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Steve Ballmer on MS Server, Linux, Yahoo & More
Posted by
ScuttleMonkey
on Fri Feb 29, 2008 04:36 PM
from the embrace-extend-extiguish dept.
from the embrace-extend-extiguish dept.
yorugua writes "Furniture trembled as Steve Ballmer was to be interviewed by InformationWeek. He then went on to talk about Linux: 'How does Microsoft beat Linux? The same way "you beat any other competitor: You offer good value, which in this case means good total cost of ownership," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says.', Embrace-Extend-Extinguish: 'We say when we embrace standards, we'll be transparent about how we're embracing standards. [...] If we have deviations, we'll be transparent about the deviations.'"
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Frankly... (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Frankly... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Frankly... (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:Frankly... (Score:4, Funny)
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Re:Frankly... (Score:4, Funny)
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TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista (Score:5, Funny)
I had to ask...on what hardware is Vista twice as fast?
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Obligatory youtube link (Score:5, Funny)
No one does bloatware like Microsoft! [youtube.com]
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Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista (Score:5, Interesting)
Where I work we used to have a large number of memory leaks in one of our applications code (written by someone else before I joined the company). I wanted to audit the code and fix them as that seemed like the correct thing to do. I was overruled and told to just go and put vast amounts of memory in each server running the application. Since the application in question was only intended to be used for a five year project and that is nearly up this was a sound financial bet, we never fixed the code, but we did fix the issue effecting our customers by the cheapest possible means.
Since everyone out there is familiar with windows from their home machine Windows gets it's much lower TCO from the money saved by not having to train your staff in the use of a new OS. The occasional inconvenience windows throws at us is not enough to justify the loss in productivity of training all our staff to a new and unfamiliar OS.
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Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista (Score:4, Informative)
You are absolutely correct.
I worked on the project to train employees to go from Windows 95 to Windows NT 4.0.
Then I managed a team that trained employees to go from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows XP.
Now we are budgeting the employee re-training program for the eventual move from Windows XP to Vista.
Each move has been much bigger and more costly.
If you choose to deploy Windows as a desktop OS you guarantee a high cost of re-training employees 2 to 3 times a decade. The argument that a switch to Linux would cost too much because you would have to re-train employees with the switch is a joke. With Windows you also incur the cost of re-training.
However the three top Linux GUIs (KDE, Gnome, and XFCE) are all highly customizable. Although they are upgraded and updated regularly it is easy for an IT department to deploy the upgraded interface in a way that minimizes the UI changes to staff.
One switch to Linux could probably pay for itself by avoiding the high cost incurred by choosing Windows and the forced upgrade/re-training cycle Microsoft imposes on its customers.
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Re:Frankly... (Score:5, Funny)
Please don't get our hopes up like that.
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Furniture trembled? (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Furniture trembled? (Score:5, Funny)
but are you familiar with the reply? [youtube.com]
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Re:Furniture trembled? (Score:4, Informative)
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How does microsoft beat linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:How does microsoft beat linux? (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:And now for something completely different... (Score:4, Funny)
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Embracing standards and deviating from them (Score:5, Insightful)
Though it's nice that they'll now start being up front about how they're introducing incompatibilities, as opposed to the quiet evil way they used to do it. Baby steps, I guess.
One Small Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
One small problem - they'll be transparently disclosing the deviations through patent filings.
Re:Embracing standards and deviating from them (Score:5, Insightful)
There's nothing wrong with having things over and above, or alongside what a standard calls for. Almost everybody does this.
What is wrong is selling people a product that supposedly uses a standard but does not interoperate with that standard. That isn't just deceiving the customer it's freeloading on the know-how and goodwill that went into the standard.
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Deviations? We don't need no steeking deviations! (Score:5, Insightful)
If we have deviations, we'll be transparent about the deviations
And if we're threatening IP litigation through surrogates, we'll be transparent about setting up pipe funding to finance IP litigation through surrogates.
If you tell a lie long enough (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly many IT professionals believe Windows saves money because its an integrated platform. But ignore the reboots and being forced to buy alot more servers as Windows is not friendly with using one or 2 more apps on a single server compared to Unix.
Oh and lets not forget about the blanket licensing fees. What is the average? $12,000 per year for licensing and support per desktop? Uh yeah thats true TCO.
