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I wonder how DH Brown is going to reconcile their anti-Linux FUD and this .

MS struggles to discredit Linux By Thomas C Greene in Washington Posted: 02/01/2002 at 07:09 GMT
What's cheaper than an OS you can buy outright once and install on every PC in your shop -- and upgrade cost-free for eternity to boot? Why, a slew of cheesy licenses for Microsoft Windows, 'Doze Division VP Brian Valentine claims in his latest cheerleading effort for his sales associates.

That's right; a putatively independent analysis by 'we'll-conclude-anything' whores DH Brown is going to rip Linux a new one and find that Windows is actually cheaper. How Valentine knows this is anyone's guess. Perhaps he has a mole in the Brown organization as good as the one we have in his. Or perhaps MS simply paid for it. We don't know.

It also appears that MS has bought off a number of Linux/Sun 'insiders' whose job it will be to explain to the sales team how to pitch the illusory advantages of Windows to unsuspecting IT managers. "Dumber people can run Windows" is the best advert I personally can come up with, though this is without the benefit of expensive analysts and turncoat 'insiders' to feed me intriguing tidbits.

But let's let Valentine tell it in his own words:

From: Brian Valentine
Sent: Wed 12/26/2001 7:14 PM
To: WW Sales, Marketing & Services Group
Subject: Me again -- Linux updates

Microsoft Confidential -- Do not print, copy or forward this email and do not share this email with anyone out side the company. For internal use only!

Now that the whole world knows we are taking Linux seriously based on the leak of my last email... Wait -- stop there -- since when did they think we weren't taking them serious?!? Did they think we are not going to build the best products possible? Did they think we were going to just be fat, dumb and happy and not continue to win business? Did they think we were going to forget about taking care of our customers??? NO!

Who do they think we are? We have the best d*mn sales force in the world backed by the best engineers in the world -- of course we will take any non-Windows OS serious. The thing about the leak that made me mad was not that we would legitimize Linux, etc. it's good in some places, we are better, and it's not very good in other places and we are much better. but they are a competitor and we will compete. What made me mad was that my friends -- some of you and some of our customer's names where in that email and then available for all to see on the web. That made me mad. I want you selling and supporting our products -- not having to take random calls, emails, etc from the press and others and I know what out customers share with us is in confidence that we will keep it internal. I have no problem any random Linux person sending me hate mail, junk mail, adding my email address to every list server out there, you name it -- that comes with the job, but I don't want my friends to have to deal with the same junk.


Ok, Ok, enough of that. On to some new things we are doing for you around Linux.

Linux is out there in some of your accounts and you may not know it. The ground up nature of how Linux is introduced into our accounts means that we need to modify our traditional approaches of finding out about Linux in our customer base. We have to be more hands on and dig deeper in your accounts!

Many Linux projects in CAS and Depth accounts happen below the IT Manager/BDM level. It's crucial that you get out there with your TSP/SE/MCS folks and do actual walkthroughs in your accounts. Ask open ended questions; find out what they're evaluating for both key projects as well as smaller, more tactical projects. Ask about the 'connector' pieces -- you'll potentially find Linux in these areas. This is a great way to not only find out about Linux, but also other IT projects that may include Novell, Sun, Oracle, and other competitors! If you are struggling with how to do this, then do the simple exercise of walking through you accounts data centers and when you see a Sun or IBM machine, ask what it's used for, if you see some strange servers you don't what they are doing -- ask what is running on them and take notes. I would like to challenge each of you to have these conversations with your customer as soon as you can. Oh -- and you can bet anyplace IBM is talking to your accounts, they are saying Linux and switching to higher end non-pc systems. With the current economic times we are living in, just about every customer is looking into how they can get rid of those over-priced, legacy Unix systems and ride the PC economics wave. We need to be there when they are making these decisions and prove to them the Windows platform is the best platform for them across any aspect of their business.

I want you to know just how seriously we're taking Linux here in Redmond. We're investing major efforts in creating easier processes and resources for you.

