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Microsoft To Start Running Anti-Unix Ads
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.
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
If you're talking about an older version of UNIX tied to a specific vendor, Microsoft MAY have a point... but the little secret that Microsoft doesn't want you know is that Unix in general is becoming more open-source AND is becoming more of a commodity rather than a specific that runs only on specific hardware.
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.
Netcraft says:
The site www.wehavethewayout.com is running Rapidsite/Apa-1.3.14 (Unix) FrontPage/4.0.4.3 mod_ssl/2.7.1 OpenSSL/0.9.5a on FreeBSD.
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.
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.
Check out the "ecommunity" they want you to sign up for...
.jsp), no ASP/ASP.NET here...
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.
Bugs Bunny was right.
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?
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
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.
There really isn't anything Unix can do that Microsoft can't anymore
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.
Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
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.
Kind thoughts do not change the world
Yeah, but read the posts - it's about putting MS solutions where they fit - and quite frankly, I would kick any IT manager who would want a Unisys MS based solution instead of high end Sun server (or IBM, or ummm... SGI high end machine)
And as I've written - there is a reason why not a single company - Dell, Compaq, HP - wants to re-sell Unisys solution..
Hetz (Heunique)
The thing that riles me about this the most, is that Microsoft is such a hypocrite. They try and advertise Windows as a replacement for UNIX, yet the points they draw upon are even MORE obvious in a Windows based environment. Let me try, if I can, to explain myself..
"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.
"Hey! Unless this is a nude love-in, get the hell off my property!!"
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.
Note to ACs: I usually delete AC replies without reading them. If you want to talk to me, log in.
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.
Kevin Fox
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 (you have to remember MicroSoft Bob -- 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. 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.
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
Ash and Hickory, straight-grained and true, make excellent bludgeons, dandy for the cudgeling of vegetarians.
I wish you weren't right, but you are. This is exactly the kind of fractured thinking that leads to things like the decimation of the dotcom economy, and I have seen it run rampant in the last few companies I have worked at (yep, they all failed).
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.
"Your superior intellect is no match for our puny weapons!"
MsGeek put it pretty much the way it is. My company uses Exchange, and I hate it with a vengeance, but it does the job and I'd hate to be tinkering with user administration all day. Meanwhile, I'm doing the Postfix border e-mail gateways, as a minor aside to my job.
/. article, the big danger is that managers believe NT is the easy solution. It is not. At one stage, my company needed an NT sysadmin for a remote location. Something like 20 people applied, most of the MCSE's, one a former taxi driver. We hired the taxi driver. He was the only one who, when confronted with a broken machine, asked the right questions and got the problem solved. If the MCSE's had their hearts in this business, they'd have gotten the MCSE because they had the experience and wanted to get proof of it. The ones we encountered in the job market approached it the other way around, had no innate interest in the field but believed getting certified would compensate for that.
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.
Bert Driehuis -- All I asked was a friggin' rotatin' chair. Throw me a bone here, people.
Ok, ok... since no one else will do it, I will.
... Novell".
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.
-- "Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to live at the expense of everybody else."