If it were not for Microsoft already setting the standards for Office the corporate world would have abandonded them years ago. Linux is alot cheaper and has 1/10th of the issues if only it could the VB apps and Office.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:If you tell a lie long enough (Score:5, Informative)
At the last company I worked, we were @ 750 desktops. Under our EA agreement CALS for XP + Office Pro + Exchange + Messenger + Sharepoint were under 1000$ per user. Actual desktop support was handled by two techs making 50K/year each, so I guess for 750 desktops would be 100,000 / 750, or say 133$ per user on average.
Beyond desktop licensing, the only other costs I can think of are about 20 Win2K3 server licenses ( for various reasons ) at about 1000$ a shot, various 5 SQL server per proc licenses at 5K a piece and then Exchange server... not sure the cost there, but it was minimal as we were on CAL based licensing. So, from a server side of things, that adds another 20,000 + 25,000 == 45,000 in server licensing, meaning 45,000/750 = 60$ per user.
So, we were looking at 1000$ + 133$ + 60$ or 1193$ per user for all servers, desktop software licensing and physical support!. Finally we had ( at our peak ) 4 net techs averaging say 60K annually and 2 dev/sql guys again around 60K per year. So even factoring IT staff into the equation into the formula adds 360,000K to the number, or 480$ per user.
All thats really missing from this equation is connectivity charges, physical server costs, backup, utilities like hydro, etc... which you are going to have to pay regardless to technology you go with... otherwise thats a pretty accurate budget for running a 750 user IT shop using Windows tech.
No where close to 12,000$, not even by a long shot.
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Re:If you tell a lie long enough (Score:4, Interesting)
I don't think it's 12K/user unless they have one user and have bought one of everything at retail price, but I think your figure is a bit low. You DO have to add in physical server costs, backup costs, electricity, racks and floor space as well to get TCO.
It's not just licensing, scalability kicks in too with large apps that use multiple servers. If it takes 12 servers to run the app with Win2K3 and SQL but only 8 with Lunix and a database such as MySQL then there is an instant savings of more than 33%.
So the same techs at 50K each take care of 750 desktops and users, the 20 Win@K3 servers and the SQL servers? Thats a tremendous amount of work for two people. That number of servers really needs a dedicated sysadmin perhaps two or three depending on the expertise level of the admin and if 24x7 on-site is required. I've seen UNIX and Linux shops where they had one admin for every 150+ servers. The UNIX/Linux servers just don't require a lot of work. I know one business associate who has an old Sun Ultra-2 server that he hasn't had to reboot in serveral years.
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Re:If you tell a lie long enough (Score:5, Funny)
You mean all those MS certified admins really have no idea how to run an enterprise infrastructure?
SAY IT AIN'T SO
--MAB
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Re:If you tell a lie long enough (Score:4, Insightful)
If Linux were even half as much better as people like you thought it was, business would be falling over themselves trying to save money using it.
I've managed to hold him off for 6 months, we'll see how long I can keep it up.
Idiot bosses who fancy themselves skilled at IT plus wannabe admins with MCSEs probably account for the majority of Windows Server installs in my mind.
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Re:If you tell a lie long enough (Score:4, Insightful)
I don't think Linux is the answer to absolutely everything. I do think that it's very relevant, and in many cases, even its price is worth considering.
A few off the top of my head -- the EEE PC and Amazon EC2. If Amazon had to pay a license for every copy of an OS they run, EC2 would be a lot more expensive -- and Asus didn't want to have half the price of the laptop be for the software.
Now, Windows has gotten better at most of the things on his list... but it is something to consider. What is Windows buying you? And what is it actually costing you?
It's often been said that, on the desktop, Linux has to beat Windows by a lot for it to be worth the switch, due to lack of application support and a (mostly gone) learning curve. The same is true of Windows on the server -- even if Windows is better than Linux, or any other Unix, is it better enough to justify the licensing fee?
(That's a long way of saying: I challenge Microsoft's TCO studies, and I think Linux does better. But it's not an absolute, by any means.)
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Persuade me I need Windows Server (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Persuade me I need Windows Server (Score:5, Insightful)
You've responded to a question of the form "I already have something to do foo. Why should I switch to this other thing?" by saying something of the form "So that you can replace your thing to do bar with this other thing". This is both irrelevant and circular, since you can just go right back to the first question again.
(.net only looks impressive compared to the MS stuff that came before it. Compared to existing free software development systems, it's mediocre at best; there's nothing in there that the rest of us haven't been doing for five years or more)
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Re:Persuade me I need Windows Server (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to use a proper, portable language that has open implementations, there's much to be said AGAINST Windows, and very little for it.
