Linux vs. Microsoft (vs. MAC)

I have to say that until early 1996 the only thing I used any Microsoft product for was to prepare a hard disk to receive SCO Xenix or Unix. 

In January 1996 I started work with iSTAR Internet, the purchaser of our former company Wimsey, as the Director of Management Information Services (MIS). The eye-opener was that iSTAR, having recently purchased 9 different Internet Service Providers (ISP), now had offices running Unix, Mac and Windows systems of various flavours and in various combinations. I had to learn to deal with this mix, make sense of it, and integrate the various offices as quickly as possible. This series builds upon my original exposure to Windows after Unix and mainframe systems, and includes my experience with the current crop of Linux and Open Source competitors to Windows; all from the point of view of business. 

When our next company (after iSTAR died - but that is a separate story) was purchased by Lineo Inc., we faced a similar problem, although without the complication of the Macs. I'll deal with each of these eras separately because the problems and solutions were really quite different, despite that fact that "only" 3 years separated them.

Basic Document Problem

The first problem I faced with iSTAR's desktop war was finding a "lowest common denominator" for written information back and forth through the company. 

	The Unix (mostly SCO) faction was happy with straight text for most things and TeX documents for more complex ones. (TeX is one of the most powerful large document preparation "languages" available - but is not "WYSIWYG" so requires a fair amount of learning)
	Those few of us on Unix systems who used either MS Word 5 (yes, Microsoft actually issued a version of Word for SCO Unix at one time) or Wordperfect 5.1. These programs were file compatible with the Windows versions of the time.
	The MAC and Microsoft Windows people were using Microsoft Office for MAC for most documents but there were version problems since the MAC version tends to be behind the Windows version which caused compatibility problems.

At iSTAR we ended up settling on text-based e-mail as the most basic internal "memo" structure. Most company-wide information and policy releases were done in this fashion, with printed versions sent for permanent "reminders" of policies and procedures - to be put into individual and office-location binders as necessary.

For documents meant to be sent to customers we ended up providing templates in Rich Text Format (RTF) - which was able to be pulled into all of the WYSIWYG word processors. Those who were Unix people turned out to be pretty much all technical staff (me being the most obvious exception), so were not involved in "formal" document preparation other than technical manuals, and TeX was fine for that.

Formal Documents and Proposals

As noted above, in iSTAR templates for formal documents were distributed as RTF. This was fine for most things; letters, policy statements, replies to inquiries, etc. but we got a fair amount of push-back regarding things like proposals and contracts. Fortunately it turned out that all of those involved were in head office, so their use of MAC based MS Word became the baseline, and the format they saved in was the older one, so was compatible with those of us with "real" MS Office on MS Windows (NT and 98). The only problem we had was sending back revisions - having to remember to save in the older Word95 format (which could not be selected as the default).

All documents were distributed internally as e-mail attachments. This presented minor problems in that many people had limited exposure to e-mail as a true business mechanism. 

Spreadsheets

In early 1996, when iSTAR was just getting off the ground, Excel was still up against Lotus-123 and Multiplan. Multiplan was the best known spreadsheet available on PC based Unix, although the Uniplex package was also excellent. Since Lotus had been the leader for many years, both Excel and the others were compatible with its files. Only a small number of people created or used macros of any type, so we had little to worry about in that department.

The problem of sending around spreadsheets was not one that came up often except as a general problem of doing file inclusions. Most users were doing them for their own local and internal functions, and those who had to interact with others much seemed to be able to do so with no problems. The fact is that most of the sheets were fairly simple and the file compatibility was not much of an issue.

Graphics (Presentations and for Print)

Prior to joining iSTAR I had done a fairly large number of public education and lecture sessions, mostly using overhead projectors with clear plastic transparencies as my visual aids. Computer graphics projectors were only just starting to come out with resolutions greater than that of TV. In fact, most of the first ones were simply adaptations of TV projectors.

Many of my graphics were simply print-outs of web pages. We at Wimsey had been some of the first creators of web pages outside the scientific community, and I had developed quite a flair for creation of block graphic pages and such just using HTML and some simple graphic programs - all printed out onto acetate with a laser printer in black and white. At the same time, PowerPoint and similar offerings from other companies (Lotus, Corel, etc.) were starting to come on the scene.

Within iSTAR, since most people did presentations only for their own use, we had little in the way of compatibility problems. The worst problem was the unrealistic expectations some of the non technical people had of what it took to put their pet presentations up in front of an audience. I recall being put in the position of paying over $12,000 for a projector that today would go for less than $1000 (contrasted with the $350 we paid for our own overhead projector) just so some of our people could do full-color, high (1024x768) resolution, animated presentations. 

It turned out that the common graphic format for most was the GIF file. People would send these around either as "screen shots" of their presentation, or as individual elements so people could share.

All in all, the problems we faced in iSTAR had more to do with the immaturity of the e-mail file include facilities, even though we had the 3 different types of systems, Unix, MAC and Windows.

3 Years Later

The solutions we settled on in 1996/97 for iSTAR were vastly different from that in 2000/01 with Lineo. The rapid evolution of the Web as a document vehicle made the difference.

On the other hand, there were aspects of the exercise that proved to be far more cultural than technical, and far more insurmountable it seems.

During our integration into Lineo, we didn't have the Mac versionitis problem, but we had several others that made things even more complex:

	Several versions of Microsoft Office at various locations and even within a single one.
	Different versions of Adobe's PDF generator as well as the Linux ps2pdf facility
	HTML vs. text only e-mail
	LAN (Notes) based e-mail vs. Internet e-mail (even though all "SMTP" compatible)
	MS Project version differences
	Rampant Internet viruses, worms and spam
	Too many cooks