Ballmer Claims Linux Is Top Threat To MS

Greyfox writes: "According to Techweb, Steve Ballmer now claims that Linux is one of the top threats to Microsoft going in to 2001. This up from his previous accounts of Linux as being nothing more than a toy etc. Expect to really see the FUD start flying now. As IBM found with OS/2, once MS percieves you as a threat, they attack like a rabid pit bull. I expect we'll see a lot more negative Linux press on zdnet, reporters paid to laud Windows and slam UNIX, fake grass roots movements, and all the other favorite MS tricks." Well, I'm not that quite that paranoid, but I'll be keping my eyes open

Re:The FUD is already flying

Ahh, but did you catch the part where her foot freezes in midair, and the techs had to come out and re-boot her?

/me ducks, but doesn't apoligize for the pun

Re:If Linux doesn't kill itself...

A huge percentage of companies have an IT stategy as follows:

• IT staff are expected to deal with the systems not suggest/develop
• Management staff talk to all sorts of people and make a decision whenever they think they might be smart

Now in this case, MS will never win the managers because they don't have a clue. What they do know is that they are always told the XXX is down because the NT/2000 server is "just being rebooted, back in a mo" AND that they love the B.S.O.D. How many decisions have you seen made in a company to change YYY because of as badly formed reasons as the above...MANY in my case.

If the company has an I.T. staff that actually have some power, then how long before someone brings in a GNU box just to serve ZZZ purpose, and how long before it's strengths in the single sphere push it out to take care of everything it should?

MS may have a monstrous market share, but I do not believe for a moment it is loyal. If Sony relased a consumer product tomorrow running Linux with a windows alike UI (hack up a "complete" windows desktop) and one of the methods (working properly of course) to run win32 programs do you think anyone would be dismissing it because it didn't run MS Windows (or even how many people would pay an extra $100 on purchase to get said MS Windows)?

Re:No. They'll download ISO's, just like ...

M$Linux won't make any money for Microsoft... So there's no motivation to do it.

Right. Just like they didn't make any money from Internet Explorer, and so didn't have any motivation to do it.

--

Dead wrong look at Corel

Don't under estimate their power and cleverness. Take for example a certain competator that decided to port their office suite to Linux and contribute heavily to the Wine project. While it may be debatable whether Corel has made a big difference in the Linux world, the M$ response is clear. Send some big bucks their way, show them a possible alternative (and windows friendly) way of surviving. What happens? Corel drops Linux. Look for more of the same in other places. Microsoft has the cash and the balls to do what every they can think of to strangle a competetor and Linux is the biggest threat they have ever faced.

M$ doesn't matter

I'm sure that we will all be able to use Linux whether M$ percieves it as a threat or not. There is nothing that M$ can do to stop Linux. They can't buy it and make it go away. Tough shit M$.

Re:M$ doesn't matter

1) Support tons of peripherals that Linux doesn't

Non-issue. Linux supports all of the peripherals that I've got, and it supports them quite well. Obviously, if a hardware company is closely partnered with Microsoft, Windows is going to support new devices before Linux does. But for the 99% of Linux users who aren't living life on the bleeding edge of technology, it doesn't matter one bit if a driver for such-and-such device isn't available for Linux until next month. If it's popular, there will be Linux support for it, whether Bill likes it or not. Tough titty, as the kitty is reputed to have said.

2) Have a nice standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI

This is only an issue if your definition of "nice, standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI" is "the GUI that Microsoft uses with Windows." If this is the case, by all means, stick with Windows. There are plenty of window managers and desktop environments for Linux (and Unix in general) for people to choose from. To suggest that these are all "non-intuitive" because they're not the one you used in Keyboarding 101 is fallacious.

3) Using MS means you never have to hear stupid arguments about licenses or asinine definitions of "free"

Ditto for Linux. If you want to partake in these arguments, read Slashdot. Incidentally, the only time that I've ever been presented with intrusive dialog boxes threatening me to read the license "or else" and either click on Accept or Reject was for Windows applications. No OSS application I've ever downloaded and built has required me to quibble over terminology or sign my life away.

