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On 05-Mar-2002 at 11:21:59 MATTHEW BROWNING wrote:
I have spoken to some `key personnel' around here about these policies and the general answer seems to be that it is the responsibility of a University to provide experience of a real world computing environment to its students. As anyone who has ever worked in any non-IT office job will know, that means Windows NT.
Yes, this is true. However, how we (computing service) provide a service to the staff/students shouldn't mean we need to use Windows. Is there a benefit in using Exchange servers for SMTP than running a bulk standard unix box with sendmail - which is what Uni's have been doing for decades now? No, there is no advantage. The possible disadvantage now comes down to MS software against (say) Solaris, the hardware and the overall cost. I'd put my money on the Sun system and Solaris; the management wouldn't (or rather don't). Unfortunately, Exchange servers provide more than just SMTP, and this is what Management are after - easy calendar use, arranging meetings, shared folders, etc, etc. The problem is not 'how do we provide a calendering service', it's 'how does Windows provide a calendering service'. And if that is via Exchange servers, then that is what is bought and used. It is only when the answer 'windows can't do that' pops up that unix/linux is looked at. The question of how *well* these things run is not really considered. In terms of our (computing service) providing a general, open-access, service, then yes Windows is going to be the desktop selected. John. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ John Horne, University of Plymouth, UK Tel: +44 (0)1752 233914 E-mail: jhorne@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx PGP key available from public key servers -- The Mailing List for the Devon & Cornwall LUG Mail majordomo@xxxxxxxxxxxx with "unsubscribe list" in the message body to unsubscribe.