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"Linux is *the* threat," Says Microsoft
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.
Because there is no server version of WinXP (yet)....the memo was focused on server OS sales....which will of course in turn determine the client OS used.....
I'm out of my mind right now, but feel free to leave a message.....
i think someone should point out that the register often prints rumors and other stories with only a slight reason to believe something is true and very little research.
god knows i've seen countless articless there where they've just been entirely wrong.
Brian Valentine isn't exactly "some middle-manager salesman guy," he's senior vice president of Microsoft's Windows division and has been at MSFT since 1987.
Ian
You haven't seen these guys work. They'll find somebody in the company to be their internal advocate and they'll keep feeding that person FUD, while building personal relationships over golf, dinner, etc.
Did your company just get a new CIO, CFO, CEO, Manager IT, whatever? Microsoft, IBM, HP, etc. all know this and have already offered him dinner at a nice restaurant. They know that they don't need to convince the techies, just a few well-placed managers.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
> XP Server is the server OS
.NET (from Microsoft in Norway).
I've heard the server will be named
--
Fredrik Borg
Student at the Department of Informatics, University of Oslo
"look at how Napster was abandoned in favor of Morpheus and Audiogalaxy. Now everyone knows about and is using them. So the RIAA sues them, and they've started to crack down. Now we'll have a bit of a "dead" period, but soon they'll be another wave coming out of the underground. "
Umm you missed the court injunction against napster & the discontinuation of thier service due to a COURT ORDER. I don't think there is going to ever be a court injunction against compiling a Linux Binary (wouldn't M$ love that?!).
You must consider this:
M$ is anti open standards - they don't like sharing. So in response linux - BSD & *nix open standards are being adopeted by an industry that needs interoperability - to compete - to function.
M$ is THE only company to use & prosletize Windows. Sure there are open hadware vendors such as Compaq - HP, IBM, Dell, & Gateway. Bu they have no loyalty to M$ & all offer *nix flavoured solutions.
M$ realizes it is one company - that the entire computing industry is moving against. (Hell even Mac jumped on the *nix bandwagon).
Yes it is cyclical - one company gaining crazy market share - that company being called the "evil empire". That once could also be said of Digital - or IBM.
I like the way the cycle is heading.
___________________________
I'm not a geek, but I play one on TV.
I highly suggest using DemoLinux to show people how easy Linux is to use. It has a lot of powerful features such as StarOffice, GIMP, etc. and requires no install to run. First download the .iso and burn it to a CD. Make a boot disk using the CD-ROM, insert both disks into the computer you want to demonstrate Linux on, and reboot. The computer will restart and load X Windows automatically. DemoLinux also gives the user the option to install Linux to the hard drive if the user likes it. This is a great way to demo Linux to anyone, a business or a home user.
~Ken
Microsoft and the current DOJ lawyers started with the economy card. Sue Microsoft, see the economy tumble. Next we had a judge whose orders were to settle this, out of court. Why? It appears she has a lack of both Anti-trust and technology experience.
Then in a secret meeting between Microsoft's attorney (a former Reagan appointee) and the lead attorney for the DOJ (a current appointee), a deal less restrictive than accepted prior to the trail was accepted without the state's knowledge.
This is an op-ed piece supplied for the consumption of U.S. District Judge Colleen Kollar-Kotelly. As we start to enter the 60-day review period, this will give Microsoft more leverage to indicate they do have competition and the deal is fair. Of course, the exclusions put into the deal also ensure Open source will not be considered a legitimate third party to receive any advance notice or right to information.
In addition, they can force those who do have 'the right" to sign non-disclosures, under the guise of ensuring security, and sue anyone attempting to provide access to open source. Then they begin legal action against anyone who uses the information to enhance open source.
While it may make us "feel good" to know we are considered a threat, we are not. A threat is something you do not have a solution for. They have a solution and it is about to become a legal document by which they can exclude all open source from access.
Consider how far we could push Linux, BSD, etc... into an environment where merely communicating with the existing NT network would be considered illegal. A simple API change we cannot mimic or duplicate and they can tie it up in court for years. The mere specter of such possibility will keep us out of many shops.
Now is the time to re-read Ralph Nader's letter and create your own. Keep it specific to the agreement, factual and polite. This will become a legal document, not an editorial or slashdot forum. Revise, reread, and revise some more. When the 60-day period begins, print it off, and mail it. Start working on it now to be ready when the time comes.
Note to editors: can we put up a forum where people can post their letters for comment?
It does make a great platform for stressing where Linux has shortcomings again though. Linux calendar apps which support multiple users still seems like a weak area. I have yet to see anything that resembles MS Project on Linux, which would prevent even the technically inclined PHB's who'd be interested in trying the OS from giving it a shot. I think we should also leverage the Linux strengths by tieing all the remote administration potential of the OS into some GUI apps which could be used to propigate configuration changes and software updates across hundreds or thousands of machines on the LAN, possibly using broadcast packets. Updating an entire web server farm with a click of a button would be a pretty compelling feature and Linux is more that capable of it.
We don't have to write those customers that Microsoft has claimed either. We should be out there talking to them and asking them what they would like to see in Linux. Ask them what the OS needs for them to switch to it. Such feedback would be very valuable for enhancing this OS.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Slackware for a distro.
OpenOffice for an office suite.
Mozilla for a browser.
KDE for a window manager.
There are plenty of examples of easy to use software for Linux. I use all of the above on a daily basis, and you'll hear no complaints from me.
"Some middle-manager salesman guy writes that Linux is *the* threat..."
