Any Reason To Buy Microsoft? 729
zymano writes "This yahoo article says that almost everything enterprises once found unique to Microsoft they can now find somewhere else -- without some of the baggage that comes with Microsoft purchases, like ongoing security concerns and mystifying licensing practices and that in a recent survey of CIOs, Forrester Research found that about 25 percent of them were already in the process of replacing Windows servers with Linux."
other people need to buy microsoft (Score:5, Funny)
dissrespect is the core problem. (Score:3, Insightful)
Everyone should use free software, free software should be used for everything and no one shoul
Re:dissrespect is the core problem. (Score:5, Insightful)
BillG and RMS are both bent on world domination, starting from different ends.
I thoroughly enjoy using free software. I haven't yet developed sufficient skill to contribute to a project (couldn't figure out how to link libraries in KDevelop, couldn't make sense of autoconf/automake until I found autoproject), and I've only contributed financially through the bookstore. Apparently, www.gnu.org is doing well enough.
I don't think that the walls against free software can ever go up again. The US can try to buttress the Monopoly Show ( or MS can expand its butt rest from the DOJ to the rest of the gubmint ) but the world at large is facing Redmond and yawning. How will, say, scientists doing genomics research collaborate if they can't use free tools, but spend their time dealing with the various exploits and incompatibilities?
No, paying an optional tax to a shadow government in Redmond will continue to lose appeal.
Of course, if everyone dumped MSFT, how far south would the NASDAQ go? In all honesty, concern over economic turbulence has got to be running through some senior heads...
MS and the economy (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, actually MS is now traded on the NYSE, which gives you a feeling for what type of company it has become. However, back to the intention of your statement, since the performance of the economy is a function of the costs of capital inputs, the truth is our economy is being HURT by the MS monopoly. Consider it a "software shock" instead of a "oil shock," companies that are forced (by their own ignorance) to use MS software are less competitive because their inputs are more expensive and restricting. MS software inflates pc prices, just like expensive oil inflates all petroleum related products. This results in less consumption and less profitability and overall revenue to non-MS companies.
My company just had 10% layoffs and had we not gone with their new license plan, I am sure many of those people could have still had jobs. This is the reason that anti-trust laws exist. Not to be fair but because monopolies HURT the economy. Unfortunately, a monopoly with enough money not only adversely affects the economy but also the government.
Re:MS and the economy (Score:3, Informative)
Clearly, over time, money given to BeelzeBill is money not spent elsewhere. However, in a land where near-term is the next quarterly statement, and long-term the next election, who can expect courage from the leadership?
Re:MS and the economy (Score:4, Informative)
Where did you get that information? I went to nyse.com [nyse.com] and did a "Symbol Lookup" for Microsoft, which sent me to this page [nyse.com] showing that Microsoft is a NASDAQ company.
So obviously it's not "now traded on the NYSE." Is it going to be?
Re:dissrespect is the core problem. (Score:5, Interesting)
I have many friends from East Germany who would find the comparison highly offensive.
Enterprises use Microsoft for a simple reason, the alternatives suck. You might think that there is no difference between Microsoft Word and an open source alternative but end users don't.
Open source is hardly immune to buggy unreliable software and many users will even use the legacy unreliable and insecure code long after there is a better alternative. No software that Microsoft makes compares with sendmail for sheer awfulness. Yet sendmail is still hands down the main Unix mailer (unless you believe Prof Bernstein's QMail propaganda). There are much better alternatives, QMail and Exim, have been for years and years but they show no sign of dislodging the obsolete sendmail.
So given this position within the open source world why expect it to be different outside? The cost of Microsoft software is irrelevant if you are paying people to use it.
Quotes from the article (Score:5, Insightful)
Quoth the AC:
If you had R'd TFA then you'd spot that a lot of it does relate to things other than the OS side of the market, and many of the claims made are general and across the board. In fact, from the original article, and citing a guy from SuSE of all places:
Some of the other more telling quotes from the article follow.
That is still true, if anything more so today than it was five years ago. MS still totally dominate the desktop. In particular, their Windows development tools and office suite still completely outclass the OS equivalents. To give credit where it's due, a couple more years at this rate and OpenOffice could be a real threat. I haven't seen any open source project currently in development that's even close to Visual Studio.
Because of course, open source things are immune to bugs and security problems... not. If you really think "almost everything" that was once unique to Microsoft now has a serious open source competitor, you haven't been looking very carefully.
It may be a competitor, but it ain't a better product. It's got a way to go before it challenges either the raw power or the ease of use of the Microsoft suite. For geeks who are happy to play with new toys, it's great, and maybe in the future it will be great for Joe Average as well, but enough with the kidding ourselves, OK? It isn't there yet.
Re:Quotes from the article (Score:3, Insightful)
And here's an example of how true that is (and this isn't meant as a flame, tho I'm sure some will read it that way):
I hate, loathe, despite, can't stand, and do everything I can to avoid using WinWord; the whole way the program works is an exercise in disorganization and "you can't do thats". And I don't like the rest of M$Office much either; IMO, Powerpoint's design positively stinks.
I tried StarOffice 5.x for Win32... and,
Re:Quotes from the article (Score:3, Insightful)
I like my job (Score:4, Insightful)
I like getting paid to write software. If nobody bought software, I guess that programming would be a 'hobby' and not a 'profession'.