4) Plus it will be a cold day in hell before you have Office for Linux anyway...

Who cares? Not everybody does "office-type" tasks with their machines. And those who want to do such things under Linux have plenty of tools to choose from, many of which can read and write the "standard" office formats. But in the end, this is like your GUI issue .. if your definition of a "true OS" is "an OS that can run Microsoft Office", then by all means, stick with Windows. Microsoft needs your support. And keep those checks coming! :-)

Re:M$ doesn't matter

1) Support tons of peripherals that Linux doesn't

They already do and despite that fact Linux is still their enemy #1.

2) Have a nice standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI

Their GUI is already standard across Windows, but if MS were to create a Linux distribution, there is no way they could possibly preclude the installation of X and the window manager of your choice. So, moving to Linux would be a step backwards in homogeny for them.

3) Using MS means you never have to hear stupid arguments about licenses or asinine definitions of "free"

...and instead means you never get the choice to argue about licenses and must put up with their terms or else, and "free" means free of cost, minus any actual freedom.

4) Plus it will be a cold day in hell before you have Office for Linux anyway...

Heh, is that supposed to make me quake in fear? :) They can have thier office suite. It won't be long at all before an open office suite matures to the point of useability and starts to really compete with them. Personally, I think Word is the most annoying word processor I've ever used.

Re:M$ doesn't matter

The agreement Micorosft made to never make a version of UNIX was declared "Null and Void" back in 1997-1998. It even was a Slashdot story.

- Sam

Re:No. They'll download ISO's, just like ...

They don't need their own *nix distribution. The Windows 2k kernel is a very nice kernel. Add to that a *nix filesystem and some GNU Tools and nobody would be able to tell the difference...
...except that Windows2k*nix would have better driver support than *nix.

Re:Linux legal vulnerability

Yet the Halloween documents point out how M$ is going to try to smash open-source: not with copyright, but with patents.

Fear not; most of the concepts have prior art dating back 30 years.

--
All men are great
before declaring war

I disagree.

I think that this is much more likely another attempt to say, "Gee whiz, it's tough being Microsoft, we're constantly having to innovate and compete, don't break us up, please!" Linux is certainly a threat to NT/2000, but the 98% of home users who have Windows aren't going to go anywhere soon. Let's keep one eye on Redmond (isn't that always the case?), but I think that this press announcement is more DOJ appeal than anything.

coming soon....

Slashwin
A site dedicated to all the windows geeks out there pointing out all the shortcomings of linux... wait, shortcomings of linux... oh yeah, that's why there's not already a site like this.

Kurdt

Thank you, Gandhi.

Ahem:

First they ignore you.

Then they laugh at you.

Then they fight you.

Then you win.

And MacOS X?

What about MacOS X? Taking the power of Unix based platform, the flexibility of OpenStep and the ease of use of the classic Mac environment this certainly makes it more than just a blimp on M$'s horizon.

What will be interesting is whether MS will move to embrace and port all its office software to Linux or play its usuall dirty tricks, with lawyers et al. Somehow I believe from experience that the latter is true, unless someone is willing to let them have to non voting shares :)

Interesting

From what I see by the submitter, he seems to think that any time a reporter praises something about Windows and/or derieds a *nix variant, that the reporter in question must be paid by Microsoft.

The reality is, in my opinion, that the free software movement must learn to accept that is GOOD about other platforms, which includes Windows, and take people's criticisms to heart. If people are complaining that Linux doesn't have "FEATURE-X", in many cases energy would be better spend developing something similar (and hopefully, though not always, better) than in trying to tell people why "FEATURE-X" sucks or isn't relevant. (Granted, in some cases that mindset is appropriate.)

Anyhow, those are just my musings.
-
The IHA Forums [ihateapple.com]

If Linux doesn't kill itself...

...with infighting about package formats and which distribution is the best.

Then Microsoft will produce lots of documentation "proving" to managers that Linux is much more costly to run.

