Steve Ballmer on MS Server, Linux, Yahoo & More 261
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.'"
How does microsoft beat linux? (Score:5, Insightful)
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.
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.
Persuade me I need Windows Server (Score:5, Insightful)
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)
Re:Marketing Speak (Score:5, Insightful)
No point at all.
Balmer is a used car salesman (Score:5, Insightful)
Just once time I'd like to hear the plain truth (Score:5, Insightful)
One Small Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
One small problem - they'll be transparently disclosing the deviations through patent filings.
Re:How does microsoft beat linux? (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah, That's How You Beat Them... (Score:-1, Insightful)
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.
Re:Persuade me I need Windows Server (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
Re:Persuade me I need Windows Server (Score:0, Insightful)
Yeah, that's why I tell people not to even bother learning C# or
Re:If you tell a lie long enough (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows still hasn't figured out how to do task switching. Linux figured that out a long time ago. It's way too easy for one process to "run away" on a Windows machine and make it completely unusable, even to kill the offending process.
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)
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.
good luck (Score:4, Insightful)
Translation (Score:3, Insightful)
As corporate visions go, it is fairly typical, and (as usual) completely missing the point. You don't get better by saying that you're going to get better.
Re:If you tell a lie long enough (Score:3, Insightful)
> 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.
The real reason why MS Windows is poor as a server with more than 1 application running on it is that MS windows was never intended to be a "server". Its origins are as a desktop platform.
The reason why programs are called "applications" on the Windows platform is because they were an application of the Windowing graphical interface to a particular task.
As you know, MS-DOS is not a multi-tasking system. Originally MS Windows ran on top of MS-DOS. Applications of MS Windows can only ever have one application with the "focus".
It was only several iterations later that MS developed a version of MS Windows that did not need to run on top of MS-DOS.
the primary focus was still, however, the graphical user interface - and still with one application at a time having the focus. MS is still working out how to run a version of MS Windows without a "head".
Unix, however, was a full multi-user/multi-tasking system from the very beginning.
Unix systems fundamentally expect multiple programs and multiple users - and, with the help of the X server, can even manage multiple graphical applications across a network.
Windows fundamentally expects only one user, and that one user running only one application with the focus at any one time.
Until that changes MS Windows will continue to have problems with multiple applications and with scaling. At this stage MS is still struggling to produce a headless multi-user/multitasking system that can run any application across a network.
The big question is: Why does anybody actually believe MS Windows is a genuine server platform?
"beating" GNU/Linux with "value" (Score:2, Insightful)
He makes some sense here. This is how markets are supposed to work, when competition exists. The existence of a FOSS Operating System does happen to provide competition to the "marketplace". Imagine the shitball we'd be rolling in without FOSS competition (or Mac OS).
But the scope Ballmer and his company operate in is limited. Software isn't just something that "offers value", to be "traded" in a "marketplace". It's something that works better with collaboration than competition. The marketplace can only go so far to produce useful tools when so many people can contribute to their own utility.
Sure, they might "beat" GNU by "offering value" by their own lights. All they are is a profit-seeking enterprise. But as a user, and not a "consumer", of software, I don't care about that. They can monopolize the entire software "marketplace" for all I care. I'll still be using software that grants user freedom, because, unlike Microsoft "products", it exists outside the marketplace entirely. From the narrow parochial market perspective, FOSS is undead. You can take away its marketshare, but you can't kill it.
You can't buy - or sell - freedom, despite its well-established value. You have to fight for it. And mere market "value" is no substitute for freedom.
His lips moved ... (Score:3, Insightful)
Liar.
Only way they can beat Linux.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Furniture trembled? (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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.)
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.
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.
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.
It really doesn't work very well (Score:3, Insightful)
You can actually run headless Microsoft servers with approriate third party hardware and software but it boils down to the equivalent of having a KVM switch wired up to all the machines so you can give it a head when required.
Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista (Score:3, Insightful)
Buying a new machine is a lot of time wasted. And you're usually not buying only one machine.
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.
Did you know that Vista is a new and unfamiliar OS ? You're going to stay running XP forever ?
Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista (Score:1, Insightful)