I think the free software people are idiots. Kinda the same if 1/2 the plumbers in the world went around doing the job for nothing- because 'everyone should have water'.
I like getting paid to write code. I'm pretty sure that a lot of other people do. If the companies don't sell the products, and make a lot of money, then the whole idea of a paid programmer will go away. That would be a bummer.
So why the hell do you want to give your work away for free? That's some crack that I ain't smokin'.
At this rate programmers will be like artists- all underpaid and 'struggling'.
Who the hell came up with the idea that my time, effort, and labor is not worth any money? Please don't offer my employer to replace me with something that is free. You may be on your moral high-horse, but what you are really doing is killing one more tech job.
Re:I like my job (Score:5, Insightful)
I would go so far as to say that most code written is written to perform some task for the people employing the programmer, rather than for resale.
That said, note that free (as in GPL) software does not mean that a company producing it gets no revenue. For starters, it need not be given to customers for free; while the customers can then create derivatives, redistribute source and so forth, they still need to buy the program in the first place. Given a choice of buying it with support from the vendor, or compiling it themselves from source gained from a 3rd party, many would (and do!) buy it from the vendor.
Further in products which contain a mixture of code and other material (for example, computer games, databases with data, etc.) the code component can be free-in-GPL and free-in-cost, while still generating revenue for the creators as part of a product which is very much not free.
You like being paid to write software. That's good, getting payed for practicing an art that (I presume) you enjoy and are skilled at. If free software became the norm, only one particular avenue of revenue for potential employers is removed, and it is one which probably does not account for more than a fraction of employed coders. There will still be many opportunities for you to practice your art. And with much free software available, you have a much greater opportunity to learn from and build upon the work of others, potentially allowing you to be a better and more efficient programmer.
Re:I like my job (Score:5, Interesting)
I would go so far as to say that most code written is written to perform some task for the people employing the programmer, rather than for resale.
Enitrely agree, the number of truely generic tools is fairly limitied, the number of process specific tools is much larger.
I get paid to write software, these days I slap a GPL license onto everything I ship, but a great deal of this won't ever be seen by the public because its not generally useful and nobody would actually be interested. The stuff that is generally useful will eventually make its way into the wild, but its defaintely in the minority.
Al.Re:I like my job (Score:5, Insightful)
Software still has to be written, maintained, and supported. At one time, there was little or no proprietary software. Most of it was either given away to sell mainframes, or written and maintained in-house to meet business needs. If priprietary software goes away, we'll simply return to that situation, just like waking from a nightmare.
I write Free software for a living. The biggest difference is that my license doesn't translate to 'all your base are belong to us' and I never have to reinvent my own wheel.
When Free software takes over, there will be MORE demand for programmers than ever. There are a great many proprietary apps out there that various businesses wish they could customise feature X or add feature Y. Proprietary software means that those customizations are simply out of the question, so that's one less position for a programmer. The money to pay the programmer's salary will come out of the licensing costs no longer paid out and from the administrative costs of license compliance that is no longer necessary.
The net result of Free software taking over is that a huge inefficiency in the economy will be removed. If any professions suffer because of Free software, it will be lawyers and redundant administrators.
Re:I like my job (Score:4, Insightful)
Another example is MySQL. One company sells support contracts for that software and makes quite a bit doing just that. But MySQL is free both in speech and beer. Yet they still make money helping people fix problems that they have with it.
Free software can make companies money, it's as simple as that. It's not that the companies are developing programs they pass around without any cost whatsoever. Programmers still earn money because their work still profits the company. In other words, the exact same thing that goes on with proprietary software, just shifting the philosophy around. The money is still there.
PROPRIETARY software impoverishes MORE programmers (Score:4, Interesting)
For instance, my company was nearly a YEAR into writing financial reports for the company. All the software we were using was proprietary. Suddenly, towards the end of the project, it was discovered that the software could not combine the portrait and landscape types of sheets into one package on the company website. It would have been more cost efficient to pay a programmer 50k JUST to fix this one issue, but since it was proprietary software (and the of course the vendor didn't care), we had to switch proprietary software and start over!
The truth is EVERY software related project should employ a programmer because you never know what the limitations of the already available software will be until you are too deep into the project. The reason that every project DOESN'T employ a programmer is the company doesn't have permission to customize the code, so, in the end, their only option is to change products. So you get companies full of Admins and no programmers.
Proprietary software kills more quality tech jobs and replaces them with mindless, admin jobs.
Re:I like my job (Score:3, Funny)
As a geek, you could use your extensive knowledge of Klingon to get a job in Oregon.
Max
Re:I like my job (Score:3, Insightful)
You've completely missed the whole point of "free software." It's not about "giving away your hard work without compensation." It's about not placing encumbrances on those who receive the software from you.
I'm still a bit confused by your position. As long as there are
Re:other people need to buy microsoft (Score:5, Insightful)
The alternatives to Microsoft are fine if all you need is a fancy notepad editor or something to fill in boxes to appear to be a spreadsheet, but the moment you try to do something grown up with them you hit a nasty wall. I think the statement that "all the things you can do with Microsoft you can now do with others" is flat wrong. There are some real simple incompatibility issues with OpenOffice such text in table layouts that make it unacceptable for use even as my son's school report text editor.
