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The Linux distillery Joe the Plumber teaches how to weather the recession with Linux and Open Source models
The Linux distillery Joe the Plumber teaches how to weather the recession with Linux and Open Source models | Joe the Plumber teaches how to weather the recession with Linux and Open Source models |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Sunday, 07 December 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 Instead of being reactive to the calls that come in from the plumbing-challenged public Joe the Plumber has picked up a new way to do business.Featured Whitepaper
5 Best Practices for Smartphone Support
Joe sent out flyers promoting modern efficient water heaters and water-saving showerheads. He made a case that families could reduce their electricity and water bills right away with no change in how they conduct their operations – ie, the length of time spent showering or the frequency of coffee and tea drinking. Of course, a family could achieve more cost savings if they did modify these practices but the main message is money can be saved immediately even without having to do anything more. Well, apart from a small bit of re-education as to when the best times for using hot water are and how to make best use of the decreased water pressure in the shower. Best of all, Joe didn’t concentrate on the one-off sale of a commodity product. He told his customers he’d deliver and install the items at no cost if an ongoing support contract was taken out. Cain saw this and realised that there was something in his world of technology that was comparable, namely open source software and the Linux operating system. These software products have no licensing fees whatsoever. A brand-name server with Linux instead of Microsoft Windows – even with all hardware specifications the same – has an immediate cost saving. Then consider the cost of whatever else runs on top of the server: database, mail, anti-virus, and intranet – all of these can be replaced with equally functional open source equivalents. Yet, Cain isn’t so naive as to look just at the upfront capital cost. He knows his team have to run the server and they have to provide an acceptable level of uptime. Fortunately, even though he doesn’t have to pay for Linux he can find enterprise-grade distributions and companies who will provide support as required. CONTINUED |
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