From the video description:
45Drives is De-Microsoft-ifying and leading the charge by replacing Windows with Linux desktops and replacing proprietary solutions with open source. This topic of “demicrosoftification” was discussed at the Creator Summit 2024 at 45Drives headquarters. I attended along with many other tech YouTubers in this space. They also gave us a sneak peek at some new hardware too and an early look at some unique prototypes.
I left the original title in quotes since I’m not familiar with the company, aside from what I’ve read about them online. While it’s focused on commercial customers, it still seems neat.
If you have interacted with 45Drives, or their parent company Protocase, what are they like?
They’re going to give a portion of the money they are saving to sponsor the maintainers of the projects they are going to use right? Right?
LibreOffice is pretty good. I canceled Microsoft Office365 about 6 months ago and have not regretted it even once.
Was it just me or was the video light on details? It didn’t mention how they are deshittifying, what they use, their current progress, satisfaction, and so on. If companies want to leave Microsoft, having some kind of track record of other companies doing so could help.
Some euro cities have taken the plunge also. Mandates of public tax dollars should not fund a private solution, and data sovereignty away from the USA.
The biggest hurdle I see for companies is excel, it is used and mis-used across all industries. Some running entire company production and reporting via macroed excel work books.
All the other apps are easy to find better tools for anyway, but excel has people locked in, making a switch a painful process.
The biggest hurdle I see for companies is excel, it is used and mis-used across all industries. Some running entire company production and reporting via macroed excel work books.
At my first job for a big, publicly traded company ($30B mkt cap at the time) i was shocked that the tool we used for generating POs was this excel sheet that some guy had written 10 years ago and nobody bothered to replace it even as the company grew to be huge.
Its crazy right. One place I was at was using it as a database… I’m like Databases exist!! Even if you didn’t want another software vendor, you could make use of MS Access.
Uproot Microsoft, Google and Apple from your lives.
Interesting. Never interacted and didn’t know about them. Now I’m going to keep watch.
I’ve bought a few things from 45Drives. Pretty happy with them. Good to know they’re fighting the good fight.
I just tried to get a quote for a barebones Q30, it was ~$3400. Wish they would make bigger 45homelab chassis.
