like to unsubscribe or recommend your friends to subscribe, just let me know. Old issues are available here.
Kent Tong, Editor in ChiefMore and more organizations in Macau are using Linux. Here is a new case study on a Macau government department which is using Linux for its mission critical systems and found it to cost effective, stable and secure. Below is an interview we had with their IT dept chief:
Q: How is your organization using Linux? How critical is that service for your organization?
A: We are using Linux for DNS
Server, Web Server,
FTP Server, File
Server (for a particular project), as well as J2EE Application Server,
which put our core applications up and running at 7x24 service.
Q: What motivated you to do that? Did it achieve the effect that you expected?
A: Mainly for two reasons. One is for cost saving. The other reason, also the most important one is, we got the colleagues who have Linux knowledge and willing to dig into it. After several years' usage of Linux, we are satisfied with the outcome.
Q: Any unexpected benefits?
A: Linux has less down-time than Windows. And it is more secure than Windows too. As a result, less down-time means less complains. We are able to provide technical support to a 1000+ people department with just a few IT Staffs.
Q: What factors did you consider before deploying Linux?
A: The main factor I considered was whether my colleagues had sufficient knowledge and experience on Linux.
Q: Do you have any plan to increase your use of Linux? If so, in what areas?
A: Yes. We are planning to use Linux and other open-source software for building up our Intranet Portal and CMS in the coming year.
The French National Assembly
will switch its 1,154 workstations to
run an open source OS and OpenOffice by June 2007. Click here
for the details.
Here is a summary of the current adoption status of ODF:
OpenXML is the file format used by Office 2007 and is being standardized by ECMA. It's funny that in the submitted specification all applications implementing the OpenXML standard must treat year 1900 as a leap year (which is incorrect as 1900 is divisible by 100 but indivisible by 400). This is because an old version of Excel had a bug and treated 1900 as a leap year. It means this standard is just documenting the current behavior of a particular implementation, instead of describing the desired behavior of prospective Office software implementations.
The true value of an open standard is vendor independence and interoperability. If a standard is indicated by a particular vendor, then its openness and value is seriously questionable.
Any questions, ideas or experiences to share? Contact me at 28781313 or kent at cpttm dot org dot mo.
Until next time,
Kent Tong