"Linux is *the* threat," Says Microsoft 673
Ami Ganguli writes "Anybody who works selling Linux into large accounts should read this leaked MS memo on The Register. Show it to your clients as well. The good news is that Microsoft is scared. The bad news is that these guys play tough. On the other hand, I've worked with IBM sales before, and they're no push-overs either." And it appears that they want to go after the the City of Largo as well.
Replace UNIX with Windows 2000? (Score:2, Interesting)
Good luck, MS (Score:2, Interesting)
Not too easy competing with free, is it?
They can't cry foul too hard though, since the relative cheapness of their platform and OS is one of the major elements that brought Wintel to the dominant place in the market...
Re:No News Here (Score:3, Interesting)
I submitted it, so I guess I'm biased. I agree that this isn't unusual. It's news because most people don't get to see how killer sales operations work (as I mentioned, IBM is also very agressive).
It's also useful for anybody who might be bidding against MS to have some insight into what they're up to. If you have a fortune 1000 client then it might be worthwhile to find out what their MS sales rep. has been up to.
Is the reverse true? (Score:3, Interesting)
interpretation (Score:2, Interesting)
*shrug*
Re:MS OpenMemo (Score:4, Interesting)
What's the fuss, Gus? (Score:3, Interesting)
MSFT didn't get where they were today by ignoring rivals and pretending they don't exist so I don't see why this memo should come as a shock to anyone. Frankly, what would have surprised me is if there were no internal emails flying around concerned about the growing popularity of Linux and how to tackle it.
Hey (Score:3, Interesting)
Fess up Linus, you wrote this, didn't you?
Re:Catch-22? (Score:2, Interesting)
sales people (Score:3, Interesting)
The question is, who's going out and pushing Linux like this? In my experience, sysadmins "sell" Linux in their organizations, not an external sales force. Unfortuntely, it's often the case that an external "expert" is more respected than any member of staff.
Re:Is the reverse true? (Score:5, Interesting)
But if we look at Free Software in the broader sense, the answer is that even Microsoft is not powerful enough to crush the Free Software community. It might be harder than before to use Free Software (because you cannot access some content on the Web, or you cannot use certain hardware), but this would only result in a return to the level of, say 1995.
Of course, there are threats to the Free Software community. The most dangerous one is abolishing the general purpose computer, i.e. a computer on which you decide which software you run and install. Abolishing the general purpose computer is certainly on the agenda of the copyright industry (look at all these copy prevention schemes), but it is not something Microsoft can do alone.
Re:Linux isn't the threat. Customers are. (Score:5, Interesting)
Open Source Monopoly (Score:3, Interesting)
- The Coming "Open Monopoly" [slashdot.org] by timothy with 171 comments on 09:24 AM -- Sunday October 28 2001
- Software "Open Monopoly" [slashdot.org] by Hemos with 284 comments on 01:49 PM -- Wednesday October 24 2001
There is the possibility that Microsoft could face a situation where it could not embrace and extend and where it can not control that market, cannot monopolize it. Thus the efforts to outlaw open source:-
MS Wants To Outlaw Open Source: "Threatens" the "American Way" [slashdot.org] by Hemos with 1169 comments on 02:53 PM -- Thursday February 15 2001
There are two basic ways to get ahead in this world.One is to build things up. The other is to tear things down.
The problem comes when you view the freedom and success of others as an attack on your success. While any exercise of power will use both, when someone goes psycho or nuerotic on the second, then you have a real problem.
It comes down to Microsoft being afraid of the freedom of others, or specifically certain people in MS are afraid of the freedom of others. Marketroids, etc. I'm willing to cut the coders some slack.
Since the company is the vision and living embodiment of the vision of Bill Gates, not him.
Not talking about the "Average Joe" (Score:3, Interesting)
> select what they want, install, reboot, and EVERYTHING works.
The type of installation we are talking about is one like mine, where there are 60,000 desktops. This is where Linux could be a threat to MS, think of 60K WXP and Office XP licences to keep track of. Think of the number of servers you have to keep up to provide file and print. Think of the effort you need to implement and maintain PDC/BDC or Active Directory. Moving that from Windows to Linux could really cost MS a packet.
Re:Not Yet (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, for the average person there is no need for anything but a default installation. Honestly, as a user of both Windows and Linux and a computer person, I haven't really needed to do that much to windows, and when I have it has been because of a specific piece of hardware or software and I've had instructions on what to do. I'm not really sure about how to play with the registry or anything, but I've never needed to either.
