Microsoft To Start Running Anti-Unix Ads 1133
PhreakinPenguin writes: "According to this article on News.com, Microsoft and Unisys are preparing to pay for a slew of ads to 'undermine' Unix with the theme of 'We have the way out.' They are apparently hyping that Unix is an expensive money trap. One ad states, 'No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system. It requires you to pay for expensive experts. It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever.' Unisys is apparently putting up $25 million and Microsoft won't say how much they're chipping in but you can bet it's more than Unisys." As the article notes, this comes after floundering attempts to sell (through Dell, Compaq and Hewlett-Packard) the high-end Unisys machines pushed by these ads.
perplexed (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:perplexed (Score:5, Insightful)
- in the REAL world, no one should be left alone. you must be the best to stay on top.
- heavy duty servers will not be replaced by MS. Windows servers simply cannot handle the load, let alone be secured decently
- MS servers are ideal for file print servers and simple user management and file/ print servers. that is why you see a lot of mixed environments unix-NT
- the customer does not give a fk about kernel architecture. he just wants easy to manage GUI.
- geeks are the minority.
Re:perplexed (Score:3, Funny)
Grace Hopper didn't need no steenkin kernel. Real geek women used toggle switches and patchcords. None of this OS handholding.
Re:perplexed (Score:5, Interesting)
There's nothing illegal here, they just look at where they can expand their revenue like every other corporation in America. There's big money in the server market - when I worked in that industry 6-7 years ago, a M$ server with MS-SQL (bundled, the only way you could get it, which might still be true) cost about $10000 for the low end machine. That was basically a version of Windows with an unlimited connection license and MS-SQL on a fairly mediocre machine. Hardwarewise, I'm guessing about $2000, so that's $8000 in software and profit, most of the development of the OS software was paid for in the consumer version of Windows, so either MS-SQL cost a lot to make, or some hefty profits were being made.
Re:It IS illegal. (Score:3, Insightful)
Maybe, just maybe, capitalism is exploiting it's monopoly status
it also depends what your goals are. If you are materialistic then nothing but a capitalist economy with a good GDP will look appealing.
Other systems have been squashed by the capitalists usually to gain control of the raw materials required by rampant over consumption.
Maybe being a goat-herder in then Andes is a better life than a rat in a cubicle churning out web sites etc.
Re:perplexed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:perplexed (Score:3, Funny)
:-)
Ben
UNIX, Windows, Linux, Oh My! (Score:3, Insightful)
UNIX servives not because it is not an extremely expensive money trap but because it is the most calable OS to date (Are you gonna run NT on that Cray?) and one that many programmers on the high end know. This means that for supercomputing applications and extremely large database servers, there really is not an alternative. Also, as Windows becomes more stable and scalable, and Linux becomes more scalable, they are moving more and more into the space of proprietary UNIX (there is some evidence that this is inflicting some collateral damage to BSD, but that may be temporary, and in the long run, Linux's success may end up helping BSD).
The real problem is that Windows is NOT the answer to UNIX. Linux may be. BSD May be, but I don't think that Windows is. There is a lot of migration cost involved. CTO types tend to know this.
This add campaign may be a good thing for Linux because it may encourage more of the companies to consider migrating to Linux.
Re:perplexed (Score:5, Funny)
Thank god that all of us here at Slashdot don't ever badmouth or try to undermine Microsoft. Those bastards.
Re:perplexed (Score:3, Insightful)
- Ad hominem attacks on microsoft and microsoft products on slashdot are done in a situation where it's reasonably certain that the people hearing will have enough experience to understand the attacks and their context. Whereas the currently discussed microsoft ads are specifically targeted at those people who don't understand at all what they mean, and are the most likely to form blind prejudices based simply on random things they hear in TV ads without questioning, researching, or checking for veracity.
- On slashdot if someone is being silly, going overboard, or making statements about microsoft products that are either stupidly subjective or just aren't true, anyone has the option of posting a reply and refuting the dumbass. Nasty attack tv commercials, meanwhile, are not really a forum where "the other side" has a chance to respond with anything other than more nasty attack tv commercials.
Yeah, i know what you meant. Just.. just a thought, you know?Anyone else suspect microsoft's goal with all this is probably just to goad Sun, Oracle, etc., into paying for response ads.. meaning that the computer industry gets in a huge circular contest of paying for increasingly expensive ads and pissing money into a hole.. meaning in the end sun, oracle and co. have a significant amount of money drained away from their much smaller bank accounts, while microsoft just has a slightly smaller percentage of money and still billions left to absentmindedly burn?
Ad - Counter Ad (Score:5, Funny)
I'm thinking of something similar to those car ads where owner one keeps asking owner two if the model he has, has same features.
They could have a purple Mercedes or some other obviously nice quality vehicle. standing next to a Yugo with all the body panels and doors in mismatched Microsoft colors. Even just a picture of the two vehicles in profile, side by side, with the line "which one would you want?"
for the extra twist of the knife the drivers in the Yugo can squeel that "you don't have to know what you're doing when you own one of these".