OS/2 was better than it's MS competition. It still lost because it wasn't marketed correctly. Linux has to be seen to be a viable, trustworthy and above all useful alternative for it to be accepted.

Much as I hate to say this, MS has the minds of the managers, what Linux needs is...

Easy install and use by "normal" users that are ALREADY used to the MS way.

MS compatible applications.

And above all, companies that are willing to provide paid for support for it so that other large companies will accept it as an alternative OS. "What do you mean that there isn't anyone responsible for fixing bugs?"

Zwack...

Usability is the biggest concrern.

I believe that MS was judging Linux as threat because its usablity has become much better. Aside from server type applications, where I think MS knew it had serious competition all along, I don't think that it thought that Linux would ever grow much in the desktop market. But the usability has grown very much over the years, and people are starting to choose it over windows. These people are not novices, but they aren't necisseraly hard-core computer junkies. I fall into this catagory, I am slightly less than a computer wizard. I use Gnome quite a bit, and I find it as easy to navigate as Windows, though it did take a bit of getting used to.
Additionally, Linux seems to be making a toehold in the embedded markets, and since the convention wisdom seems to forsee a migration from large, centralized desktop computers to individual devices, I know MS wants a hefty share of what it sees as the future. Hell, Windows CE wasn't exactly a smash hit.

Re:Maybe not too paranoid

It's unreal how much misinformation is floating around.

MS did not rescue Apple. MS bought $150 million worth of Apple stock. A newsworthy event. But not a big deal.

Apple was having financial troubles at the time. But that was because Spindler in his infinite wisdom didn't believe in the success of the PowerPC, and continued to build $1 billion worth of 68K-based inventory that nobody wanted. Before long Apple realized that everyone was buying PPC's, and nobody wanted 68K's anymore. Apple was sitting on $1 bil worth of machines they couldn't move. End result was one quarter where they had to take a $780 million charge to write off this inventory. Spindler "resigned". Apple changed CEO's a couple times. Copeland was delayed. Lots of various bad news for Apple about this time. Mainstream media stupidly seemed to think Apple is "dying". (As they've said each and every year since 1981.)

Apple was about a $10 billion (revenue) company at the time. MS buying $150 mil worth of stock is not a "rescue".

At this time, Apple began including IE as the default browser, while still including Netscape in install -- but just not making it default. Apple also begain including Outlook Express.

There were rumors that MS was forced into this deal because they got caught with their hand in the till. (Stealing R&D secrets again.) But this is just a rumor.

Re:Nothing is a threat to Linux

Actually there's another aspect to the first group, the Microsoft Zombie VB Developers. Yes, that approach is a lot easier than C programming, but guess what?

MacOS has a comparable product- 'REALbasic [realsoftware.com]'. This was originally a labor of love by a single very talented developer, Andrew Barry, designed to be as approachable and _more_ sensible than VB. When Andrew Barry got exhausted and resigned, other programmers were hired and they successfully took over the development- including bringing it over to OSX.

Most Linux developers may not be into this style of development- it's more drag-and-drop of GUI components and dropping code snippets (even dragging them from the online reference!) into the relevant control events. However, the MZA types will love it- and even if you're not a zombie idiot the accessibility and rapidity of it all is very nice.

I wrote an airfoil data generation program in this language the other night- it literally took only a night of work to produce a working program that did the following:

• drag and drop 'text clipping' with starter foil data into a text area: pre-existing capability of object
• parse the text clipping into arrays from 0-100 on top and bottom wing surfaces with interpolation between missing points
• plot arrays on a canvas object (relatively simple)
• smooth the foil w. sharp or blunt edges (imperfectly executed but OK)
• tweak points up or down including a width factor affecting adjacent points- _way_ easy using interactions between existing controls- most related events got only a line of code or two
• print out the arrays into the original text format to be dragged back out of the window- very easy again, minor workarounds for twitchy editfield implentation

I daresay a lot of people think you can only do that on Windows with VB (never mind that VB is more complicated with a steeper initial curve than REALbasic- you can literally drag stuff into a window in RB and build the program without writing a line of code and it won't _do_ anything but all the controls will 'work' already)

However, even if there's not going to be anything as approachable for Linux (i.e. more dumb-simple than C console apps), a competing product already exists on MacOS and compiles to trad MacOS and OSX apps- and Windows apps for that matter, though the work the programmers have to do to keep that end afloat is 10X as much work as they have to do for the MacOS side, all the bugfix reports are invariably _loaded_ with 'Win' bugs that were fixed or worked around.