These Linux is hard to install arguments are a red herring. It's true that most users could not install Linux without help, it's also true most users could not install Windows without help.
I would have agreed with this if it were win98, but only somewhat. Windows for me used to always be a pain in the ass to install. But, someone gave me a free copy of Win2k a while back, and when I installed it I had to do absolutely nothing. There were no prompts, nothing. It just installed without a hitch, which I've never had from microsoft before. I assume XP is as polished on the install. Of course, its a purely default installation, but at least it was no problem.
I think a top priority for linux needs to be supporting hardware and making it easy to install new hardware. I think its easy to use linux, but sometimes getting the system configured for a new piece of hardware is a several day process for me involving a lot of web searching and frustration. It shouldn't be that way.
Re:Linux isn't the threat. Customers are. (Score:3, Interesting)
If Microsoft's people can walk in and convince upper management that their products can do the job cheaper than the Linux alternative, 9 times out of 10 they'll get the contract. Anything else would be foolish.
Don't go on about how you don't have to pay license fees for the OS and how this makes Linux a vastly cheaper alternative. Most people realise the fact that OS licenses, in the real world, are a minor factor in the total cost of ownership compared to maintainance, management and training.
It's time the community got together and came up with some significant financial and economic advantages associated with Linux and get beyond the 'free as $0' argument. Then Microsoft will have something to worry about.
Re:MS OpenMemo (Score:2, Interesting)
I am not saying I don't believe, but I still have my curiosities about the origin of the memo.
This is an "attention getter". What better way to circulate it through the Linux community than to put the face of Microsoft on it?
It worked, authentic or not.
Jeremy
Re:Not Yet : Oh, yes it is... (Score:2, Interesting)
I have been a Linux user for 4 years now, having had flings with Slackware, Debian and Redhat, while still being called upon to install/maintain Lose98/2K boxes every now and then.
Last week I dropped an install of Mandrake 8.1 on my workstation box, and believe me, it was a lot less troublesome a delivery than I have ever found with any version of Windows (or DOS, for that matter).
All hardware picked up first time, none of the broken packaging I found in four releases of RedHat... Everything just works.
I would say Linux probably is ready for the general user's desktop.
Referential findings on microsoft.com (Score:3, Interesting)
As I read the Halloween information at the site indicated above, I decided to re-read the "Linux Myths" page at Microsoft.com. I had read that one before in its entirety but I wanted to refresh my memory once more. As it turns out, the "Linux Myths" page is either missing or has been moved. So I searched using their search facility.
Entering "Linux Myths" into the search text box and "OK" I waited and waited for a response and eventually, the page came up with a header but a blank body portion of the page. "An error?" I thought to myself. I tried again with the same results. Then, I searched only "Linux" with the same results. Finally, I wanted to test the search to see if it was broken. I searched "Office 97" and was immediately given a long list of document references from the search. The search is not broken, it appears to be blocked!
Is reference information regarding Linux blocked at Microsoft's site intentionally? Maybe someone could test that.
lions, tigers, bears and sales oh my! (Score:2, Interesting)
Even if the article is a work of fiction, there are some truths about sales, deployment and cost. First and foremost, what wins with management isn't the technology itself, but the perception of it's usefulness. Microsoft sales staff are highly trained at stating what execs want to hear. Most of what execs want to hear isn't technical gibberish about kernels, exploits, architecture, languages or other detailed technical gems.
What should we the community do?
I am sure everyone knows non-technical people whose eyes gloss over when words like kernel, port scan and ssh are mentioned. If the open source community wants to ensure a strong future, more technical people will need to spend a lot of time educating the average joe/jane about technology. Once people understand technology, the advantages/disadvantages become obvious. That is perhaps the best weapon against Microsoft. Knowledge is power and Microsoft will never be in the game of real education.
Whoa, easy there: it's marketing... (Score:2, Interesting)
WW Sales, Marketing & Services Group
Please don't go off on a story about MS running scared, Linux being not ready/ready, etc, etc without bearing in mind that these guys wake up in the morning, look in the mirror, wink and say 'today's the day, big-shot!!!'
It's marketing language: you're lifting your eyes up from sane, stable, calm Linux. Don't lose perspective...
Please...
Installability (Score:5, Interesting)
I work as a IT person. In the last two months I have done ~10 linux and ~10 windows installs.