Heck I right now freely give Sun the permission to use this idea. No Cost. No such permission is granted to anyone promoting Microsoft.
Re:The Microsoft Car (Score:3, Funny)
Advertising is very powerful. (Score:3)
Advertising is very powerful. The effect of this advertising will be to more firmly establish in reader's minds that Microsoft people are liars.
Re:perplexed (Score:3, Informative)
Microsoft got where it is today by riding the coattails of the last Monopoly, IBM.
Re:perplexed (Score:3, Insightful)
Expensive experts (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Expensive experts (Score:5, Informative)
MS sales and marketing will tell you ANYTHING to get you to switch to MS. Be careful as for some environments Windows works fine, but for others UNIX is definitely the way to go. What we are concluding is that is you want the power of UNIX, with ease of administration, perhaps OSX is the future. Its cheaper overall than SGI or Sun, has the UNIX underpinnings, but is still kind-of young and needs a bit of optimization. However, there are serious efforts underway to optimize performance and security through Trusted Darwin and I hear tell that serious workstation class hardware from Apple is just around the corner.
Yes, you get what you pay for. (Score:5, Insightful)
People need to realize that certifications don't make you an expert and employers need to realize that certifications don't make you good. Pay good people good money and you'll both be happy. If you need a junior admin hire one.
Re:Logical Fallacy: Re:Expensive experts (Score:5, Interesting)
What?!??!? This is a troll right? Have you ever spent any time with computationally intensive work? I'm talking calculations that take hours, days, weeks. Even W2k, while improved cannot work with 4GB or more of RAM, crunch on an algorhithm for two or three days, and not have problems. Hell the W98 box I replaced with our W2k 2.2Ghz box would crash multiple times a day.
The SGI Octane on the other hand can work for weeks at a time on a calculation and still be able to respond to queries, launch new processes etc... without ever becoming unstable. My OSX box (while not as fast as the Octane and not as much RAM as the Octane) will crunch happily on problems while letting me write papers in Word, surf the web, serve web pages, download new data and allow me to examine it, and plug in a Firewire hard drive to upload data to ALL AT THE SAME TIME!!! The W2k Dell box chokes badly every time attempting this sort of thing and there is no way you can say that Windows can compete here.
As for your argument about well-trained administrators familiar with MICROSOFT PRODUCTS. That's what we thought we were getting and paying for. The point is that Microsoft products are third rate. They don't scale, they are not as stable as other offerings, they do NOT have the same flexibility versus UNIX, and the ease of use of the OSX flavor of UNIX is unbeatable. This is the problem with people that have been raised on Microsofts nipple. They don't know anything else and they make assumptions about the rest of the computer world without having the appropriate knowledge. Try using other environments before saying that Microsoft can do anything UNIX can do.
Re:Logical Fallacy: Re:Expensive experts (Score:4, Insightful)
Regarless of who's fault it is (Microsoft, the hardware vendor, the driver, etc.) - a driver malfunction should not bring down the entire Windows 2000 Advanced Server. It should NOT bluescreen under any circumstance.
In my case, I think it it the printer driver crashing it. But, a flaky printer driver should not bring down an 'enterprise' server operating system.
Next time, please don't underestimate us so quickly. Some of us know what we are doing.
Re:Logical Fallacy: Re:Expensive experts (Score:3, Informative)
The problem isn't the OS it's the hardware. Try running those same problems with Linux on your x86 hardware and watch it choke to all hell. x86 architecture is crap, and the x86 chips have trouble when being given intense workloads 100% of the time.
That beeping sound you're hearing is my BS-o-meter going off its measurement scale. While I agree that x86 architecture is pretty much crap next to SPARC and PowerPC, it is nowhere near that unstable. If it was, I sincerely doubt that many Linux and *BSD boxen could chalk up such impressive uptimes. I myself have a few machines salvaged from my workplace scrappile that have been resurrected as general-purpose servers, with old Pentiums and minimal RAM, that have *never* had a hardware or OS failure. Never. And this system does quite a bit of real work; it's a development server for about five people, a web server, mail server, USENET cache, DNS server, FTP server, and used to hold a small SQL database.
I won't get into the details here but thats why things like the Unisys ES7000 are so difficult to make - you have to have 3rd level caches, you have to have on-board chips monitoring state so you can 'reboot' an x86 at times and keep it working.
If it's so lousy, why do they keep using it, then? More importantly, why should a company invest in x86 architecture if it's so crappy? Truth is, it really isn't. It's not the best architecture, but if it was as crash-prone as you claim, it would have been replaced years ago.
Windows is a pretty good system - run this stuff on you're ia64 and watch it not have troubles.
Sorry, but the platform is too new to have a proven track record of any sort, or would you care to provide data to back up your claims?
Besides, didn't Linux run on the IA64 before Win2K did?