Anyhow- not even VB is a permanent safe haven for MS. Comparable products exist.

(BTW- 'the red pen'? Did you by any chance attend the Cambridge School of Weston? If so, you knew me as 'The Poet')

Re:Nothing is a threat to Linux

You could argue that Microsoft's desktop OS is "so great that people would rather pay for it," but it's pretty clear that they're losing that battle in the server marketplace. The change isn't going to happen overnight.

First of all, there is the Microsoft Zombie Army. These are hoards of mediocre developers who have discovered that they can quickly and easily put together mediocre applications and systems using Microsoft technology. I've come across these people and they are entrenched. Basically they are motivated by fear of losing their '1337 status in a move to an unfamiliar technology.

The second effect is what I call the "Japanese Car Effect." Those of you unfortunate enough to have been conscious in the early 70's will remember a time when the Detroit auto makers could Do No Wrong(tm) and Japanese imports were considered crappy "rice burners" bought only by Communists. Unfortunately for Detroit, everyone who "went over" to the Japanese imports discovered that they were high-quality and efficient. They never bought an American car again.

Guess what (usually) happens when an NT user finally "goes over" to Linux?

Re:And MacOS X?

Actually, don't look at it as being Microsoft having to organize fights against Win 2K with Linux *or* Mac OS X. Microsoft, surely sees the writing on the wall. Both of their large market OS competitors are now UNIX-based or derived. They can (should and will) share resources.

While the UNIX market fragmentation might have being one of Microsoft's opening (we can provide an end to end solution, desktop to domain controller...) in the mid 90's, the periphery is organizing itself around the target that Windows presents. It must be scary. Samba, Apache, PHP w/MySQL/Postgres, StarOffice...

Suddenly, the argument that got Microsoft's foot in the door doesn't seem as compelling to the executive team.

If I was Bill, I'd worry, too.

Maybe not too paranoid

As IBM found with OS/2, once MS percieves you as a threat, they attack like a rabid pit bull. I expect we'll see a lot more negative Linux press on zdnet, reporters paid to laud Windows and slam UNIX, fake grass roots movements, and all the other favorite MS tricks." Well, I'm not that quite that paranoid, but I'll be keping my eyes open.

Interesting you should mention it, because the article referenced had this nice little bit:

It is widely expected that Corel, which received a critical $135 million infusion in cash from Microsoft (stock: MSFT) in October, will dump its Linux line of products, such as its WordPerfect suite for Linux, to focus on Microsoft's .Net initiative.

Now I'm not going to go and shout and scream about how Microsoft is buying off a potential competitor, but it does look kind of suspicious. Here's a company that could do a lot to boost Linux as a desktop competitor for Windows, and after getting a big cash infusion from Microsoft they're giving up their plans to do so. It's not a cut and dried as pay for non-competetion, but it does deserve careful scrutiny.

Re:Few things left.

Why persist in comparing Linux to NT? We know NT is pretty crap, so by saying things like "No worse than NT can be.", all you're doing is elevating Linux to 'just better than crap'.

Why can't we aim to "Make an elegant, well designed operating system" (like Apple are trying to do) instead of "Do things the M$ way, only marginally better"...?

Re:No. They'll download ISO's, just like ...

..except that (unlike real Unices such as Linux) it will still have only token POSIX compliance, a proprietary window system, a proprietary programming API and will still break compatibility with other systems whenever Bill feels like it. No thanks.

