HP to Heavily Support and Invest in .Net 218
Dr.Stress writes: "CNet is reporting 'Hewlett-Packard and Microsoft plan to invest $50 million in a joint effort to sell corporate customers on the software giant's .Net Web services efforts....HP plans to devote 3,000 consultants from its HP Services unit to the effort and also train 5,000 people in its sales and support staff.' Microsoft will provide additional installation support, and the companies will jointly market .Net services. This was announced previously, but this article contains a few more details. Frankly, as an HP employee, I am alarmed at all this closeness with Microsoft lately (this, plus the media center PCs....what's next??)."
Acquisitions sometimes turn out the other way arou (Score:4, Insightful)
HP's always been in bed w/MS (Score:4, Insightful)
Then do something about it.
You remind me of the people who whine about the government, but never get out to the polls on voting day. What have you done about it? If you're alarmed by the closeness with Microsoft, then either you haven't been paying attention to HP or else you're one of the newly merged Compaq folks, who were a lot more open-source-friendly. HP's been in bed with MS for years: I distinctly remember HP being one of the first companies to adopt the restore-cd-only policy with their Pavilions, only including a restore CD and not an operating system CD. HP's Kayak dual-CPU workstations were among the first & best NT-running machines I ever used, and I know they didn't build it to run Linux. HP's always been close with MS.
So if HP's relationship with MS surprises you, then you need to get more active with your management in the day-to-day decisionmaking. Every time HP releases a solution that specifically favors MS, sometimes at the expense of their customers, speak up and try to change their minds.
Why, YOU'RE next, HP (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's look at past microsoft buddy-buddy relationships:
Well. . . from past experience, I think HP should bend over. . . we all know what's next.
The only defence would be to never make any money or headway in the business relationship at all. That way, if they actually kill your business while they are sabotaging it, they won't rob your grave and relabel the loot "innovation."
I feel really bad for Carly Fiorona. She may actually believe that she is digging a foundation for her company. . .
Media center PCs nothing new (Score:2, Insightful)
I used to write software for stereo components for Escient Labs [escient.com], who had major OEM agreements with RCA, Harmon Kardon, and (more recently) Compaq (now HP). It was quite the cool experience to see all of my favorite hi-fi systems run linux.
Re:What's next? (Score:4, Insightful)
The old partners (IBM, DELL, BRISTOL, MAINSOFT, etc) just do not get it, like Microsoft does. But as the saying goes what comes around goes around. And right now one of the first companies that MS screwed over (IBM), looks pretty menancing for MS.
Re:HP's always been in bed w/MS (Score:5, Insightful)
Perens wasn't working within the company framework. If I think my company's doing something wrong, I don't speak out in public: I work closely with my supervisors and make sure they do the right thing. If they continue to make the wrong choices, and I've tried my best, then I don't play whistleblower and run to the shareholders. That marks you as somebody who's not trustworthy, somebody who isn't a team player. You pull that, you get fired, no matter how high-profile you are.
I'm not saying it's right, I'm just saying that's how the system works. The officeplace is like the Matrix - ya gotta fight the bad elements from within.
Most companies are in bed with MS (Score:2, Insightful)
When will you people realize that there will always be Microsoft playing a large part in the market for minimumly the next 10-15 years?
Re:What do you mean, "lately"?! (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's see, we write software and we buy software from Microsoft... let's outsource our development staff to Microsoft for a cut in the pricing on the stuff we buy from them! We lose those expensive employees and get a break on our product costs! We're financial geniuses!!
So as they pollute and destroy whatever uniqueness HP products have, somebody else brings out a similar but better product for a lot less, and a third company brings out a significantly different, but more expensive product for a premium price. HP withers while the competition thrives.
Financial geniuses do not create world-beating products.
Re:God Help Us (Score:1, Insightful)
use this as motivation (Score:5, Insightful)
If Linux was really 10 steps ahead of Microsoft, markets would recognize that fact much more than they have. The fact is, there are some areas where linux shines and some areas where commercial software shines.