You are deluded if you think that the UNIX world is immune to security concerns. Instead of hanging on to that tired mantra you should subscribe to a weekly security bulletin such as SANS so you can see what the issues are...lately there has been a rash of bugs in open source tools. Your statement really means that anyone who hires you to take care of their systems should fire you immediately because you don't understand that security is a living process and not a software package that eventually gets circumvented anyway. Blind complacent assumptions about a software package because a penguin appears on the cover lead to practices as bad as using "root000" for a password and are an open door on any platform.
Eventually these alt tools will cover territory that MS covered about 3 years ago; three years from now you will not be competitive if you are using today's tools. The open source community will continue to play catch-up with these tools so long as there is no REAL innovation. When will the next Linux or Apache come around? Are we really doing anything more with these than playing with desktop themes and applications skins? How long does it take until the newest 10% of any software package is universally used?
Of course, to each his own and use whatever tool that works and gets the job done best. But consider that by not providing certain tools you may be holding people back. If you hear "we don't have that capability, but we can get around that" what you are really hearing about is lost manhours (NOT free!) that the competition didn't have to deal with. I certainly don't like to consider MS on the back end, but from the enterprise standpoint it is not possible to scale management of or even collaborate between these open source tools without heavy application of some glue code. On the desktop you can't take away my Win2k/XP and I get excellent uptime with it. Out of the box, MS apps connect like a bloated Cheeto-dining hacker and a blind porno actress. THAT is the challenge that the open source community must take up in order for their apps to not just be adopted in niche areas, but to be universally accepted.
Re:MS Conspiracy on slashdot? (Score:3, Insightful)
The good news is that even if they are manipulating the system to get their word out they will lose. The most important reason that they will lose is embedded in Linus's original invitation to the world t
Good reason to buy Microsoft (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Good reason to buy Microsoft (Score:4, Insightful)
One reason: (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:One reason: (Score:5, Interesting)
Go ask the guy that replaced some of the servers in one of the branch offices of my company. Guess what I did to him for replacing the mail servers with win2000 because of ease of maintenance. Guess what happened after almost a week of no mail and numerous calls to M$ with "please try rebooting" answers.
Re:One reason: (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:One reason: (Score:4, Interesting)
Then, they decides to try the same thing with Linux, putting users in groups, with internet access, and after more than a day's worth of man-hours (and several real hours) most of the groups still hadn't been able to configure a linux box to be a functioning DHCP server.
With the 10 hours I'm paying the linux admin to figure out how to do it in linux, I could have paid my Windows Admin to configure DHCP on a Windows box while saving enough money in time to pay for the copy of Windows too!
Re:One reason: (Score:3, Informative)
Look, a PC may look like a Mac, in a way -- it has a Hard Drive and Memory, requires a monitor, keyboard and mouse. But, do you know that they are really two very different systems? They use entirely different CPU's, for one thing (that's short for Central Processing Unit -- the thing that is central to all the work your PC or Mac does
Re:One reason: (Score:3, Informative)
For one thing, I haven't met a Linux (or *BSD) admin that wasn't proficient with Windows as well. By proficient, I don't necessarily mean a proficient Windows admin, but proficient in using Windows.
Now, take your average "Windows Server Administrator"--most have no experience with other operating systems. For the most part, no
Re:One reason: (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh, but did they do it RIGHT? Now did they do it right by design, or accident? Do they even know the difference? Novice admins should never be left loose on a production network. Therefore you choice of target users is incorrect and any results you draw from them are inapplicable. Your target users for configuring DHCP are expirenced admins, who mostly have done it before on this server and need to update something. I don't want a novice messing with my dhcp server configuration, I want one of the
Re:One reason: (Score:4, Interesting)
Asking someone to do something new cold SHOULD take 10 hours. And double that to test.
That said, I spent a total of 10 minutes configuring my first Linux dhcp server.
rpm -ivh dhcp-2.0.i386.rpm
man dhcp
pico /etc/dhcpd.conf
I did this back in 1998. Since then we've gone from the NT 3.5 interface to the NT 4.0 interface, to the MMC, and now whatever monstrosity they call the thingy under XP.
Under linux, the text file is still in the same place. In fact, it's still largely in the same format.
And also, my experience setting up DHCP for my apartment did a lot more to prepare me for my present 200 node network than a point and drool interface ever would.
Re:One reason: (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah but lots of companies went out of business for doing it (one of my former included)
Re:One reason: (Score:5, Insightful)
Companies go out of business for many reasons. Their choice of word processor isn't one of them.
Re:One reason: (Score:5, Insightful)
A company's choice of server OS, web server, and database may, in my experience, significantly contribute to their untimely demise.
To follow this thread, up to your argument:
1. (original thread) Nobody got fired for buying Microsoft.
2. (my reply) Companies have gone bankrupt for buying Microsoft.
3. (your reply) Companies don't go bankrupt for buying MS Word.
Do you not see any logical fallacy here? That being, your implication that the only software Microsoft offers that may possibly contribute to a company's demise is the choise of word processor. This is most certainly not the case.
What's more, your assertion that MS Word would not contribute to a company's demise is unsatisfied; I find it fairly likely that MS Word would cost more than any other word processing solution given the plethora of bugs, crashes, worms and viri targeting it. In a competitive scenario, a company not hindered by these costs would have a strategic, and hence competitive, advantage over one that is, and hence have greater survivability. Most (All?) Federal Banks use Lotus Notes for a damned fine reason (it's not a big target).