--

Linux legal vulnerability

It's been a full fifteen minutes since the original post, and I've already seen many articles bragging about how Linux can't be bought or otherwise made to "go away." Yet the Halloween documents point out how M$ is going to try to smash open-source: not with copyright, but with patents. They will find (or buy $$$) some lousy, overbroad, fundamental patent which is relied upon deep in the kernel, and while that won't dissuade the hobbyist, it will dissuade the system adminstrator and company management. And they'll keep throwing this sand in companies' face each time they consider using Linux in earnest. ("You, the company are responsible for violating our patents, regardless of how open the copyright is", they will say.) I hope I'm wrong. Perhaps smaller, more self-contained systems such as the *BSD might be less vulnerable, but that's another discussion. Marshall

Re:I disagree.

But if you follow the link you would see that Ballmer is much more interested in the server room than the desktop. Simple reason PC sales are way down but the server market is still growing. The following is from the article "In his talk, Ballmer identified Oracle Corp. (stock: ORCL) and Sun Microsystems Inc. (stock: SUNW) as second-tier rivals because "I think [server sales are] our biggest potential short-term return." And this is why the server room matters more than the desktop for now.

The FUD is already flying

At the end of last year at a Microsoft Direct Access briefing (yes, I'm a member, yes I sell and support Microsoft products, yes I make money out of it - cope with it), they had a video intro type thing for Windows 2000 Professional in which they had a female actress kicking the crap out of a guy in a penguin suit with her saying, "Still using Linux, sissy?", plus other little gems of class and character that show Microsoft for who they really are.

The point they have completely missed is that people are not "still" using Linux, more and more people are just starting to use Linux because it's a more and more attractive option.

Re:Thank you, Gandhi.

Um.

First they Ignore you.
Then they laugh at you.
Then they fight you.
Then you get bought by AOL.
Then they laugh at you.
---
pb Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate [ncsu.edu].

Re:M$ doesn't matter

MS used to have their own UNIX. After they sold the rights to, a term of the contract was that they never produce another version of UNIX.

So, I doubt that's going to happen.

Few things left.

While I do agree that Linux is the biggest threat to MS, that's not saying much. While on the server front, Linux has a fairly easy trip to the top, the desktop market will be a much harder road.

A) Linux still hasn't proven itself on the performance front. Even after several months, the Linux NVIDIA drivers are noticably lower in performance than their Windows counterparts. This happens even at low resolutions where the bitblit thing is not an issue. And with DirectX 8 and, later, Whistler promising huge increases in 3D performance, I don't know how Linux will deliver. Of course, MS could be overinflating their performance claims, but if NT4 and DirectX7 (which essentially made DX faster and more featureful than OpenGL) are any hint, MS *can* make good products, it just depends on if there is the motivation. When you add mediocre 3D performance to the slow desktops (in comparison to Win2K's, anyway) and high memory use (same as Win2K) then you have little reason to use Linux if you're looking for (desktop) performance.

B) Linux's stability won't play much of a part in this. Win2K is very stable, to the point where the average user (meaning one that shuts down at least once a week) won't be able to tell the difference.

C) Linux is still hard to use, and problematiclly, disunified. MS has been taking more and more steps to make configuration and control of Windows more "sane." Linux has been taking more steps in the other direction, especially with new distro like Mandrake that introduce prorietory config scripts. Adding hardware in Linux is not the simple (plug the hardware and the disk in) that it is with Win2K, and doing anything non trivial (meaning intermediate level use) is decidedly difficult. While the desktops are more or less easy enough to use, the system itself needs major retooling. Here are the problems I see
1) Confusing configuration. Get rid of /etc and replace it with something sane.
2) Stupid directory structure. My dad can handle installing programs, but with the mess of /usr, /home/_username_, /usr/bin, /usr/lib, /lib, /opt, /usr/local/*, ad nauseum, I doubt he could handle it. I barely can. (Of course I'm just terribly pampered by /boot/apps and /boot/home/config/lib)
3) Make the system cohesive. Get back to the UNIX roots. You know how UNIX treats *everything* as a file? You know how all UNIX console apps work together in a nice harmony of streams and pipes? You know how UNIX programs can be chained together to do complex work? You know how UNIX (well, BSD one's anyway) tools have more or less the same interface? Starting to get the idea? That means out go GnomeAPI and KDE-API and in comes Unified-Linux-Desktop-API (with GNOME and KDE serving as implementations) Out goes /etc, in comes a nice, organized config structure. Out goes LinuxConf, MandrakeConf, RedHatConf, DebianConf, ad-nauseam (yea, I'm making these up, but you get the idea ;) and in comes UnifiedConf. Out goes modules.conf, samba.conf, XFree86Config, etc, and in comes a unified text file format. Out goes ipconfig and friends entirely. Use text files or use programs, but choose one for god sakes. Well, you get the idea.

