Reply to post: Re: Sadly only one upvote to give.

Windows for Warships? Not on our new aircraft carriers, says MoD

x 7

Re: Sadly only one upvote to give.

"Well Mozilla ( Firefox & Thunderbird), Google (Chrome, Google Earth) Gimp, LibreOffice , VLC, Skype, VirtualBox, Apache, MPLab (PIC dev/programmer) and a number of others."

None of which have any practical use in a medical environment. No clinical database system. No patient arrivals system. No patient messaging system. No document management system. No medical diagnostic testing system. No interface with ECG machines, Spirometry machines, diagnostic results databases. No integrated dictation software or speech-to-text (with medical dictionary). No automated text messaging system. No prescribing or prescription dispensing system.

The NHS uses windows because it HAS to: the applications it needs are windows only.

The programs you cite are all generalist non-specialist programs, which can be made to work in a simple small office environment. But in any type of specialist environment they are next to irrelevant.

And its no good bleating about how manufacturers "should" provide non-windows alternatives. The simple fact is that the market isn't big enough to support multiple development and support streams. There isn't enough cash in the pot to allow companies to offer multiple competing products (which is what Linux versions of the existing windows products would be). And the medical tech support teams - the CSUs - certainly don't want to increase their support costs with alternative support options.

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