Cheers.
and... (Score:5, Funny)
Fair (Score:4, Interesting)
I appruciate the honesty and attempt to be impartial here when assessing the two operating systems. This is something that many pro-linux articles miss.
Of course the long term benefits definately outweight the initial investment that is still a very tough sell in the current economy.
__
cheap web site hosting [cheap-web-...ing.com.au]
Re:Fair (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Fair (Score:3, Insightful)
MS consistency (Score:3, Insightful)
The 2nd point is support. It's impeccable, and having guaranteed 24-hour help for those times when things foo bar up so badly we can't repair things is essential to running a service for our clients.
Those are two features of "going MS" that are important to us. Some people will not find they need both, or even either. I won't comment on their business practices, but suffice it to say that's their choice.
Re:MS consistency (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, but who supplies your support? If it was Microsoft there would be no market for the likes of CSC and EDS who make a fortune out of support contracts because Microsoft support is not adequate.
If you have to pay someone for 24x7 support you may as well pay them for support no a reliable platform that is far better suited for 24x7 operations.
The fact that OSS has worse support is a myth - OSS comes with a good developer base that you (or your support contractor) can tap into, and Windows comes with the somewhat inferior MSDN _and that's about it_. Everything else you have to pay for one way or another.
Re:MS consistency (Score:5, Informative)
Yes, the configuration of Apache is quite different to many other programs ('wildly different' is somewhat over the top - at heart, configuring almost all Unix programs invloves editing text files).
But is the configuration process for IIS really that similar to Exchange? Not really - they're very different tasks, so in many ways this isn't really surprising.
As for support, IBM and many others will be happy to offer 24-hour help at the right-price - Free software might not cost anything to get, but it's certainly not free to run. Of course, you don't get 24-hour help for Windows by default either.
The major difference between Microsoft solutions and Open Source solutions is in terms of flexibility - instead of getting a 'black box' which you can do little to change, you can adapt the software to your business. There's no way Microsoft can compete with this under the terms of their current licensing, and ultimately this is why Open Souce software will come to dominate computing.
Re:MS consistency (Score:5, Insightful)
To update, run, install and fix a service is consistent
That's an illusion. A good deployment requires a firm understanding of what is being deployed, and that requires the same amount of work for Apache or IIS. Your employee just feels more secure about configuring IIS with a GUI because it seems to require less creative input, and it allows him to deflect creative mistakes onto Microsoft rather than accept them himself.
Re:MS consistency (Score:3, Insightful)
When I started off in the database field, I developed a few databases for about 4-5 companies, using MS-Access. It was all gui, click and play..
Then I went to university, and learnt database theory, and use oracle. At first I thought it was a step back, since it wasn't as easy any more to produce a database. Then I realised that far more of the effort goes into designing the database than implementing it, and that the GUI almost discourages designing first.
Yep buy Microsoft! (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Yep buy Microsoft! (Score:3, Interesting)
And keyboards! Until recently, I had always used Microsoft mice but that IBM optical mouse (with the blue wheel) finally won me over.
Come to think of it, Microsoft releases some damn fun games too. I can't wait until they realize that they should start porting them to *nix to prop up their profits.
--K.
Re:Yep buy Microsoft! (Score:3, Funny)
Obligatory Bad Joke (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Obligatory Bad Joke (Score:5, Funny)
Bill: Our market share is falling, what can we do?
Ballmer: [Sweating]Improve our products?[Still Sweating]
Bill: Don't be ridiculous, if Windows was secure then we wouldn't be able to charge for bug fixes, [not that our software is buggy of course]
Ballmer: [Shirt now navy blue]We could take the old standby[Shirt now very dark navy blue]
Bill: Aha - [to voice activated Windows box]Bring in the lawyers![Windows BSODs] [To voice activated Linux box] Bring in the lawyers!
[Lawyers arrive]
Bill: I want Linux to be made illegal
Ballmer: [Shirt now dissolving in acidic sweat] Developers! Developers! Developers!
Bill: Not now Steve!
Lawyers: This will cost you Bill, bribery is very expensive these days.
Bill: Nah! - I ran an audit check on the US govt. they haven't complied with the MS Windows Server 2003 EULA clause 0203432448 (You hereby agree that All your base are belong to MS)
Lawyers: It shall be done oh fabulously wealthy one!
[US Govt. declares Finland a terrorist state, wages violent war, Linus Torvolds writes a quick kernel update then goes into hiding]
Survey size? (Score:5, Interesting)
I always love when they quote figures from a survey that was conducted, but don't give any details such as size or region (US only or world wide?).
All in One. (Score:3, Funny)
And now I wonder if I get modded down for this as Troll or up as Funny
Re:All in One. (Score:5, Funny)
And now I wonder if I get modded down for this as Troll or up as Funny
how about getting modded imaginary:-2
Re:All in One. (Score:3, Funny)
You mean imaginary:i right?
Re:All in One. (Score:3, Insightful)
Why buy Microsoft ? (Score:3, Insightful)
unmount
I love everything Linux, but seriously, what will my secretary do when her CD is stuck in the drive despite hitting the eject button furiously, and she doesn't know how to get it out ? And yes, I know you can learn Linux and it's not that hard and yada yada, but she's already taken months to leave her typewritter and get going under Windows. You think my secretary is an old thing from another generation that has become rare ? think again.