I. To start, we have expanded the in-field Linux Competitive Champ program and renamed it "Linux Insiders". Like the other TSP Champs programs, it has been changed to use the new TSP role-based database and will be ready to roll out with its new name at the Envision event in January. It is up to each regional TSP manager to select or assign each member; therefore, anyone wishing to become an Insider should see their manager to be signed up. Much like the support "communities" that define the Linux experience, the FCS team will strive to build a community to cooperate in winning business against Linux. By building a virtual team of field staff and corporate resources, we will enable the field to have one place to go for communication and competitive information. The Linux Insiders will have access to a centralized web site where personnel can request help, route issues, and share best practices that the entire field can leverage. This site, a restricted sub-set of the http://infoweb/linux site, will be accessible by all "Insiders," for items such as SLT reviews, web-casts, notes from conference calls and other sensitive information. If you have questions about the Insiders program, please email Kelly File of the FCS
team at mailto:kellyfi.

II. Second, I'd like to announce the new Linux/UNIX escalation process that is being headed up by [MS Enterprise & Partner Group VP] Charles Stevens' organization. Here's how it works:

a. First, make sure you check out the latest additions to the Web sites: http://infoweb/linux and http://infoweb/sundown.

b. If you can't find what you need there, involve your local expert: the district Linux or Sun Insider (TSPs with Linux and/or Sun competitive responsibilities). These Insiders have the expertise and the resources to help you win. You can find your local Insider on the web sites.

c. If you still need help for Global, Strategic and Major accounts, the Linux/Sun Insiders (or your GM) can escalate the issue to the new corporate Linux/Unix Escalation Team. Let me emphasize that you need to work with your local Insider or your GM because they have direct access to this escalation team. The team is committed to provide an initial response within one working day. These guys have in-depth UNIX industry backgrounds and have been winning against UNIX and Linux. The product development organization will be working closely with this team to make sure you have all the resources you need.

III. Finally, we're working hard to debunk the myths around Linux. We're approaching this in waves.

a. The first wave will attack the perception that Linux is free. To that effect, we'll have an independent analysis commissioned by DH Brown looking at a very popular topic these days -- server consolidation. If you're not seeing this yet, you probably will. IBM is proposing to use Mainframes running many virtual instances of Linux as a low cost server consolidation scenario for file and print, messaging, and database activities. The DH Brown report will be customer ready and will help your customer understand just how competitive Microsoft is in this arena.

b. The second wave will be a full blown cost analysis comparison case study between Linux and Windows in a variety of usage scenarios (web, file and print, etc.) done independently by the analysts for us. ETA for this tool is in May and it will be a great tool to help you sell the value of Windows solutions over Linux. If you have any questions on this study, please email the mailto:lnxteam alias.

You can expect us to turn up the volume on winning against Linux, as well as IBM. There is some great cross team work between PMG, SMG, and CMG marketing groups to ensure we're addressing your needs and believe me, that feedback goes directly to me and the senior leadership team so we can build better products to help you win against Linux!

Thanks,

Brian

Microsoft Confidential -- Do not print, copy or forward this email and do not share this email with anyone out side the company. For internal use only!

PS: I used to run Exchange -- so if you think I am not tracking this message, think again. Don't forward it! And if you have forward rules that have forwarded this message, then perhaps you should think again about forwarding internal email with those rules. I want to give you folks all the information I can in a very open way. If we continue to have bad apples or careless people out there, I will not be able to help you by sending this kind of information!

Related Story
MS promotes Linux from threat to 'the threat'

For the first time, the strongest Linux distributions surpass the weakest UNIX systems in overall functionality. Using the version 2.4 Linux kernel has improved the features of the operating system. In addition, all of the vendors studied - SuSE, Red Hat, Caldera, Turbolinux, and Debian GNU - have increased the breadth and depth of their bundled network infrastructure software. The report provides detailed analysis against critical criteria: scalability, RAS (reliability, availability, serviceability), system management, Internet and web-application services, and directory and security services. With these upgrades in place, the leading distributions of Linux are able to serve as general-purpose operating systems for a wide range of departmental and workgroup applications

If you actually want the answer to "what features does it have," go download the free 75+ page paper examining commercial UNIX features from D.H. Brown Associates. Click on "1998 report (download PDF)." It's a little old, but quite thorough if you want to know more about Tru64 (and other $$$ UNIX) features. I think they have another white paper focusing just on the improvements in the newer Tru64 5.0 release somewhere on Compaq's website. Search, search, search... ok, here's more on Tru64 v5.0 features from them.

--LP

AIX 4.3 retains a wide lead in system management

Original claim re: sysadmin satisfaction made on this thread:

[AIX] consistently rates below NT in sys admin satisfaction surveys.