Sadly, I enumerate all of these EVERY time an article like this comes out, and while everybody screams about how Linux has come so far, all I see are more propriatory configuration files, more stupid config programs, and a more fragmented set of APIs. Disgusting...

BTW> Don't get the idea that I don't like Linux. I really do. I just can't stand to use it.

Re:M$ doesn't matter

I can think of tons of things MS can do to stop Linux. Like:

1) Support tons of peripherals that Linux doesn't

That doesn't mean Linux won't exist any more. It'll just mean that Windows supports more peripherals.

2) Have a nice standard, easy to use and intuitive GUI

Can't argue with the "standard" part. But it's not easy to use. It's easy to learn. It's not intuitive, it's just that everyone has already used it. Understand this: easy to learn doesn't mean it's easy to use. Mind you, I'm not putting down easy-to-learn interfaces, but the difference merits mention.

3) Using MS means you never have to hear stupid arguments about licenses or asinine definitions of "free"

Flambait alert! :) Yeah, and using Linux means you never have to hear stupid stories about software vendor lock-in, nor asinine definitions of "ownership".

4) Plus it will be a cold day in hell before you have Office for Linux anyway...

Hey, I've heard hell has the occasional cold snap.

Dave

Barclay family motto:
Aut agere aut mori.
(Either action or death.)

Absolutely they will!

After all, it'll be fully compatible with Microsoft Office, which, whoops, requires a binary only library that only ships with MSLinux. And besides, this next gen of Linux users wouldn't be geeks, they'd be the current generation of Windows users, and they wouldn't even know what was different. They'd just think it's cool that Windows 2003 seemed really stable.

--
"Don't trolls get tired?"

Re:Slightly OT: GNU's Not UNIX

Which won't be until RMS finishes rewriting the kernel in LISP, and figures out a way to convert the GIMP into an EMACS mode.

Re:Antitrust under DOJ's nose

it's ok because linux is like a house infested with cockroaches. sure he can squish the corel roach. it's a relatively small one. now that big mutated thing in the corner giving balmer the bird that's star office :). it has koffice/gnumeric/etc running around at its feet.

use LaTeX? want an online reference manager that

Re:M$ doesn't matter

1) Linux isn't Un*x.
2) When was the last time M$ abided by the terms a contract if it didn't suit their needs?

Re:Few things left.

Sorry. I work for a datamining company; I use Java/C++/C/Shell/Python/SQL/XML/some esoteric stuff you've never heard of. The installations that I develop need GBs of RAM and tens and hundreds of GB of disk space. Linux doesn't have a chance there --and I know, because I also administer Linux Beowulf clusters (real ones, not one in my basement) on the side. The only thing that Linux does well compared to an enterprise OS is that it includes all the little utilities and shortcuts that make an admin's life easier.

However, the fact that a Linux box maybe (and that's a big maybe) easier to administer than a Solaris/AIX/HPUX box doesn't make it better; technology should make it better and Solaris/AIX especially are years ahead.

As for the text argument: I do *a lot* of XML. XML is great because it gives a better lower common denominator than flat text, but clearly it's not the end-all, be-all. Components/Objects over intranet/internet will be way more important: XML may be used to describe them and integrate them, but ultimately they would have to be delivered in some sort of compiled form.