Actually, his quote simply said that "Linux is the threat" - no emphasis. Then, the register's article leads with the quote, adding a Nazi reference ("...memo to his Sales Brownshirts..."), and adding the "*the*" emphasis. Then, slashdot picks up the register's emphasis, puts it in the article title, and attributes it to Microsoft.
It's not news that slashdot and the register are anti-Microsoft, but they both lose credibility when they manipulate the words that they attribute as quotes from someone else.
Slashdot is entertaining like pro wrestling is entertaining
I've been getting email from people about this '
leaked memo' and wanted to let those interested know that in no way has our roadmap changed.
We were contacted by Microsoft, and they asked questions about how we have deployed Linux and what issues are keeping us from using more Microsoft products. We expressed concerns about licenses, and about the number of people that can be run on Windows in a centralized environment on the same hardware (about 1 to 5 compared to Linux) and how many more people we would have to hire if we moved in that direction. We had a short meeting with them to review the XP product line and see it running in person. We have some stand alone PCs that are running at our library for patrons and at some point those machines probably will be running XP, so we wanted to check it out. We also run some Citrix/WTS products on NT and wanted to review what their plans are for the future to ensure we can continue to run those programs.
We are still seeing Penguins for almost everything running here and in fact there are 3 servers sitting 15 feet from my desk that are spinning RedHat 7.2 right now and being prepared to enter production.
Nothing has changed...and we certainly appreciate those people that cared enough to drop us a line.
Dave Richards
City of Largo, FL (Yes, "City of Progress")
Systems Administrator.
Not totally relevant, but I like pointing out that most senior Microsoft execs are very technical. Senior VP of Office was originally a developer, Group VP for Platforms has a cs doctorate, Senior VP for Services was originally a developer, etc, etc. If they're not CS, they have math backgrounds.
I don't think he's talking about low-end stuff. He's not bitching and moaning about Samba printservers -- he's talking about big UNIX applications that probably have strategic value that are not being migrated to Windows.
And he's practically admitted defeat -- he knows that customers trying rid themselves of expensive midrange stuff by doing a straight migration will find Linux the cheapest bet.* What he's going for is find places where these apps are being upgraded, rewritten, or replaced and make sure that Microsoft has their salesbots in there before the UNIX guys go forward with their solution.
All in all, I doubt he cares about 'legacy' apps. His real worry is that Linux migrations are an opportunity for Java and other cross-platform middleware to come into the picture.
(* Even Microsoft's migration of Hotmail made heavy use of Interix [UNIX] as a compatibility layer instead of rewriting the software to be Windows native.)
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Microsoft makes in money like the auto makers make thier money. By constant maintanance and upgrades. Cars are made to fall apart.....Then they buy a Honda and get Linux on their computer. If Hardware companies are smart (IBM, Compaq, Dell, HP, etc listen up) They can sell great hardware running this opperating system...
Yeah, except those hardware companies also make money from planned obsolescence. Dell in particular. Their motherboards seem designed to limit expansion possibilities. Particularly in regard to memory. IDE controllers that don't support big drives, etc. Why would a PC have an upper limit on RAM expansion that is only 2 times what the machine ships with? (i.e. back in 1995, a 32MB machine limited to 64 MB. A recent machine with 128 MB limited to 256 MB. etc.)
In contrast inexpensive machines built by mom-and-pop shops (my Linux machine at home) typically have 768 MB or higher RAM limitations, and that was three years ago.
Surely I'm not the only one to notice this trend in PCs?
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
You have muddy thinking, let me clean up and respond to each argument.
>>Linux is not remotely a threat on the desktop - as long as it has multiple different GUI's
Linux only has one GUI, X.
>> Linux is not remotely a threat on the desktop - as long as it has multiple window managers and toolkits
A company can standardize on a single window manager. A toolkit is what is used to build a window manager.
>> Linux is not remotely a threat on the desktop - as long as it has a lack of a decent browser or office solution.
Mozilla is great, and a lot more standards compliant than Windows. Star Office is as good as Windows, but just as bloated. Gnome and KDE each have a full set of very good office apps that are integrated. So, linux has three different excellent office app suites, just standardize your company on one of them.
>> FreeBSD is better performing.
Not according to the bench tests that IBM has been doing on the function calls that are used. And since everything above the kernel is pretty much the same, (i.e. gnu tools and compliers) then whoever has faster kernel calls wins. Linux has the faster kernel, since 2.2. 2.4 just widened the performance gap.
>> Windows will always have 95% of the market.
Wrong again. Windows only has 90% of the desktop market. And only 30% of the server market.
>> Not everyone can afford £60,000 a year for a Unix export, especially small businesses, to keep a server running. MS ensure that a boss can do such things part time - this has really driven the internet revolution, by opening access to the internet to many who would have been cut out by a skills shortage before.
Yeah, and most of these admins are _so_ good that their machines are _still_ infected with the code red, blue, green and purlple polka dot worms that are _still_ constantly attacking other peoples web servers. With anymore ease of use the whole internet will come to a grinding halt.
>> The only way Linux will threaten this is if they start behaving in a more proprietry fashion by gearing things at the consumer and not at the Linux Geek.
Err, I think you are talking about ease of use. What that has to do with being proprietary is beyond me. The two are not mutually exclusive, ie, something can be free and easy to use, or it can be proprietary and hard to use.
> I agree that this memo looks like nothing more than ordinary motivational rah-rah blather. What I absolutely adore is the sense of entitlement.
Have you never dealt with salespeople before? They all have that sense of entitlement, that's their job. They're the front-lines evangelizers, they have to be fired up to do their job well against other sellers who are also fired up.