So, yeepee-doo for Linux, let Linux take over the world, but please leave my secretary under Windows so she can do her work.
Re:Why buy Microsoft ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Oh come off it. (Score:3, Insightful)
What possible reason could there be for a technophobic secretary to need to mount a CD in the works machine. If she's not capable of coming to terms with the mount command then she shouldn't be installing software.
Not heard of automount then? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Why buy Microsoft ? (Score:3, Informative)
And don't think that the disk won't get "stuck" in Windows: it just means that the only alternative is to reboot the machine to unstick it, not type a oneliner into a command line. Just make a link to a shell script, and everyone should be happy.
your secretary? (Score:3, Insightful)
You should have more respect for the secretary and let her make up her own mind. Tell
Human Resources (Score:5, Insightful)
Corporate buyers and technologists are notoriously conservative and things like long term longevity of the company, market capitalisation, project history, locked in technologies and pure tradition (ie we have always bought from Microsoft) have a massive impact on buying decisions.
As someone once remarked to me, "No-one gets sacked for buying Microsoft software"...
So I think they'll be around mighty longer than anyone anticipates (providing they don't make a huge technological miscalculation). And judging by their past aggressiveness and competitiveness I would say they can't be written off yet.
When pricing a firm there is much much more to it than saying that someone else sells everything they do.
I can think of one reason... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I can think of one reason... (Score:3, Informative)
Second off, of course we have an answer to that. We've combined our most evil text editor (vi) with an annoying assistant... BEHOLD! VIGOR! [sf.net]
Yeah, it's evil. Yes. Evil.
I too can think of one reason... (Score:3, Interesting)
When I connect my laptop to the network I want it to synchronize my files. If it can do this via ssh to any remote server, even better.
Anyone know of any such product for Linux?
Re:I too can think of one reason... (Score:3, Informative)
Unison is platform/OS agnostic, BTW.
- Robin
Running proprietary inhouse apps (Score:5, Insightful)
I remember the old saying "Don't code it include it!". The point is that your apps are really just wrappers for some ms specific code.
If it took 30 years to replace cobal/IBM 370 code then it will take 30 years to get the com/.net/Windows back out again. I predict Windows to be used for 30 or 40 years thanks to the proprietariness of the whole environment.
Also look at prepackaged software. Its all Windows based. Peoplesoft, great plains accounting, autocad, etc.
Sadly many companies today are ready to jump on the
On another note Microsoft does make the best Office suites around. Not to mention I found no ide that approaches VC++. Vi is cool as a great text editor for many different langauges but it does not have autoword completion, autoclass completetion, class browsing extra that VC++ has. Kdevelop sucks goatballs and only eclipse is close. Unfortunatly its for java development.
Re:Running proprietary inhouse apps (Score:5, Interesting)
I've been workin on
Re:Running proprietary inhouse apps (Score:3, Informative)
Not true. Eclipse itself is a development tool platform, it just happens that Java is the first and most widely know language. There's a C/C++ toolkit now, though, see the CDT [eclipse.org]. There's also an effort to develop a COBOL IDE!
Re:Running proprietary inhouse apps (Score:3, Informative)
CDT just has syntax highlighting for some keywords and thats it. You can't even compile with it. This is something I can do with the Unix version of gVIM by running
It is a java ide for the time being untill CDT improves.
Re:Running proprietary inhouse apps (Score:3, Interesting)
Techincally, w.r.t. PeopleSoft, this statement isn't exactly true:
PeopleSoft Jumps on Linux Bandwagon [cioupdate.com]
Announcements of this type are actually very big news for the business world, IMO. The biggest core application for a non-technology company, ie. Manufacturing, is it's ERP system's. Sure, Cisco can switch all desktop development off of Un*x to Linux because of the similar environment.
ERP syste
Re:Running proprietary inhouse apps (Score:3, Informative)
Eclipse is better and can be used to develop in langauges other than Java. I've used it for Java, C, PHP and Perl.
Re:Running proprietary inhouse apps (Score:5, Insightful)
First, let me let you know my prejudices. I am a Linux advocate. I like Linux. I've developed software for Unix systems professionally for 14 years now. I have also become a Free Software advocate. This took a fair amount of time. I thought the right way to make money with software was to keep it closed and secret. I now think this is the right way for a small number of investors to make the largest possible amount of money out of skilled people who are not so well compensated. In a Free Software economy, programmers become like lawyers, doctors, and architects: professionals compensated for the quality of their practice.
So much for background. Even as an advocate, I think we must recognize the validty of the argument quoted above. When you have choices between propretary platforms, you must manage the risk. You must try to choose the winner. And it is difficult to find a market Microsoft has chosen to move into where it has not become the winner (most often by leveraging their OS monopoly, but we've had that fight already).
The only products that have gained ground against Microsoft in a market Microsoft dominates are Free Software products. Why? The corollary to the above argument. Microsoft can't destroy a Free product. Sun should GPL or BSD license their Java VM and SDK as soon as possible (given my view, I'd prefer the GPL, but I would welcome any license that meets the Debian Free Software Guidelines). They should invite public development. I think everyone in the open deveopment community would welcome their sitting as benevolent dictator over the project, a la Thorvalds, and it would guarantee that whatever happened to Sun, Java would go on.