Re:Nothing is a threat to Linux

I hate to say this, but you are wrong. Ignorance is a threat to Linux. Lack of vision is a threat to Linux, don't tell my mother to go get a vision or write code. As time goes on, the number of developers will become smaller while the users become larger, thus it is fairly important that by that time, the linux community has improved it's development process. (read "the emperor has no clothes" argument on the kernel dev list)

Linux community should look to OSX for inspiration

Linux is still hard to use, and problematiclly, disunified. [...] While the desktops are more or less easy enough to use, the system itself needs major retooling. Here are the problems I see

Interesting, for virtually every shortcoming you mention, Apple is working to address in Mac OS X. This isn't purely a OSX evangelist session (I'll save that for later). But perhaps rather that working so hard to emulate Windows, maybe Linux developers should look towards OSX for inspiration (though stopping short of making exact clones of Aqua). From a system design perspective, Linux is far more similar to Mac OS X than to Windows.

Apple has already solved a lot of the problems Linux distros are struggling with. Mac OS X stores a substantial amount of configuration information in NetInfo, a network-distributed database. This software is open sourced, incidentally. The remaining config information is stored in XML files in both the user's home directory and in system directories. Frameworks and Bundles greatly simplify software development and distribution. XML files (with DTDs defined by Apple) are used to store meta information about applications such as icons, localization information, and architecture-specific settings.

Most of the many directories are named normal things like /Applications, /System, /Users, and /Developer. The BSD directories like /etc are still there, but they are hidden from the GUI and the user is not expected to interact with them. They are mostly there for running BSD apps. There are a few different APIs available (Carbon, Cocoa, Java), but all native apps use the same base application services for rendering and such.

And to top it all off, the installation process is extremely easy and swift. Beats the pants off a Windows install. Don't be fooled by the casual appearance of Aqua. This is a brilliantly designed operating system, both in terms of architecture and interface.

Apple is even making strides in making unix-based server functionality accessible to just about anyone. I suggest taking a look at the completely revamped version of Mac OS X Server [apple.com] which will be available this spring. I've used things like Linuxconf before, and it just can't hold a candle to the first-hand demos of this new version of OSX Server I saw at Macworld Expo.

And in case anybody thinks I'm some sort of Mac bigot, please note that my servers currently run Linux, and I've been using various forms of Unix for around 6 years, including Solaris, SunOS and FreeBSD.

- Scott
--
Scott Stevenson
WildTofu [wildtofu.com]

Re:Heh.

Well, I'm not a rabid MS fanatic, but I disagree with your assumption that MS couldn't win on merit.

Neither Linux nor Windows is good enough to become dominant given tabula rasa. Microsoft, through luck and clever marketing, however, has the upper hand presently (at least in terms of marketshare).

Having said that, there's absolutely no evidence to suggest that Microsoft couldn't produce a significantly better OS given the impetus to do so. They've demonstrated in the past that they can produce excellent, excellent software (I point to IE5 for Mac as an example).

The problem, up until this point, has been that they haven't had the pressure to do it right the first time (or the second time, or the third time...). Good enough has been the prevailing theme from Redmond for some time now when it comes to operating systems.

This is rather unfortunate for us at times, but not for their bottom line it seems.

I welcome any DOJ ruling that brings increased competition into the OS market. I don't think a DOJ ruling against Microsoft is necessarily a victory for Linux though. It doesn't negate the giant headstart MS has in terms of vendor support, nor does it preclude the leagues of developers at Microsoft from building a better OS to compete on its own merit. If anything, it might just have the opposite effect.

--

Sure is a threat, but unstoppable

Open Source Software WILL make MS change their entire business model -- or die. And sooner that most people think.

I've long predicted that in the next recession, Linux use will grow by leaps and bounds. That's because licensing issues will be more important to people, and companies will be looking for more ways to save money. With OSS, no longer will companies need to pay exorbitant amounts of money to stay in the Windows/Office loop.

And the recession seems to be coming -- just after KDE2 and Helix GNOME, Nautilus, etc. are finished, and Star Office is made GPL'd, with its excellent Office interoperability. Just when Linux is REALLY ready for the desktop. And yes, with a few exceptions that will soon be rectified, Linux is ready for the desktop.