Just to make things clear, in case they weren't. I initially thought Spacelord was defending the original assertion that sysadmins like NT more than AIX. (I know of no NT admins who *love* NT, which is not to say there aren't any)

Back on May 24, 1999. Obscurely buried on their site is a review of SGI's initial decision to open up XFS (PDF viewer required). It does bring up some issues not mentioned in the discussion here so far, like how SGI could make money with the move (mixing a little self-interest with their altruism.)

DH Brown Associates, a group a lot like Mindcraft says that NT is better than Linux in the Enterprise.

Did you check the cost of the full report? They actually want $995 for it.

Sounds like DH Brown didn't even try to tweak Linux performance - but since I don't have $995, I can't say for sure. Hah!

--

The following are from an email from Greg Weiss (grweiss@dhbrown.com) :

The news report you cited is indeed somewhat inaccurate (it is a paraphrase rather than a quote). Linux does "run simultaneously on many processors" if many equals, say 4 to 14. (me: but they are also looking at up to 64 SMP, and linux hasn't reached that level)

In fact, we were mildly shocked that, despite reading various kernel lists and talking to various Linux vendors, there is currently no really good publicly verifyable benchmark evidence of Linux's scalability even on 2-way or 4-way workloads (although I would be surprised if we didn't see some in 6 months)

I wouldn't make a claim that Linux doesn't scale. I would make the claim that Linux advocates have yet to reasonably demonstrate that it does.

"Keeping a log" is a similar over-simplification. I believe the reference was to "event management" facilities


So, If you have Linux running on a SMP system, PLEASE mail Greg Weiss (grweiss@dhbrown.com) and tell him!

I read the WSJ article, and it was clear to me that the study seemed to have suffered a little bit in the translation (having been dumbed down).

So, I decided to go directly to D H Brown's website and hear it from the horse's mouth. However, they want you to pay the meager sum of $995 (that's nine hundred) for the privledge of reading it.

Sorry, but any 'study' that is done clearly for profit is by definition unscientific and almost certainly biased. And it is no surprise that the 'study' seems to come out wholly in favor of companies who practice the same insane pricing schemes.

Ok, the article refers to a study by D.H. Brown.
Strange, but a little earlier in 1998, another study was made by Datamation, which shows similar results except for Linux, which was rated second best OS, behind AIX.
I wonder why Linux sudenly "lost" so much ground, when the other OSes keep the same rank...

First, here's the original "Overview" of the report (the full report is stupidly expensive). Basically what they do (DH Brown) is compare on a feature for feature basis on shipping systems. If we go on this basis, RH5.2 lacks many commercial OS features, such as Journalling, high end SMP, Transaction services, Corba/COM integration, etc that these more expensive OS's offer. The msnbc overview glossed over the report quite a bit - the report actually stated that Linux is good for a lot of things, such as web services, even for high end systems provided you have a very close fit - that's what Linux is good for.

There are issues with Linux, like shipping security out of the US that commercial OS's can get around with licences from the govt. That's a big problem for Linux - you can't just download, or buy for 2 bucks, a SSL enabled Web and News server. You can't even get it for $3000. Not that it's hard to setup mind - I've done it myself - configuring Apache for SSLeay was quite easy, but that's not what DH Brown measures - and it's not something that can easily be measured (unfortunately, for the free s/w croud).

There are some serious shortcomings in the report though. Such as looking at 2.0, not 2.2 (hence why Linux appears to fall down in comparisons of SMP, large file support, Max memory support - 2GB in 2.0). The section on SMP testing simply has a big blank space for the performance of Linux - which makes it look like it comes last at first sight. I wouldn't mind betting it's better than NT with a 2.2 kernel.

Unfortunately there's also the issue that the report just discusses the features that go into NT (and the others) that provide high reliability, such as HA clustering (which is shite on NT), resource management (also shite on NT) etc. They don't actually take into account how stable the system is in every day use. If they did, NT would come last.

I'm not sure about how Linux is worse off than commercial Unixes vis-a-vis internet services. Can someone clear up what AIX and Tru64 offer over Linux in terms of IP protocols/tools, TCP/IP extensions, bundled web browsers/servers, bundled email servers and e-commerce tools. Perhaps it's just that very last one, which comes down to issues about SSL again... Sigh.

Other than those things, I'm not quite sure how they have Linux so far down the scale. I'm inclined to believe they just got it plain wrong. What am I missing?

Matt.

Nah, all the facts you seek are available at their website, http://www.dhbrown.com/dhbrown/linux.html . Of course, the details may only be obtained for a reasonable fee.

Note the convincing and informative bargraph.

-Eric