There really isn't much Unix can't do that Microsoft can't, and there is a whole lot Microsoft can do, and a whole lot faster, than Unix.
This is such an obvious troll that I can't even think of a way to retort to it; and I needn't -- somebody else already did here [slashdot.org].Why do you think a lot of image processing / computer vision / etc is done on windows - because you can just plug in a firewire camera and it WORKS, drivers from winupdate can automatically be installed, you can use the same API to grab and do your calculations, and MFC is a helluva lot easier to use than coding decent, high performance X apps. (High performance and X is a strange combination, considering X is a bigger memory hog than Explorer)
You don't know how wonderful it is when working on a project, having a camera fail on you, and just being able to go across the hall, borrow someone elses USB cam instead of firewire, plug it in, and have your program keep working. In linux you'd have to change your code and have a nightmare with drivers and the like.
Image processing -- you mean PhotoShop? Ok, I'll grant that. But on the side of UNIX, we can throw gene sequencing, designing aircraft, creating movies (Shrek or Monsters, Inc., anyone?), testing chemical models, modeling supernovae, handling massive bank transactions, and massive mathematical calculations that take months to finish.
The rest of your comment reeks of more of the same whining about USB camera compatibility, which is all desktop-centric (and handled just as well by a Mac, which is a much better desktop system). This article is about *datacenters* and *servers*, where things like X programming and USB cameras mean spit.
You are the one guilty of the logical fallacy here; it's called the "Straw Man" -- attacking the argument from a different angle that is unrelated to the main theme of the argument.
Not true. Not true at all. (Score:5, Informative)
Get deep enough into either OS and you'll find they're pretty interchangable.
While 2K and now .NET are getting more UNIX-like as time goes on, they really *aren't* interchangeable. For example, even though I am MS certified, I would strongly advise a company against setting up their Internet presence using IIS. Outsource it, baby. Let someone else have the headaches. Besides, do you really want to have those downtimes for patching, patching, patching?
Windows 2K shines as a departmental-level thing, not as a full-enterprise solution. However, Samba is getting so much better with each release that maybe more 2K Server boxen can be replaced with Linux boxen running Samba. I think that's why MS is really scared.
When the labs in your MOC don't work because of arcane Active Directory crap, then you know that something is very, very wrong. There is a reason why most NT4 shops aren't upgrading. There is a reason why there are lots of 2K networks not deploying AD. When Samba v3 does "AD" better than MS does (with REAL versions of LDAP and Kerberos 5 and DynamicDNS, not the neutered, embraced and extended MS versions) MS knows that its goose will be thoroughly cooked and force-fed to them.
However, there is one thing MS excels in that Linux needs to improve...the desktop. You install 2K Pro and *everything works as expected*. Sure, you have to patch and patch and patch but dammit, it runs out of the box. My Linux desktop experiences have been like rolling the dice...sometimes you get all 7s, sometimes you get hit with Snake Eyes. And you really do have to be a Linux guru to sort things out when something doesn't quite work after installation. This is where Linux people should be focusing their attention. When Linux+KDE *just works* and installs with no *special surprises* we can think of challenging MS at the desktop.
Needless to say, THIS year will be spent getting a lot of experience with Linux.
Training, attitude and experience (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing that gets on my nerves in this eternal Microsoft spin doctoring is the implicit denial of the simple fact that trained monkeys will not be able to run an all-Microsoft shop, and any company above mom-and-pop size will need to hire Really Good Geeks to get the work done. Learning Windows properly is at least as hard as learning Unix properly (screw user friendliness, a decent sized Windows shop needs folks who know what to tweak in the registry and what not to).
There is no amount of Microsoft support that will compensate for having experienced staff. Whatever OS you pick, there is no substitute for having employees who know their stuff. And that's the bottom line.
I'm blessed with a bunch of colleagues who know NT inside and out. They trust me to keep the border e-mail flowing, and I trust them to keep the users off my back. I don't want their jobs, not even if it could be moved to UNIX.
Now, back to the topic of this
In another few years, our guy will be as theoretically underpinned as the MCSE's are, but in the mean time, he's running the shop, and will move up or move on to another company where he can apply his talents and his experience. Those are the people you need, and they're hard to come by, and harder still to retain if they outgrow the position they were hired for.
Re:Expensive experts (Score:3, Interesting)
Also, it can be annoying to change out hardware in windows (I once switched an IBM drive for a Maxtor drive and rendered my system completely unbootable in Win2k, my geuss is that Win2K had set up some sort of drive specific optimization that caused the driver to crash when it read the Maxtor), the FreeBSD half of the box didn't care (although it was configured to use the CTQ on the IBM, it had no problem turning the CTQ code off when it saw the Maxtor).
Re:Expensive experts (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, Microsoft products tend to be driven by friendly click-boxes and wizards. Basic functions can be pretty easy to figure out. But eventually, someone is going to have to know the why of clicking on one option or another. If not during the initial configuration and design, then later on when the system begins to fail.