Total problems that caused install to take more than 2 hours with WinNT/98 - 6
Total problems that caused install to take more than 2 hours with RedHat 7.1/7.2 - 1
I'm not the average person, but if you just want to pop a cd in and go, redhat is MUCH better than any MS OS has ever been (although I haven't been able to try the XP install).
Re:No News Here (Score:2, Interesting)
But they do do this by making their products use proprietary file formats. They have made changes to SAMBA to break non-MS implementations. You can bet their sales force know how to say their customers that MS will change its formats so Linux can't interoperate without saying that explicitly. The people that work and succeed at sales are cutthroats.
A personal story concerning an Oracle sales person. I believe that MS and Oracle learned their sales tactics from IBM, who learned from the door-to-door salesman of the past. These people know they are working in one of the most unforgiving jobs. You make one major mistake and you're history. I was in a meeting where Oracle was attempting to get my employer to make a major commitment. In that meeting a new sales person made a promise to me. One that wasn't true and Oracle couldn't meet. I never saw that person again. I asked about her in subsequent meetings and follow up phone calls. I finally learned she was no longer employed. She had made two fundamental errors. First she made an explicit, testable promise that couldn't be fullfiled. Her second was up staging the senior sales person by making that promise.
Also I had been raising strong objections to other promises/claims make by Oracle reps. Claims I felt where unrealistic and vague enough that we couldn't raise any issues when they weren't fulfilled. The same senior sales person didn't like that I was raising these issues and had started a campaign with our customer to make trouble for me. Since I was pointing out the problems with their product her answer was to eliminate me. These sales people know how office politics work. They know who has the power and they know how to work the CIOs and CEOs to get what they want.
Re:Linux isn't the threat. Customers are. (Score:2, Interesting)
You are so correct. Although I feel that in the long run, Microsoft will have to fall.
As quoted in the memo : "This is a key win and will expand from 5 servers to 100's of servers as " managers discover that it takes more hardware (and hence more licen$e$) to accomplish the same task. These management types are interested in how effective the platform is at accomplishing the task, because that translates into $$$$. Going from proprietary *nix on propritary hardware to Linux is a big win. Going from there to NT isn't.
These people will learn from their mistakes ( slowly ) look what happened in the *nix wars of the 80's -- eventually most everyone realized a standardized open-source *nix was the way to go.
and you will never see Windows running on big iron -- or anything other than pee cees for that matter
Re:Installability (Score:2, Interesting)
I agree, I recently tried installing a RedHat on a desktop I previously installed Win 98 on. I let Redhat default everything and it worked without any problems, including the graphics card on X which is where I thought the problem was.
The Windos 98 install took 3 days to track down the various driver problems.
MSNBC down, CNN up - MS solution? I don't think so (Score:1, Interesting)
CNN's UNIX-based news servers is still up and running.
Actions speak louder than words.
Silly Microsoft (Score:2, Interesting)
Grow or Die (Score:3, Interesting)
Remember that Microsoft is in a "Grow or Die" mode right now.
They have finally saturated the desktop market. They are trying to sustain growth in that sector, but doing so generates more and more bad PR as they crack down on the license terms.
In looking for areas in which to grow, the server market has become a primary target.
The problem for Microsoft is that you can only pull the wool over their eyes for so long - eventually, everyone is going to realize that what they are charging for can be had from other vendors for free (with higher quality as a bonus).
This fact will become even more aparent with UNIX releases tailored to run Win32 binaries (aka Lindows, etc.).
Regardless of how much marketing they throw at this issue, they can't change the fundamental truth behind it.
In a related vein, I heard a rumor that Microsoft is threatening the states that won't settle in the antitrust case with reduced licensing at high prices - supposedly some universities have been called and threatened with cutoffs or price increases.
I really hope that Microsoft tries this. I would wholeheartedly approve of the state and/or federal goverment throwing a few million dollars at developing alternate Win32 platforms.
Re:No News Here (Score:5, Interesting)
I did: Ameritrade tried to migrate to Linux servers & failed. And once the CIO left (obviously due to the failed migration), MS marketroids swept in & convinced them to go with Win2000.
I'd like to know a little more about this failure. We need to learn from the mistakes made here, in order to improve Linux. (And when those Win 2000 servers start breaking, for the next person to come up with a better Linux/BSD implementation.)
Geoff
Re:No News Here (Score:2, Interesting)
You mean the one that runs on Linux [thinknic.com]?
Re:Good luck, MS (Score:3, Interesting)
I would amend that statement:
Not to easy competing with Free, is it?