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1-page, no ads version (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=206900810 [informationweek.com]
Really? (Score:4, Funny)
"How does Microsoft beat Linux? The same way you beat any other competitor: You offer good value"
So what were Vista, Zune and the Xbox 360 all about then..? ;)
If Windows was any good... (Score:5, Insightful)
But they already admitted that lock-in was necessary to stave off competition - in the famous "Halloween documents".
Bill Gates also said that open file formats and interoperability could be the death of Windows.
So this is all just spin. What's really going to happen is delays, obfuscation, API churn... and as many other spanners in the works as possible while still "complying" with the letter of the law, if not the spirit.
From the man.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Balmer is a used car salesman (Score:5, Insightful)
Just once time I'd like to hear the plain truth (Score:5, Insightful)
As a Microsoft customer... (Score:5, Interesting)
Technicality? Not if the restrictive/intrusive license is your biggest objection to the product.
"Embrace-Extend-Extinguish" (Score:5, Informative)
Don't get me wrong, I don't LIKE Ballmer, and I'm no MS fan (as I type this from my Ubuntu desktop with Firefox, etc. etc. etc.) I just think they do their own damage, we don't need to add to it.
TCO? (Score:5, Interesting)
Three years later, we've now moved a separate workstation over to linux for all of our operator functions such as data entry and trending.
End result... He's still working on implementing the reporting aspect. He pulls much of his data from our DB and is no longer quite a hardline about sticking with a single vendor. He's beginning to look at RT linux solutions for the next iteration of our embedded MCS system. Wow, hell of a tangent. Yeah, MS should leave the TCO alone... It's simply too easy to just set something up in a back room and let the technology prove itself.
Oh, not TCO again. (Score:5, Insightful)
I now know: becuse TCO is a meaningless measure which is not used in the real world. The real world measure used is ROI (return on investment).
As a silly example, a windows box might have 50% of the TCO of a Linux box. If it does nothing useful then it has a vastly smaller ROI.
That said, it's a somewhat dubious claim that windows does have a lower TCO.
The real Microsoft? Read Comes-3096.pdf (Score:5, Informative)
Comes-3096.pdf [groklaw.net]
Consumers Can't Evaluate Free Properly (Score:5, Interesting)
OK. You "offer a good value". Let's ignore how tough it is to offer good value compared to something really cheap, how do you compete with free? Consumers can't judge "free" properly, the Consumerist just posted about that [consumerist.com] the other day. Wouldn't that make competing with Linux even tougher? As it gets closer and closer to acceptable for most people (and it's WAY better than it was 2/4/6+ years ago) the free thing makes it even worse for MS.
In Ghandi's own words. (Score:5, Insightful)
First they ignore us.
Then they laugh at us.
Then they fight us.
Then we win.
Unfortunately for Balmer, the world just continues laughing at him.
good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Marketing Speak (Score:5, Insightful)
No point at all.
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I love your point... (Score:5, Insightful)
Slashdot didn't evolve into a "Microsoft sux" since you joined. It always was one. You're still here after all these years.
It's self moderated and you're right -- posts that disparage Microsoft and discount Ballmer do fly to the top of the moderation. That's not because some corporate sponsor has a geek lab in Bangalore with 1,000 blogdrones astroturfing the moderation. It's because Slashdot attracts geeks and that's what the geeks really think. That's honest opinion survey for you. I think a lot of that is because the observation that "M$ sux" actually is insightful, and the Ballmer's futile thrashing of a chair in helpless frustration over Google really is funny.
When you add that slashdot is still one of the popular sites on the intertubes [alexa.com] you have to ask: does Microsoft have a problem?
And remember, an answer to every Microsoft problem is available [distrowatch.com] all over the web. [ubuntu.com]
They have to be running scared now. Vista has been out for a year and a half and OEMs are still introducing new machines that not only don't run Vista -- but never will be able to, and people are buying them up like crazy.
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Re:One page text only (Score:5, Informative)
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Re:If you can't beat them, join them. (Score:5, Funny)
Don't bet on it; it may be beyond repair.
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Re:Total Cost of Ownership? (Score:4, Insightful)
Their argument is basically that Windows has lower cost because there are more professionals out there that are trained to support/maintain Windows based system, and these professionals usually have lower wages/consulting fees than their equivalent Unix/Linux professionals. They also argue that Windows training in general is cheaper, that it is easier to maintain through their many support/update tools and include some highly dubious claims about Linux legal costs by up there because you don't have a single vendor backing you and that you will be liable for copyright/patent infringement and that the IP holders will go after you directly as a customer.
So that's basically why he thinks Windows is better TCO.
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