The underlying technology within Microsoft products can be just as archaic and cryptic as any Unix (or Unix-like) system. Sometimes the quickest (if not only) path to a solution requires decisively non-clicky-gui actions such as command-line tools and registry edits.
I've had really painfull brain-dead conversations with "MCSE" types. And some of the coolest technical discussions I've ever had were with true experts in Microsoft products (certified or not).
Microsoft and their customers would be wise to recognize these experts and keep them close at hand.
If Patches Are Released Weekly... (Score:3, Insightful)
Are your servers patched?
What's your company's name? Server IPs?
Re:Expensive experts (Score:4, Informative)
If you shut down the things you don't really need, its actually pretty rare (like once every 6 months) for a security issue to pop up that requires a software update on a given box as opposed to a simple configuration edit.
No such thing as a cheap expert. (Score:4, Interesting)
Either you pay someone who really knows what they are doing well for the job, or you pay some jerk who only thinks he knows what he is doing next to nothing. Guess which one costs you more in the long run. Why don't businesses look to the long run? (I really want to know)
nahtanoj
Because no one sees "long run" (Score:2)
And with the people controlling the money not listening to the whys and hows that get them into the predicament (and forgetting what they decided last WEEK, let alone last YEAR, that put them there), you're pretty much stuck dealing with the cheap route all the time.
Re:No such thing as a cheap expert. (Score:4, Funny)
In the long run, we're all dead. -- John Maynard Keynes
Re:No such thing as a cheap expert. (Score:5, Insightful)
You are so right, unfortunately. (Score:3, Interesting)
The problem is, the equations they use to determine "shareholder value" in thier heads are all skewed. In thier world, the "value" of something goes down exponentially with time. If they can make $1 million dollars today, or $1 billion dollars in five years, they always chose the quick million becuase in thier tiny pea-heads, they think that every day that passes between now and when they get thier cash divides the value of their return by some arbitratily high number.
Re:No such thing as a cheap expert. (Score:3, Insightful)
My company recently wanted to set up an in-house paging system. We decided to save some bucks and roll our own system using *nix. Our only specified requirement that was not met was that we spend a bit more and get pagers with better reception (lots of concrete where we are).
The pagers had to be purchased using the operations budget for Plant Operations.
The director of Plant Operations has one of his quarterly bonuses tied directly to fundage left over in that pot at the end of the quarter.
Guess who decided to buy $2.95 refurb numeric-only pagers?
Our paging system doesn't work now cuz we went with cheap pagers.
We're (the company) are now paying more to revamp the system in the long run than we would have in the short run if we had went with the pricier pagers in the first place.
Guess who doesn't care cuz he's already got his bonus?
Oooh, I'm scared (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oooh, I'm scared (Score:5, Funny)
What about "Our technical support engineers won't tell you to reinstall everything every time you call us."?
Re:Please, leave the zealotry at home. (Score:3, Interesting)
And as I've written - there is a reason why not a single company - Dell, Compaq, HP - wants to re-sell Unisys solution..
Re:Oooh, I'm scared (Score:5, Funny)
When I get some time I'm going to figure out how to reproduce it, then write a little killwin2k script. Then, next time the guy sitting next to me on the airplane won't turn his sound down while I'm trying to sleep, I'll just whip out my little Infrared Packets of Death!
How to Blue-screen a Win2K box via Infrared (Score:5, Interesting)
Okay, I reproduced it. Simplicity itself, actually.
Just run the irdaping command provided by your favorite Linux distro while there's a Win2K system in range. Whatever it sends so horribly confuses the irda.sys program in Win2K that it crashes the whole system.
Re:Palm version? (Score:5, Funny)
I can see it all now. Bill Gates is demonstrating the supperior scalability of MS-SQL-Server.NET and someone like yourself with a palm crashes it and a blue screen shows in front of tech reporters, CIO's, lots and lots of potential customers. If this wont scare the shit of phb's then I don't know what will.
requires you to pay for expensive experts (Score:5, Insightful)
at least they have the integrity to call us experts. unix information systems are all about scalibility, and flexability. VMS is all about uptime, uptime, uptime. and M$, they're all about GUI administration and a corporate name that matches the email/office suite the VP really likes to use.
Re:requires you to pay for expensive experts (Score:5, Funny)
at least they have the integrity to call us experts.
so, in fact they are saying: With Microsoft you need to pay for expensive idiots instead?!
Re:requires you to pay for expensive experts (Score:3, Funny)
As opposed to pimple-faced couldn't-get-into-university MCSE's ?
A buddy of mine is a good BSD/Linux/Windows man and he applied for a job as head administrator at a community college in our area. He had no formal training, and another applicant had an MCSE ... naturally they hired the MCSE, who converted the *entire college* into a Windows For Workgroups Share.
I think they might have prefered an expensive expert ...
what's the big deal? (Score:2, Insightful)
how many anti-ms ads have we seen from apple, sun and countless others?
i would say move along, nothing to see here.