It is not the cost of the OS that matters but that there is an extremely large developer community working to make it better AND develop the kinds of application-building environments that Microsoft evengelizes. This helps to reduce the total cost and time to market. Whether Linux is there yet is a good question, and people like myself say it is, but the point is that it will continue to accellerate into other markets (desktop, etc.) and therefore is THE threat to Microsoft's very business model.1
Re:Replace UNIX with Windows 2000? (Score:2, Interesting)
The other thing is this... the expansion from 5 to 100s of servers. 5 windows boxes? Fine. 100s? There's a good place to start discussions of a new CIO resigning. Or should I call him an junior infrastructure architect? Talk about a nightmare.
Re:No (Score:2, Interesting)
Microsoft gets "integration" by forcing you into a single application suite. Deviate from Microsoft's own applications and you may find yourself subject to interfaces as diverse as what you might find on a Linux desktop.
Win32 does NOT enforce standards. Also, widget editor defaults do not constitute standards or integration either. Win32 developers are just as free to ignore UI guidelines as an X developer.
MP3 players are the perfect demonstration of this.
OTOH, both desktops are seeking to be feature complete in terms of basic applications. It simply doesn't matter if "other options" are lurking out there.
Besides, what's all of this "one true UI" crap anyways. The whole point of being "dos compatbile" (or equivalent) is so that you get the widest array of choices possible.
If you can't use your own interface under the "market leader", why even bother with it?
Also, much of Microsoft's much vaunted "integration" comes from restricting you to a single application suite. If you force Linux into the same restriction, it can achieve the same result.
The only real issue becomes whether or not you can run that spiffy new browser plugin or trade datafiles with your local cabal.
...and that's all the argument has ever really been about. DOS users were just more honest about it in the old days.
Re:Linux isn't the threat. Customers are. (Score:0, Interesting)
> You are so correct. Although I feel that in the long run, Microsoft will have to fall.
However, during that long run, Linux can be marginalized by new laws, MS policies using those laws, etc.
ameritade.com = Linux/Apache (Score:3, Interesting)
http://www-1.ibm.com/linux/illuminata/linrfpt4.
" Ameritrade, one of the largest online brokerages, provides its primary web access through Linux--a substantial commitment given its 1.5M clients execute over 100K trades per day, for which security is an absolute. Ameritrade is also one of the fastest-loading homepages on the Web."
a netcraft query shows they are running
Server: Stronghold/3.0 Apache/1.3.12 C2NetEU/3011 (Unix) mod_ssl/2.6.4 OpenSSL/0.9.5a mod_perl/1.22
sounds like they still have some linux left in them.
Re:What's with all these tattoos? (Score:2, Interesting)
Linux isn't a threat? (Score:1, Interesting)
We are, however, catching up on the office suite bit.
Desktops. Vaya con carne, Microsoft, vaya con carne. We've got several to choose from. Blackbox, for those who want a sleek, sexy windowmanager that does just that - manage the freakin' windows - without jitters and craptasticness from bloat. Bloat, though, you're ex-MS and want bloat? We'll give you bloat the likes of which you've never seen. Enlightenment. Gnome. Choose your poison, and see what *real* coders can do with feature bloat.
..And for those who are lost and scared by the minimalistic ideals of Blackbox, or the totally off the wall, all but works-of-art themes of Enlightenment, we've got KDE. Aka, Microsoft Windows(tm) for Linux.
All Linux needs is a decent browser, and that's it. It's easy enough to install now. RedHat, at least, is - it's no harder than reinstalling a Microsoft Operating system, and I don't know anyone who's never done that.
Hell. My father, a man of over fifty years, is quite comfortable with the intricate text-based command line he's got at work. He hasn't grown up with computers, yet it didn't take him long to learn. I have no doubts that it'd take a day or two of fiddling for him to get 'comfortable' with Linux. (Well, any decent distribution.)
"We need a single desktop!" Bullshit. You people are morons, recycled drones from the world of Microsoft, spouting embrace and extend, embrace and extend! Linux is about choice. Linux is about freedom. And we'll see anyone who tries to make one standard desktop in the firey depths of hell.
Companies won't develop commercial apps without a single desktop? Fuck them. No other language will suffice for that. Like we need commercial apps? Hmm.. Borland Overpriced Compilers. Microsoft Visual Drek. GCC. One of these things kicks the crap out of the others, one of these things just isn't the same..