Sure, businesses are careful, and belief in the Free Software model is ony slowly winning acceptance (with Linux, Apache, and Samba leading that), but one of the reasons people accept those products is the confidence in knowing those projects will go on. No risk of vendor disappearence. Sun's best bet to keep Java in front and on top is to open it up. They already give it away, now they need to let go.
As for the general topic of Microsoft vs. Free, obviously I believe Free can do the job and will eventually (I think) completely replace all closed commodity market niches, leaving only specialty vertical markets as potential closed markets. But this will take quite a while. It will take a generation or two, simply because the generation of programmers raised on Free Software has to become the generation of technical people making the decisions. People do not make choices on a rational basis, they rationalize their prejudices. They come up with evidence for what they already believe (me too -- objectivity is extremely difficult to attain) and reject evidence to the contrary.
Money is the thing that drives what little rationality there is in this debate.
One of the reasons I think the Free Software will ultimately win is simply that Free Software is always free, whereas Microsoft gets its developer mindshare on the pusher model (first few hits are free). Universities and Technical Colleges are using and teaching with Free Software more and more. The current high price of Linux people is due to the last decade of Microsoft pushing. The people who know *nix are the older, more experienced folks -- the more expensive folks. But the next generation is going to have broader background and skills. The cheap folks will know *nix AND Windows.
Those who accuse the Free Software camp of
Interesting developments at IBM maincampus... (Score:5, Interesting)
Linux is not a threat... (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is not a threat to Windows. The general behaviour of MS against it's custommers is.
Facts: (AFAIK)
_ Windows XP has been out for a while now.
_ With such an amount of time, there likely more hardware update needed (and applied) for a lot of computers.
_ A set of 3 changes triggers the mandatory registration process.
_ To have a locked computer on sunday morning because you just installed a RAM upgrade is really a pain. (*)
_ To have a very unpleasant MS guy on the phone Monday morning really improves your general bad feeling about MS and Windows. (**)
I know a few people who experienced that kind of story those last six months. Most were MS tolerant. Some are now planning to give a try to a Linux distribution (SuSE).
Since this kind of trouble is going to happen more and more, I think that MS is more a threat to itself than Linux.
(*) real story
(**) part 2 of the real story
Re:Linux is not a threat... (Score:5, Interesting)
Hmm. The activation centres here in NZ are automated (unless you've changed too much hardware). I had managed to activate at 3am in the morning.
_ To have a very unpleasant MS guy on the phone Monday morning really improves your general bad feeling about MS and Windows. (**)
Yes. I was unfortunate enough to have to need to talk to a human operator once. They're suspicious and treat you as *guilty* until you prove otherwise. I had a most unpleasent conversation with one of their operators. I tried explaining to them that I was reinstalling XP cause I had just upgraded my motherboard and cpu. They treated me like an idiot and asked me if I was sure that I wasn't installing it on a second machine. When I said "yes", there was a pause (obviously they were looking at the hardware ID changes) and they said "are you sure?".
It wasn't until I got very pissed off with them that they let me activate.
Not a very nice way to treat your customers.
Proprietary Corporate Client Apps (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Pre-trained user base = nil training cost for MS Office users
2. So many corporate apps that can be run on a variety of databases/servers, yet demand MS desktop OS's for their client app that is required. Many of these setups have no intention of moving to anything other than windows for the client side of things.
Clippy and Bob (Score:4, Funny)
How about Clippy and Bob ? Unique to Microsoft ? Yes, of course. Replacements ? No way!
Windows 2000 Server vs SAMBA -licensing per client (Score:4, Insightful)
Why buy Microsoft? I'll tell you why... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft, to most businesses, is the "safe bet". It's considered the superior choice only because it's mainstream.
The real threat will come to Microsoft not via some certain tech advance - it will come in the form of a slow penetration of anti-MS and pro-Linux gossip being spread throughout the business community. Once this happens the game will be over and MS will have to *totally* re-invent themselves - another product release won't save them.
Re:Why buy Microsoft? I'll tell you why... (Score:3, Insightful)
Right, just like the MPAA re-invented themselves when people wanted to play DVDs on their linux boxen; or like the RIAA re-invented themselves when people wanted to download music.
Unfortunately, monopolies don't see new technology and an smaller customer base as a chance to redefine their strategies. Rather, they use it as a chance to flex their muscle--both market and
Buy Microsoft. (Score:4, Funny)
Microsoft = more licensing cost AND Linux = cool (Score:3, Informative)
You can configure a Linux Server once and leave, it contune to run for a very long time, where Microsoft Server requires more frequently changing configurations.
Microsoft systems have hidden cost unlike Linux.
Reasons (Score:3, Insightful)
In the end... (Score:4, Insightful)
Open Source software offers you the advantage of a propritary in house solution (customisability, flexibility) without having to go away and autally write all the code yourself - just change the bits you want changed.
Windows solutions (shared source being something of a joke) offer you very little more support or indemnification (read the EULA and see what's covered!) yet take away your flexibility.
In the long run, support costs with someone like CSC being similar for Windows or Linux (unfairly IMO, they must be raking it in even more than normal on Linux contracts, but there you go) a business needs to work out if the costs of customising an OSS app to make it perfect are more than the costs of licensing Windows. Factor in the cost of lock in to a Microsoft format and the loss of control in the figures, and you have a basis of comparison for your company.