Inflexible? (Score:5, Funny)
Shamelessly ripped off from Dilbert.
Educate the decision makers (Score:3, Interesting)
LIke this wasn't expected.... (Score:5, Funny)
"As for Unix being 'inflexible,' 'expensive,' and 'complex,' we feel those are terms much better suited to the closed and proprietary world of Windows."
Now if they will only put that into an ad of their own, that whole reply, sums up this marketing campaine very nicly.
Re:LIke this wasn't expected.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Microsoft tried to sell Unix too. They failed. (Score:2, Informative)
Warren Postma
Meanwhile, at Redhat..... (Score:2)
Microsoft MAY have a point... (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess what I'm saying is that Unix is losing more and more market share to operating systems like Linux. (Linux is NOT unix, although it's quite similar) This is especially true administrators (rather than corporate commitees) get to pick the operating system to use.
A good case in point is the market share and mind share of Solaris and Linux. Sun Microsystems just recently released the source code of Solaris under a "community license" (which is NOT the same thing as GPL, but it's the best we can expect from Sun Microsystems). Did Sun have to release the source code? Not really. But it knows it would lose MORE mind share to Linux if it didn't.
Re:Microsoft MAY have a point... (Score:3)
That's Unix(tm) and Linux(tm) (Score:3)
The "Unix(tm)" name is now nothing more than marketing Jedi mind tricks. Do you insist your mouthwash contain T<sub>2</sub>5(tm) (otherwise known as water)? Of course not - for the stuff that really matters, all are pretty much the same. Ditto, what's important isn't the Unix(tm) label, it's compliance with POSIX standards.
If you get deep into the implementation details, it's true that Linux didn't fork from the original Unix source tree and like any "clean-room" implementation there are some significant differences. BFD. As long as the system stays close enough to the POSIX standards it's a moot point to everyone but kernel developers and marketing droids.
Re:Microsoft MAY have a point... (Score:3, Insightful)
Don't feel bad--if Linux wasn't taking their marketshare, Windows would be. The unix market's is going through a little consolidation behind the flag of linux. Prior to linux's emergence, the unix sectors biggest problem (and strength) was the multiplicity of different (seemingly) incompatible solutions. Of course, POSIX and the OPEN group emerged to fight this off, but their business models couldn't last against WINTEL--they had more expensive software and hardware, no desktop to speak of, poor options for commodity peripheral support, difficulty to configure, and to top it all off, management all own stock in MS.
Now, the proprietary unix vendors are enriching linux and offering a "linux strategy" in order to stay alive. But, as a result, more people than ever are using unix-like OSes. Once there is hegemony behind the diversity that is linux, look for linux desktop shares to encroach on Microsoft--at least to the level that Mac's do.
In my estimation, what's happening now is much like what went on in the early days of Islam. You had a bunch of fearsome barbaric nomadic tribes (unix) roaming around in the desert attacking each other. Mohammed (Linus) came along and united them under the the flag of Islam (Linux), after which they created an empire that covered the half of the known world, and creating one of the most advanced civilizations of its time (My computer once most mainstream games are available on linux).
Never heard of a Mac? (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, Unix is inflexible. That's why open source Linux runs on nearly every piece of hardware you can find. I use it for my Day Job web/general Unix servers, running on cheap desktops or expensive rack mount units.
Consultants are expensive. I can actually go out and buy a book on Unix, then look at the source code of FreeBSD, Linux, Darwin - and change things myself. Oh, good god, adduser is so hard to figure out.
Oh, yeah. Unix is so hard. Especially when those blue screens of death pop up that interfere with my work or those proprietary API's that I can't get all the info to, and - oh wait. Unix doesn't have that.
FUD (Score:2)
Between Intel and Microsoft, I'd have to say the two companies do more negative campaigning in the business world in one year than most local, state or federal politicians do throughout the course of an election.
So, what's the solution? 3 options.
Ok, I'm gonna switch (Score:2)
Re:Ok, I'm gonna switch (Score:4, Funny)
"Unix may be unflexible and proprietary--but Gnu's Not Unix."
Counter Ad (Score:3, Insightful)
It shouldn't take IBM, et al, long to start running ads that show an MS-only shop having all the boxes go down simultaneously. Then, the CIO goes looking for who can get things fixed, he can only find clowns in the IT department saying "maybe we should just hit all the reset buttons." Maybe dressing the fools up like clowns would make the point that much better.
*sigh* Everyone knows you get what you pay for. Expensive employees generally pull their weight. A clown that only knows MS products isn't much better than a trained monkey.
Of course, I think MS has a place in businesses--just like *nix. Companies really should diversify their operationing systems so that they can take full advantages of each. MS Win2K just isn't as good of a webserver, for example, as many of the *nixes. And a Win2K Server is nice for tying together a bunch of Windows workstations. Exploit the advantages of each.
Re:Counter Ad (Score:5, Funny)
... hopefully accompanied by a massive thud as all those flying Windows XP people drop from the sky.