In the end, Linux will 'win' this so-called war, simply because it works, it works well, and most importantly, the men and women behind the code take *responsibility* for their actions - they patch bugs instead of ignoring them for months. They create useable documentation (Man pages vs. normal windows help files? Hah. Man pages win, hands down.)
Come, batter yourself against the shores of freedom, Microsoft. You'll find yourself ignored but for a few idiots who joined on the bandwagon to look cool in front of their friends.
The rest of us? We'll simply ignore you.
You're not important anymore.
Re:Why Win2K instead of XP? (Score:2, Interesting)
I guess it depends on your willingness to delve into and learn everything about interoperability packages.
Take Samba (please) for example; If you learn enough about it, which is not simply a matter of reading the documentation or even the ORA book, but also examining code, other people's example configs, and keeping up with the ML religiously, you can do some amazing things. If you don't, however, even doing relatively simple things with Samba can result in painful headaches. Troubleshooting it is even worse (Though I should point out that it seems to be slightly easier than troubleshooting the same functionality on windows.)
So you start at one end or the other, but for the most part the server defines the clients, and vice versa. The best server for microsoft clients (especially when you have a whole lot of them) is probably a microsoft server. Now, mind you, I'm talking about file and logon services here, not anything else. But in order to do most of the cool things you can do with windows (like restrict rights for a user, on all workstations everywhere) require a windows server if you want to handle it in an automated fashion. Sure, you can probably hack together your own solution for doing so, but the fact is that MS doesn't want you doing it and will make it difficult.
By the same token, if you're in a mainly UNIX environment, you don't want your core fileserver to be running NT. You also don't want to depend on MS' LDAP or Kerberos solutions, most likely. So this works in both directions and in both worlds (UNIX and NT, the only ones which really matter any more in business. MacOS is nominally UNIX but still has a Mac layer, so I don't lump it in.)
And of course, we all know that almost no businesses run on MacOS any more. Even printing houses are getting wise and going to PCs, since printing devices (even 4000 dpi Linotronic machines and suchlike) speak postscript which is just a matter of a printer description file anyway, and all the apps run just fine on windows now (Quark, Pagemaker, Photoshop, Illustrator, et cetera) so there's no reason to keep both around except to read macintosh media. With the widespread existence of CD-RW, even that reason is fading fast.
He is more monopoly now than man, twisted and Evil (Score:2, Interesting)
"Then the empire has already won, you were our only hope." - - Obi Wan Raymond
"IBM spoke of another." - - Hacker Community
"The other he spoke of is your twin sister"
"-but I have no sis-"
"To protect you both from the emperor you were hidden when you were born. That is why your sister remains safely anonymous."
"BSD... BSD is my sister."
"Your netcraft surveys server you well. Bury your usage statistics deep down. They do you credit, but they could be used to server the emperor...."
Salesmen speak a strange language! (Score:3, Interesting)
if you see Linux and/or IBM in there with it, then get all over it. Don't lose a single win to Linux.
Someone should tell that guy that if you lose, then it's not a win. It makes no sense at all to say that you "lost a win".
Unless, perhaps win means Windows. If their customers lose their win, that means that they REALLY win.
If I become a salesman someday, I'm going to play stupid head tricks with my fellow salesmen. For an experiment, I'm going to see if I can get everyone to say "come on and let's win the FUCK out of it." That would be funny.
very funny misconception (Score:3, Interesting)
MS being fearful of linux/gnu/gpl is as silly as being afraid of the ground doing damage to the foundation of a house. Trying to dig the dirt away to protect the foundation.
Linux/gnu/gpl is a natural evolution of common open computer science/industry/application that is only comming into focus now because MS's distraction (which started with Bill Yelling Piracy) is being seen for what it is, a distraction of what would have otherwise beter evolved.
There is no way to stop this evolution, it's been held back long enough. And to add to this, IBM has begun to recognize the need to openly move towards auto-coding techniques - autonomic computing [ibm.com] and an open source bridge tool eclipse [eclipse.org]
As a matter of genuine computer science and the core of autonomic computing there are the NINE action/function constants [mindspring.com]
In short: MS is trying to battle what is in essence genuine computer science, the natural laws of the physical phenomenon of how we use abstractions. Inherently MS will lose, for even it has to use these in the distractions and distortions it tries to create.
The fact this direction is being called linux is perhaps a distraction from the GNU effort which is in fact just a label that is being used to identify this open source direction.