-And of course if you contribute your changes back to the commnity (which you don't _have_ to do with the BSDL or under the GPL if you do not distribute outside the company) you will suddenly find yourself with Karma:Excellent in the geek community, which may or may not be good for your business.
Any reason to buy Microsoft? (Score:3, Funny)
Still no MS enterprise desktop competition. (Score:5, Interesting)
MS is just starting to compete in the enterprise app space, but Unix still beats it hands-down. There's no argument there. But at the desktop in a large, distributed enterprise, Microsoft is the only rational choice. Period.
For some reasons already mentioned and for some not, Linux et. al. don't make sense for an enterprise to deploy to the desktop. Here's my reasons why:
Obviously 1 and 3 are the most compelling. 2 might be something kind of specific to the financial industry (which I work IT in) or maybe my organization. Who knows. There are also a lot of more arcane 2-ish reasons (a bunch of audit and risk management stuff) that have already been touched on (Microsoft is stable, easy to build a clearly-defined business relationship with, etc.)
To be honest, I hope the OSS community is able at some point to create products that compete with MS in the ways I described above. And while Linux may be taking some market share from Microsoft in middle-tier enterprise apps, it's gonna be a long time before it can compete at the enterprise desktop. So there's plenty of reasons to still buy Microsoft, that is, of course, if you want to keep your job.
Re:Still no MS enterprise desktop competition. (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Manageability. If you think that Windows is unique and UNIX/Linux doesn't have comparable tools, it's because you have not worked with a comparable sized UNIX installation. Rdist and LDAP can do everything and more that SMS and Active Directory can. Furthermore they do it cross platform using open standards that are interoperable across a wide range of platforms.
2. Accountability. Baloney. Microsoft isn't accountable to ANYONE, including the Department of Justice. Sure, you can BLAME them, but that is not the same thing as accountability. What you are talking about is the old 'Nobody got fired for buying IBM' which is of course a dead letter these days. Accountability means that you can recover damages from somebody when it breaks, or you can switch to a different supplier. The former is impossible, and the latter is only possible if you are using open standards (i.e. Linux).
3. It's cheaper. Microsoft is cheaper? Have you factored in the costs associated with license compliance, the poor stability of Microsoft platforms compared to Linux, the forced site licensing that requires you to buy TWO licenses per employee for every software package? And hardware is cheaper? Since when? Linux uses the same hardware. The only real advantage Microsoft has with cost is due to vendor lock-in of their user base. And you know what? You PAY and PAY and PAY for that because Microsoft has you by the short hairs. License 6.0 is the shot across the bow. Microsoft got away with a major price increase in the middle of a recession, and they KNOW it. Wait 'till you see License 7.0.
People are not switching to Linux for fun. They are doing so because it gives them an advantage.
Predatory Pricing = Bad Taste (Score:3, Interesting)
Now I'm not an anti-Microsofter; I have a complex love / hate thing going for them.
I remember CPM / DOS quite well, and wondering why I couldn't use a GUI like I had at work (SparcStations) and the absolute joy when windows 3.0 then 3.1, etc came along.
And then there are their Office applications and generally well received development tools. I like lots of things about their products - accelerator keys rock, for example! So they've done some good.
But then they've got to go and destroy all the good will towards them by simply insisting that they will own all of it.
So if I have a choice between Microsoft and anyone else, I'll go with the latter. The industry as a whole has been damaged enough by Redmonds behaviour.
History.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Real world examples:
"We need to recommend Mac's. Apple was THE FIRST SERIOUS PC, and Mac was the first GUI. It is far superior to anything running on the PC." (1987)
"Novell has 80% of the Network Operating System market. Go with the defacto standard; the industry leader." (1992)
"The Netscape team INVENTED browsing. Deploy Netscape Communicator to the desktop. Their browser and mail client will continue to dominate the desktop." (1996)
"The ONLY serious competitor in palmtop computing is the Palm Pilot. Why consider anything else?" (1998)
You can say it again and again for Apache (market leader, practically invented the market), Java (re-invented the concept of write-once-run-anywhere), home gaming systems, and forty other technologies.
The bottom line is that you better have a GREAT reason to bet against "Dollar Bill". He knows that there's more to the market than superior products (in fact, product superiority is probably low on Microsoft's strategic list, behind good marketing, product interoperability, and spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).
I think Microsoft's here to stay as long as Bill's driving the ship. Why bet my business by betting AGAINST Gates?
Re:History.... (Score:3, Insightful)
One Reason to Buy MS (Score:4, Interesting)
As an example of the absurd extremes to which this can go: I've co-authored a number of books on Linux; and for each project the publisher would accept only MS Word files. So, I had to write my Linux manuscript under Win98. What a pain.
For this situation to change, a significant percentage of users would have to switch to other applications - and I don't see that happening any time soon. Or, The Bill will let his applications use open standards for file formats (e.g., PDF); but there will be ice skating in Hell before he lets his products compete on a level playing field.
Export to RTF and rename to .doc (Score:3, Interesting)
Seriously, that is what I do, and it works. Word can handel it, and so their database can.