We'll still use unix for webservers... (Score:5, Interesting)
The site www.wehavethewayout.com [wehavethewayout.com] is running [netcraft.com] Rapidsite/Apa-1.3.14 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.5a on FreeBSD [freebsd.org].
Re:We'll still use unix for webservers... (Score:3, Funny)
Well, web servers are a minor part of an enterprises computing needs. I mean, no one does actual business over the web, right?
It gets better! (Score:4, Interesting)
1. it's using Java Server Pages (notice the
2. it's using IIS 4.0 on NT4....no W2K/IIS5....
This is entirely too funny.
Will this work? (Score:2, Insightful)
I thought that it was generally believed that everyone immediately sees through "we-will-help-you-get-away-from-evil-competitor" ads. Giving the viewer the completely wrong impressions.
But on the other hand, Unisys and Microsoft. They are not exactly known for caring what the customer thinks as long as they pay.
Lock and key (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, and if hiring a sysadmin is expensive, I guess they haven't taken a look at the going rate for MSCEs lately, have they? Just because a 15 year old kid could administer your machines for Mountain Dew and Pizza doesn't mean you should run your business like that.
I wish someone like IBM or Solaris would do a similar ad against Microsoft.
"Expensive Experts" (Score:5, Insightful)
Maybe the bearded ones need a PR campaign.
This won't work. (Score:5, Insightful)
UNIX is the backbone of the Internet. It started with university and military computers, and is still based on these technologies. It has spawned many successful clones and variants, including BSD, Mac OS X, Linux, Solaris, IRIX, and many more. And virtually ALL of these versions work well together and can exchange code.
Not that this is surprising, but Microsoft is arrogant to point of giving the finger to God. This is really a sign is disrespect for everything built over the years by the blood, sweat and tears of the first network pioneers.
Unisys sounds like it has little to lose since it's been sitting on its corporate butt so long that even the oldest of us have forgotten what they've recently done in the computing world.
I'm not making a righteous stand for just the UNIX world. Microsoft is really a company with poor ethical practices and should be recognized as such.
Microsoft could have it all by realizing that practically all its major competitors have a UNIX base in their OS, even Apple. Instead of fighting the UNIX family, they could cash in simply and easily by moving the Windows NT/XP base to a true UNIX base, and create (the usual closed-source) apps in UNIX versions that can be compiled for virtually every UNIX family OS. (Not that everyone would want the apps, but at least it would be there..)
But NOOOOOO...
I was ranting on how OSS was too disorganized to fight MS in certain market attacks--that OSS lacks a defined leader. This instance is an exception. There are plenty of corporate makers and users of UNIX who might jump on the big MS "screw you" bandwagon and even pump up some cash in the corporate and legal system to get MS to shut their corporate pie hole.
Pissing off the U.S. Government is one thing. Pissing off other big businesses is quite another.
Re:This won't work. (Score:3, Informative)
Re:This won't work. (Score:3, Funny)
barking up the wrong tree... (Score:3, Interesting)
Not only is it the wrong tactic, but it will hurt them in the enterprise services world. There's a reason the stock market uses Sybase ASE and not sql server. No matter how much money microsoft puts into getting high TCP numbers, real DBA's know the difference. Here's to hoping microsoft continues this line of advertising and continue to shoot themselves in the foot in the enterprise services world.
Microsoft learining something (Score:3, Insightful)
Well it looks like MS have learned there's a reason that high end, rock solid industrial strength computing isn't cheap. You can't just bung Windows on commodity hardware and expect it to 24/7. So the advantage that MS had at the departmental level in the past (cheaper and easier to use than its competitors, lest we forget that that was a major selling point of Windows in the 90s) it doesn't have on the high end. Unix is entrentched and competative price wise. MS are going to have a VERY HARD time eeking out market share at the high end. They'll have some successes, but the world will not be running on MS Big Iron any time soon (if ever)
The campaign website runs FreeBSD (Score:4, Redundant)
Check out www.wehavethewayout.com [wehavethewayout.com] - the official campaign site. It runs FreeBSD!
According to netcraft
Check out the netcraft results here [netcraft.com].
Re:The campaign website runs FreeBSD (Score:3, Interesting)
Once you've divided your enemies and picked off or embraced the ones you can, you're left with the ones you can't buy or beat. And when all else fails and you find out that you really can't buy or beat your enemy, you might as well slander them, right?
Goose & Gander (Score:3, Insightful)
Who's the competition? (Score:3, Informative)
Of course, I've not touched base with the high-end UNIX server market in years. Can someone else fill me/us in on who Unisys' competitors are, and whether or not the ads have any foundation at all?
w00t (Score:5, Funny)
"Sun still does not see Microsoft as a real threat in
the datacenter market where reliability, availability,
serviceability and security are key," [snip]
"We are all about customer satisfactionability, system
uptimeability, and cracker stopability", added Scott McCowboyNeal.
