http://msmvps.com/blogs/bradley/archive/2008/01/21/ibm-buys-nitix.aspx
Mark has the comment that Nitix is a nice product that not every SMB needs SBS… and while there’s a long blog post in my head that I haven’t had the chance to flesh out about how there are parts of me that know that SBS is perfect for some firms, for others, especially now with Hosted Exchange, trying to keep this sucker patched and maintained is not easy. I have these old Microsoft Partner Drive smart cds from when SBS 2003 first shipped and they talk about how easy it is to setup and deploy SBS…and for the most part …it is. But maintenance… I think that’s an area that has room for lots of improvement.
Before we we knee jerk recommend SBS because that’s all we had and folks were not comfy with data in the cloud. Now days, people are a lot more acceptable of their gmail accounts and many a SBS consultant likes their email in a pop account because they don’t trust Exchange.
While Nitix now being IBM means that the alternatives to SBS went up a notch in the ‘wow, a big vendor behind it’ in my mind, there’s still the “hit by a bus issue”. I can find folks who have Windows expertise. Other platforms are harder to find consultants for. Add to that the tools I have on the Windows platform and the total cost of ownership picture can’t be overlooked. But competition in an industry brings interest. That’s for sure.
“Hit by a bus”?
Oh, please!!. As a RHCE first and a MCSE second, I spend most of my time fixing other Windows-only Consultants messes.
Knowing how things work (because it’s not hidden behind a pretty wizard) is how I make my living. It’s not platform specific.
Unless the “standard” has been bastardised my a certain large software company 😛
I just watched the demo. It says that Nitix is auto this and auto that and the firewall auto configures and it basically has the intelligence of a computer on a starship in Star Trek. I don’t beleive it. A human is still going to be needed to configure that thing correctly and to maintain it. They even admit that one of thier consultants comes in and sets it up.
And then there is the fact that it’s built around an operating system that was designed to emulate an operating system that was designed in the 1970’s. What great technology that is ! Linux is an outdated dinasaur !
But I agree with the guy above. If your going to solve problems you have to know the root principles behind the technology and not just a specific implementation of it. That’s always been my philosophy.