Unix vs Novell (HA..)

[Scott A Carroll]

  Well this should spur a debate.  I need a little help convincing our more
then brain dead MIS people to STAY with Unix.  Here is the problem, 3 years
ago, when our budding (should have been killed then) MIS section decided to
play with connectivity, they bought a copy of interactives Unix.  It was
good stuff, but they did not know a thing about it, and wanted no OUTSIDE
help installing, or building an applications base.  After fooling with it
for over a year, and decideing C was beyond them, they ran out and bought
VP/ix and clipper S87.  It gets ugly...The applications blew bad, but being
that the guy who had commited the MIS section had moved on, and the guy who
signed the check had NOT...they declared the project a success.  No one who
uses the application (singular) likes.  No one who uses this system knew it
had mail (what, you say!).  No one is given sh, rsh, or any privies outside
the sigle application, cuz the MIS section said the "Terminal emulation will
not support anything but the piece-of-s__t(oops, I added that)application".
Of course I don't follow rules very well, so I have hounded them.  I have
access to the box when I want it, and I have shot them in the face for there
nasty little stories.

  Hmm, new managment arrives. Computers and EDP are the newest buzz words for
managment on the fast track (I am managment, but my heart is still in R&D).
Well finnaly someone that will listen!  Things are rolling, wait, what!? Our
MIS section has made a proposal for a new "LAN" (oh, god were do these guys
go to school?).  Tear the old nasty box out, put new shinny box in?  Get ride
of nasty user-hostile (MIS new word) Unix, bring in nice friendly Novell.
Hell guys, we are a world wide organization!  Our orginizations prime OS is
Unix, along with Sperrys running god knows what, IBMs running who knows what,
and every other orphan system and OS under the sun (no pun, really!).   How
will we communicate with them?  You have all of a sudden seen the light, you
want connectivity with the "Big World", and a "LAN".  But your gonna dump
the great-white-hope of open operating systems for a NOS with limited scope!?

  Off soap-box mode.  You get the picture?  I need some help.  What ever these
Bozo's commit too, this time, is gonna stay with us for a long time (cringe).
This is a world-wide (and brother do I mean world-wide) kinnda operation.
So Unix (done right, for christ sake) is the answer.  There is a strong
following here for unix, but the guys signing the checks don't know Unix from
tinkerbell.  They want results.  If you have any thoughts, comments, flames
or your wanna jump on the old Unix revival band wagon...Make em good, I gotta
do this, and do this fast.

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*                    Hey, I would love to tell ya who I work                 * 
*                    for, but hell, you would never belive it                *
*                               {I know I don't}                             *
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*      Scott Carroll                            scarroll at cup.portal.com      *
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