--
Here's my counter ad: (Score:4, Insightful)
RE: Webserver running on FreeBSD (Score:3, Redundant)
If anything, the site running on FreeBSD could be spun as Microsoft knowing the advantages of unices, having used the variants themselves, and still believing their high-end servers are better for more serious tasks.
Whatever, just playing devil's advocate.
What!?? (Score:3, Informative)
Unix is an inflexible system? Let's see... it's totally modular (even more so in the case of Mach or the Hurd), Linux allows you to build literally any kind of system you want, and completely separates system from user processes to allow the kernel to be kept relatively small and tidy. Yup. That sounds *really* inflexible to me. Windows ties system and user processes together, ties the user to Microsoft programs for things as simple as text editing, has a registry system which invariably falls on it's face.. but it's flexible. That's really rich. Some Harvard MBA must've come up with this campaign.
Do they even know they're shooting themselves? (Score:5, Insightful)
And the other side of that coin is, "If you get an MCSE, we're busy telling your boss that you should work cheap." How long can they get away with screwing over the people who support their products?
I sure hope I remember this when I wake up. (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft, the monopolist, the Marquis de "lock-in", the ace of audits, the prince of product activation, the squire of "We don't need no stinkin' interoperability", is running ads warning IT shops about painting themselves into corner?
Damn!
At least the whine about expensive experts makes sense. Anybody dumb enough to buy this pitch is sure to feel uncomfortable around people who know what they're doing.
What are MS biggest money losing products? (Score:5, Interesting)
Let's have a poll on this subject. Who can name the MS products that have produced the smallest revenue compared to the money that MS invested in development and marketing. Two of the biggest money pits at MS have been:
(1) Windows DataCenter. This product has thoroughly bombed. Last year it was rumored that only a couple dozen had made it out the door.
(2) MS BizTalk Server. Another "MS Enterprise" computing product that despite _immense_ marketing spend, is really sucking ass.
MS is doing this marketing campaign because their enterprise computing strategies have thus far fallen off a cliff. This is just more money thrown to the wind. People aren't buying MS enterprise computing product.
Oh, and give aways like IE don't count for this poll.
MS BOB (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting story about BOB. You every wonder where you got that paperclip in Word? BOB. Ever wonder who the project lead for BOB was? Bill Gates' wife was responsible for the paper clip. Really, it's true.
Melinda French Gates was a project lead on MS Bob [post-gazette.com] (you have to remember MicroSoft Bob [strategymag.com] -- it was that cartoony software that slowed your machine to a crawl and insulted you while balancing your checkbook or reading email). When Bob was revealed to be the complete and utter turkey that it was always destined to be, guess what got some of the "usability and human interface" stuff? Office. Guess who happened to also be, ah, "seeing" The Boss? Melinda. Why wasn't Bob just canned, like any other project that wastes millions and failed completely? You have to wonder if Bill G wasn't getting pillow-talked into something. In fact, MS Bob was the first consumer product Bill Gates released personally. People do the strangest things for love.
Anyway, a lot of what Bob had to offer didn't get canned (as it should have). It got repuposed and wound up in other MS products. Take a look at the screenshot on this page [gratefuldad.com]. See that dog in the lower corner? That was Bob's dog Rex. (I wish they had a picture of the dragon named "Java"; I wonder if McNealy every knew about that?) Looks like that paper clip, eh? Bob's ghost is in other stuff, too. MS Agent had a re-incarnation [wired.com].
Well this is all way OT. But I think the Bob fiasco sheds some light on what goes on at MS. There's really no reason to wonder about the pape clip. I'm sure Melinda will insist on touchy-feely stuff being included in every MS product. I love it when someone thinks for me...
-B
My Mature Response (Score:3, Funny)
I know you are but what am I?
It requires you to pay for expensive experts.
I know you are but what am I?
It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever
I know you are but what am I?
MCSE Bashing (Score:3, Interesting)
If you hire a MCSE because 'they are cheap' then you'll get what you deserve... I, for example, am a well qualified MCSE, but I don't come cheap.
Cant understand where M$ is coming from.. (Score:3, Interesting)
"They are apparently hyping that Unix is an expensive money trap."
I got my copy of IRIX for free from SGI, simply by giving them my workstation MAC address - I didnt have to pay for postage or anything, yet the following day IRIX 6.5 and the most recent updates appeared on my desk, 'courtesy of SGI'. I also believe that Sun offer Solaris 8 for free on both SPARC and x86 platforms - you can either download the ISO's or pay for postage to get the full box set (and you get a LOT for your money).
"No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system."
Er - Unix is about the most flexible system I have ever known.. use it as a Firewall, Router, SQL server, Web server, Windows Domain Controller, NetWare Server, LDAP server.. even a COFFEE machine for heavens sake.. its all possible on UNIX. To get any kind of flexibility out of Windows, you have to keep forking $$$'s over to Bill & his buddies.
"It requires you to pay for expensive experts."