They could have got the .doc specifications from microsoft and wrote a database to read them, but I don't think anyone would go through that much effort, even assuming there is documentation for .doc. From those I've talked to attempting to write a .doc import/export filter there is reason to suspect that there is none, and anything you might get from microsoft will be wrong somewhere. (because the format it so c
IT shops don't want everything Windows offers. (Score:3, Interesting)
My client is a bank using NT 4.0 SP6 on PC hardware (NT 4.0 has been kicked around long enough to be able to be left to run all day, though we still get the rare BSOD and some software just crashes at unpredictable intervals) and where installing new software is "verbotten!"
Install something, anything, and they just might show you the door and tell you not to let it hit you in the ass on the way out.
The last thing they need is some employee running some software that cuts into ACTUAL productivity or exposes the internal systems of the bank to risk.
For that reason they are firewalled and proxied to death on cabled LANs and WANs that are a topoplogist's nightmare. Email access is extremely tightly controlled. Internet access almost as tightly controlled. ALL traffic is logged (on a Sun box.) They're quite upfront about it too.
Let in a virus and you WILL be shown the door. Seen it happen. A whole team of consultants suddenly lost their access to the building. The bank just disabled their passes. The team member who'd fault it was was never allowed to come back.
Creaping feature-itis has come back to bite M$ in the ass.
Exchange? (Score:5, Insightful)
I would LOVE to be able to have some kind of solution that could do group calendaring, mail, and shared addressing. As it is now I'm using cyrus imapd, a webmail program, a different LDAP web gateway, and a different web calendaring program. We had used a trial of exchange about 4 years ago, and people still miss the features (even though we didn't stick with exchange due to cost)
Re:Really? Check this (plz don't mod down) (Score:5, Informative)
The Redhat server just works. I never have any downtime, it's never crashed, I've never lost any data -- the thing just sits there, ticking away in the background, doing what it's supposed to do.
The Win2k server, in contrast, is a continuous pain in the arse. Administration isn't at all transparent -- you fill in a few tick boxes, and pray that it's going to do what the manual says it will do. Sometimes it does, sometimes it doesn't. Sometimes things just stop working, with no apparent reason. (File replication was the last thing that just 'broke'.)
With regard to the learning curve, I found that it was slightly more difficult at the beginning for Linux, but once I'd grasped the basic concepts, they pretty well applied everywhere. This isn't true for Windows 2000.
The last big problem is interoperability. With the linux server, connectivity just works. With the Windows server, it's forever disappearing from view.
Both OSes do have certain strengths and weaknesses, but I don't see that Windows has any advantage in either stability or ease of maintenance.
Re:Really? Check this (plz don't mod down) (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux covers a wide variety of distributions, you can't tell me that Debian or Slackware aren't stable reliable Linux distros.
What's all this maintainence you are referring to? sounds like biased FUD to me.
Re:Really? Check this (plz don't mod down) (Score:3, Informative)
An important factor in Linux' cost is its maintenance. Linux requires a *lot* of maintenance, work doable only by the relatively few high-paid Linux administrators that put themselves - of course willingly - at a great place in the market. Linux seems to be needing maintenance continuously, to keep it from breaking down.
I don't have experience running any truly important systems, but the boxes I have administered have requi
well.... (Score:4, Funny)
i agree with you on the filesystem, but i'm spoiled because of netware. the recoverability of original (3x, 4x, 5x) netware fs was good and nss is outstanding.
i also agree to some extent with the poor tools.
but here's the kicker: people talk about the expensive linux (or unix, or netware) engineers and compare that to the low-cost (cheap?) ms engineers and they haven't compared oranges to oranges. a lot of people are lining up to get burned because their ms technical people don't know what they are doing. and mcse's that do know what they are doing are rare and expensive. i've made more money that i want to think about cleaning up after one or two people who thought they knew active directory.
eric
Re:Really? Check this (plz don't mod down) (Score:5, Insightful)
Alpha support for ext2fs was added in 1993. So the FreeBSD fs from 2003 blows Ext2fs out of the water? No shit Sherlock.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
Hmm the kernel help text doesn't say that ReiserFS support is experimental. But of course as an AC on
The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'.
Yeah, the only drawback they removed was the non journaling nature of EXT2FS.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
Yep, having full controll of the hardware platform and documentation will do that...
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost.
Lets compare it to Unix as you did above. I'd say the learning curve is almost non-existant. If a sheep farmer from Victoria Australia who used to use Windows (We actually have one in the Gentoo forums) can teach himself Linux so can a Unix sysadmin.
The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification.
That has not been my experience. If you find something that irritates you file a bug report.
On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
Yep, my Linux prinserver contains bad language. Better get rid of it.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
What is clear is that you have a chip on your shoulder concerning Linux. Considering that there are lots of companies currently using Linux it clearly is an option for some.
The quality of trolls is going down (Score:3, Interesting)
However, bad as it is, this troll usually gets a few good rebuttals. Therefore, here's my tip for Linux companies PR: post FUD from m$ at
Re:Well.. (Score:3, Funny)
Oooh. Can we make him dance until his heart explodes? Please? Pretty please?
Why you shouldn't prefer Microsoft (Score:3)
With Microsoft... by the time the fix is out, the exploit is already out in the wild. You have two hours to get to the server room, patch and reboot or you will get h4x0R3D. And when that reboot disrupts corporate operations and the accounting department is caling for your head, you'll begin to wonder if it is truly nece