To me, this is a good thing, since it will raise the bar on standards compliance in the industry and create more niche areas for linux to make its way into the enterprise.
the microsoft compromise (Score:4, Insightful)
It's still my computer. If you don't trust me with your movies, then don't put the f***ing things on my computer. I'll still rent the DVD's, you will still make money.
Most people would rather own their computer and rent at blockbuster than simply having a licence for their computer and lots of pretty movies to slowly, slowly download. Since when is this any sort of *compromise* when the terms are dictated from above?
Re:.NET is great !!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Check out java. That does all those things, but it does them now, and it's got a lot of support and it's also multi-vendor. You will NOT be able to write stuff in VS.NET and run them on Linux, because very little of the framework classes are "open", for instance Mono uses its own gui framework based on GTK.
5 years down the line ... (Score:2, Insightful)
IBM-Sun, w/ java
HP/COMPAQ-Microsoft w/
Re:Acquisitions sometimes turn out the other way a (Score:3, Insightful)
ah such potential...wasted!
You are not taking it far enough (Score:1, Insightful)
I use to work at the Ft. Collins HP and in spite of what I had heard, I thought that Carly had HP's best interest at heart. Now, I'm starting to wonder.
What do you expect? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:The Digital - Microsoft Alliance (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Why, YOU'RE next, HP (Score:3, Insightful)
SourceSafe - Once was a reliable CLI program that ran under Unix and allowed you to check in and out dozens of files with a simple command line. Was bought by MS, ported to NT, lost its Unix support, and became a bloated GUI that required literally hours (on a 33MHz machine) of point, click, wait...wait... (and cross your fingers not to crash) to check in 100 files one by one vs. 5 sec from the old CLI. We discovered that rebooting after checking in every dozen or so files greatly improved reliability, and I recall that our record was checking in about 50 files in a single session without a crash. At least that was the case shortly after MS bought it; we scrapped it after numerous crashes corrupted its db, and I haven't used it in years.
Re:.NET is great !!! (Score:3, Insightful)
It would be no surprise if
The question is what parts will be available under an acceptable license. The answer isn't clear. And if the applications end up being non-portable anyway (due to GUI platform dependencies, e.g.), then what's the advantage?
Saying that something is technically better than Java is faint praise indeed. Now if you could say that it was better than Python...
Don't point to proprietary libraries as a reason that it's better. That proves nothing at all. Those libraries are probably unuseable. Don't point to it being submitted to standardization as a bonus, unless ALL THE NEEDED PARTS are standardized, and not covered by restrictive patents or licenses. (This could be true, but it isn't what I've been hearing.)
If you think that the CLR being multiple language is a bonus, may I direct you to a web page entitled "Languages for the JavaVM" http://grunge.cs.tu-berlin.de/%7Etolk/vmlanguages
OTOH, it may well be an improved design. I'd be rather shocked if it weren't. This is *years* later.
What language is your legacy code written in? My legacy code either links nicely with any gcc compiler, or doesn't link with
(Sometimes both.)
That it is made by MS is not a de facto reason for disliking it. It is a de facto reason for not trusting any facet of it that I haven't examined. (The burnt child dreads the fire. Once burnt, twice shy. Fool me once, shame on thee, fool me twice, shame on me. You don't fool me three times. etc.)
I never hated and despised Microsoft until after I started using their operating system. After a few years, and a few license changes, it got to the point where it is now common knowledge where I work (well, within the department) that I refuse to install Microsoft software, because I won't agree to the license.
I encourage you to read the EULA before you install software. You are not exempted from the terms just because you don't read them. Your company is not exempted just because you don't care. If the crime of malfeasance applies to sysadmins (or other techs), then I suspect that agreeing to bind you company to those licenses counts as malfeasance. It really is a decision that should be made each time by upper management. No other decision of comparable significance (i.e., likely to kill the company) is made by tech personnel, and they shouldn't make this one either. I recognize that they are frequently coerced into it, but if you accept the coercion, then you are not a professional.