Le 2010-10-26 19:19, Patrick Elliott a écrit :
> On 10/26/2010 2:35 PM, Jim Henderson wrote:
>> On Tue, 26 Oct 2010 12:53:12 -0700, Darren New wrote:
>>
>>> You would be amazed at how many cash registers, ATMs, and even vending
>>> machines are actually running Windows.
>>
>> Yep. And airline information boards (always fun to see one of those
>> bluescreened) and here in Utah, the light rail system ticket kiosks as
>> well.
>>
>> I had an interesting discussion with a guy who works for Red Hat last
>> week about this as well - seems odd to us that the banks are willing to
>> spend so much money on Windows licenses for kiosks when such tasks are so
>> trivial that an OS like Linux which can be set up as a simple appliance
>> fairly easily.
>>
>> (Of course it's not just about the technical challenges but also about
>> support)
>>
>> Jim
> Support? Oh, you mean, "Turn it off, wait 30 seconds, and turn it on
> again. Unless the web service the kiosk is "actually" running from is
> down, this should fix it (well, at least for a few days...)"
>
Not really.  There are technicians in the airports that do that on a 
regular basis.  Those kiosks need boarding passes and baggage tags paper 
from time to time, regardless of the OS they're running.

IT managers are scared of having to face an application or OS issue that 
can only be resolved by having some programmer in Ukraine decide to fix 
it when he's done playing WOW.  For some reason, knowing they pay tens 
of thousands of dollars per year to have a 24/7 toll-free number they 
can call and yell at someone reassures them, even if the fix doesn't 
necessarily come faster.

This is why Red Hat makes money.

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