The best part is -- there's nothing MS can do about Linux! They can try FUD, but enough people know the truth by now to make it really effective.

Re:M$ doesn't matter

I'm sorry, but when it comes to general license crap, MS kicks all over inane arguments of Free. After all, they charge you a different heaping pile of money based on which semantic argument they are perpetrating on users at the moment.

Re:I disagree.

Did you even read the article?

The article simply quotes him as saying that he considered Linux to be Microsofts biggest problem. He argued this on the basis that Linux was a competitor in a market Microsoft controls while Sun and Oracle hold market share which Microsoft aims to capture and by saying that he considered the former kind bigger problems than the latter. How can you possibly disagree with that?

Every company has problems. Steve Ballmer was simply ranking MS's problems. No intelligent reading of the article can possibly read any more than that. Remember that this was a meeting organized by a financial institution - not a press release - most likely attended by people interested in the future business prospects of the company.

Re:Hmm...

Let's just not leave to Florida to decide who has the better OS. ;-)

That gives an even more literal meaning to the phrase "an OS my grandmother can install."

Re:MS's Marketing is Irrelevent

and much more geared to security

I'm a Linux user and administrator, both at home and professionally. Do you really think Linux is geared towards security? I think the default permissions on most Linux systems are good. I think the default permissions on NT and 2000 are bad.

But at the end of the day, the popular Unix rwxs permission system is pathetic. No systems should ever exist where the adminsitrator logs in as root. No daemon should ever run SetUID root either. Capabilities are a hack, and a nasty one at that. Sudo is laughable.

As much as I hate to say it, the ACL permission system used in various trusted Unix systems, various Linux services, and Windows NT/2000, beats the shit out of Linuxs. The Linux Trustees project fixes it, but its currently not in the main kernel. As a result, if you be much easier for MS to make a Windows 2000 that was reasonably secure out of the box than for Red Hat to make a secure Linux.

Nothing is a threat to Linux

A few years ago, I worked at an office with an early-adopter of Linux and Java. One of the small company "brags" was "You can use any OS you prefer" ('cause we work in Java, right?). Most of the developers used Linux, administrators and execs ran Windows and creative ran Macs. I decided to run OS/2.

This resulted in a lot of snide remarks and one-upsmanship from the Linux advocates. At the time, OS/2 and Linux were a close match (and are still somewhat competetive depending on what you want). The Linux guys finally won the debate with one simple point: no matter how much I (or Team OS/2) loved OS/2, it was IBMs decision to promote it, improve it or continue it. As long as there is one person who really wants to use Linux, Linux will be alive.

The only way Microsoft can threaten Linux is to put out a product so great that people will be willing to pay for it rather than get something free. In addition, Microsoft has to support it so well that people don't feel like they need to source so they can support it themselves. If that happened, we'd all be happy, but I expect it these events will occur right after the release of OS/2 Warp version 6 with accompanying Super Bowl ads.

The real issue is whether or not we get to use Linux at our "real" jobs, which is increasingly the case. That's something that needs to be fought for and counts on market share, etc.

Re:Maybe not too paranoid

Now I'm not going to go and shout and scream about how Microsoft is buying off a potential competitor, but it does look kind of suspicious. Here's a company that could do a lot to boost Linux as a desktop competitor for Windows, and after getting a big cash infusion from Microsoft they're giving up their plans to do so.

With all due respect, I think Corel have proven beyond reasonably doubt that they're incapable of pushing Linux as a competitor to Windows on the desktop - Corel Linux, designed for exactly this purpose, was a dismal failure. And Corel showed no signs of knowing how to fix it, or improve it.

There are companies which are, I'm sure, capable of boosting Linux's share in the desktop Operating System Market, but I don't think Corel is one of them. In fact, Corel's entire product line has faltered recently, they've had a receding market share for all their products, and I think pulling out of the Linux market is a rationalisation move. Hooking up with Microsoft, simply good business sense - Microsoft aren't about to fail any time soon, despite the hopes and dreams of the anti-Microsoft movement.