Oh - so that smarmy prick we have to keep getting down from , at a cost of £1000 per day ($1300'ish), to do work on our NT based Finance server, is not expensive? Purlease....
"It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever."
Oh - so Windows has got easier to use. Let me put it this way.. I learn what I do by experimenting. Install it, read about it, play around with it.. I managed to do this for a number of UNIX based applications & daemons - indeed for UNIX itself. Yet has anyone ever tried configuring a Windows 2000 Active Directory server, or tried installing their crappy ISA2000 server? Jesus - talk about overkill.. their old MS Proxy software was a doddle compared to their new generation.. nasty nasty.
Screw you Microsoft.. I hope you get screwed up the ass in court.. you and your little dog too.
Windows's Black Kettle (Score:5, Interesting)
In short retort:
It's all about the fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and Microsoft's firm belief that the decision makers in a company are the ones in air so rarified as to know little enough about technology to be brought in to Microsoft's folds by this bunch of crap.
Ad strategy (Score:3, Funny)
"Unix is old and unreliable. If you can find a high-priced Unix expert to maintain your system you're in luck because thanks to our efforst there are practically *no Unix experts left*. Everyone has become expert in the low cost reliable and new systems offered by Microsoft. Have you ever seen an MCSE who konws anything about Unix?? Is there a USCE - no there isn't. And which is newer and has more graphics and buttons and stuff an MCSE manual or Unix expert manual? We rest our case
We make server OSes and dominate several large hardware makers
YOU ARE EITHER FOR US OR AGAINST US (AND AGAINST AMERICA AND FREEDOM). Oh yeah we are monopolists and we have decided Unix is dead - what more evidence do you need that it *is* dead?"
Thank you.
Flexibility. (Score:4, Funny)
Right?
Hello?
Counterpunch already in the works... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Counterpunch already in the works... (Score:3, Interesting)
Basically the video starts out with a kid flying in the air, with music playing that sounds like the M$ flying commercials music. An M$ employee sits there watching this on his workstation with a big smile on his face. All of a sudden, the flying kid starts falling for a second and the music sounds like it's an old record that hit a scratch. This happens over and over for like 3 seconds and then it shows an "illegal operation" in a WinXP style error box on one of the screens the guy is looking at. He furiously hits the enter key and the kid keeps going for a moment. Then the guy's jaw drops and the camera zooms in on a familiar BSOD, at which point the kid falls flat on his face. Then it fades out and it says, "For servers that only go down when they're brought down
It ends with the guy saying into a telephone in a very irritated phone "Well you can tell Mr Bill Gates to get down here to sublevel 6 and he can kiss my a" at which point the music starts up again, cutting off the last half of that word and the Novell logo pops up.
It's very funny, go watch it at the library or something.
COUNTER AD (Score:3, Funny)
Then flash some slogan like:
"We don't see problems, we see solutions"
Fool! (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft logic (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Why Unisys? (Score:2)
Re:Why Unisys? (Score:5, Informative)
Large servers are where Windows has never done well; Wintel scales up to 4-way reasonably easily, 8-way at a push and 16-way is very rare. 32-way is only available from Unisys, and from what I've heard, there's some klunky stuff in the background to make it work.
Compare this to Sun/SGI who have had >=64-way for years without any kludges to make it that way. A Sunfire 15K with 72 processors handles pretty much like a 2-way E220R.
Re:Why Unisys? (Score:3, Informative)
It's only been in the last couple years that Intel CPUs have been able to run in the same league as SPARC/MIPS/PA-RISC/Power-whatever, but the surrounding hardware never kept up, which is why, other than the most bleeding edge/vaporware IA-64 machines (e.g., the IA-64 version of HP's Superdome), you don't see any 128-way partitionable HA Intel boxes.
There's only so much you can do with 15 IRQs.
Re:Who will they rip off? (Score:2)
Re:how to respond (Score:4, Funny)
FADE FROM BLACK, a DISTRESSED MAN in a business suit is sitting across from a RELAXED MAN wearing a tie and dress shirt.
DISTRESSED MAN: "Yeah, I had to get out of the office. The servers have been down all morning, and our clients are getting really upset with out excuses. They keep telling us to reboot, and they've been rebooting the servers, but the fact is, we're losing business. Losing money."
RELAXED MAN sips coffee: "Mmm-hmmm"
DISTRESSED MAN: "I don't know how much more of this we can take. It's a dog eat dog world out there. But I guess this is just part of doing business... I mean, computers go down. That's life in the office."
RELAXED MAN smiles and sets his coffee cup down, looking down: "Well... not really"
DISTRESSED MAN: "Yeah-ha... like your systems don't ever go down".
RELAXED MAN smiles and leans forward: "No. We use Linux".
FADE TO BLACK, title: Linux. Because Time is Money
--
Evan
Re:Don't knock it before you try it (Score:4, Funny)
Anyway, I view these ad's as Microsoft caving. They obviously trying to break into the "big iron" market. To bad M$! Unix will be pretty much impossible to replace.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)