Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Responds to Leaked Memo
AbbeyRoad writes "CNN, has a
story on Microsoft's response the
internal memo previous leaked:
"Microsoft believes many of its efforts to market its products against Linux and open source are backfiring, according to a memo posted on the Internet. ... Microsoft declined to comment on the authenticity of the memo, and did not answer when asked if it believes its marketing against Linux and open source has been effective. ... Microsoft spokesman Jon Murchinson said: ''The document in question seems to suggest that the basis for evaluating products has been long-term customer value, and that's something we agree with. I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value.'' ""
''The document in question seems to suggest that the basis for evaluating products has been long-term customer value, and that's something we agree with. I think our marketing is geared toward that issue, toward long-term customer value.''
hmm.. marketing and product development are two VERY different things, no?
A CNN story and a Slashdot article about 39 words of vapid marketspeak from some random Microsoft employee.
Martin Brooks / Slayer99 #linux / UIN 2178117
"Rather than attempting to promote Linux and Open Source as worthwhile competitors, Slashdot and its parent company insist on attacking Microsoft."
/.
You are implying that VA Software created the memo and leaked it to CNN?
It would seem that the article was written by a bona fide news source, and that it is onl;y being echoed here.
Fact is, the battle for market supremacy in the server room and on the desktop is of paramount importance to most of the readers of
Fact is, Microsoft itself created this "bad news."
You imply it is cowardly to post these articles rather than extol the virtues of the competition. Hmmm, I daresay that you are being cowardly for attacking the messenger rather than the message.
"Apple is every bit as proprietary as Microsoft, even going so far as to monopolize their hardware market and filing numerous lawsuits to combat those attempting to mimic their 'look and feel', something that even Microsoft does not attempt to do."
The most famous suit was the one against Windows, and Microsoft.
They lost, BTW.
"I propose that this site state its purpose"
I think they do.
Look upward at the banner at the top of the screen.
It says "News for Nerds. Stuff that Matters."
I fail to see how this memo fails to qualify as exactly that.
They are dependant on the marketing and business schemes and not the quality of their product. If the above isn't working then they better become concerned.
Actually, Microsoft does produce a quality product, despite what the Linux-obsessed masses seem to think. It does have it's shortcomings, not the least of which being the price tag, but when it comes down to it, what Microsoft should be keeping in mind is that they have the edge when it comes to support and useability. Linux and Apache may well perform 10% faster, but an existing company typically has to hire a Linux admin to do that. Instead they can just throw money at buying a Windows Server License, IIS, and make a couple support calls to Microsoft to get it all up and running properly. If it ever breaks and the admin can't figure out the ridiculously simple administration tools, he can call Microsoft and have them fix it.
Sun does essentially the same thing, but is substantially more expensive, has less application support, and generally also requires hiring expert technicians. Microsoft products just do what they're supposed to do, and do them reasonably well. This is why Microsoft has the edge, it's EASY. MacOS might be a challenger if they had Enterprise level server support and hardware that didn't cost an arm and a leg, and third party support.
Lets face it, Linux has a long time to beat out Microsoft in Workstation land, and for companies that want to be able to hire any random Joe for pennies and not have to document every step of their network, Microsoft is more or less the only choice.
Interface, support, cost. The overhead to pay MS for software and support is less than hiring Senior UNIX Admins, and that's basically what it all comes down to.
If there is a God, you are an authorized representative. - Kurt Vonnegut Jr.
The increasing number of articles devoted to Microsoft is somewhat disturbing.
One great thing about Slashdot is cusomization. Almost everything is customizeable. That means that the Anti-MS zealots could choose to block every story except MS-related stories, effectively turning their Slashdot experience into the limit of what you're describing. They could then bash MS to their hearts' content.
Also, you could block out every MS-related story, and never see another one again. Why don't you just do that?
Belloc
I got more rhymes than Jamaica got Mangoes.
Nearest deep pocket is the rule of thumb in any civil suit.
That would be Red Hat, with their 200 million in the bank. Small change for a company like MS, but at least it could pay the legal fees if they won, and take down the largest pure play Linux company.
Of course, IBM might just have a problem with that little strategy, and has the muscle to beat MS into the ground, or at least cost them a lot of money. I could see IBM buying Red Hat just to avoid the precedent should MS win.
Red Hat knows this, which is why you don't see NTFS in their kernels, or MP3 players in their distro, things like that. They know they are the nearest deep pockets in a lot of these cases.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Sun does essentially the same thing...
...but is substantially more expensive...
...has less application support...
...and generally also requires hiring expert technicians.
Okay.
How so?
It depends on your point-of-view.
You'd rather have non-experts running systems that your business depends on? All but the smallest networks require experts from initial network architecture to end-user support.
Microsoft products just do what they're supposed to do, and do them reasonably well.
Other options, such as OS/2, Beos, Wordperfect, etc. have all come and gone at Microsoft's whims yet they were all arguable better than MS' offerings. Microsoft's products do approximately what their marketing department says they do, but not nearly as well as advertised. It's pretty rare that I'm actually impressed by one of Microsoft's products after I get to use it.
This is why Microsoft has the edge, it's EASY.
Not really. Microsoft's current edge really is founded on their downright predatory business and marketing tactics over the past two decades.
The overhead to pay MS for software and support is less than hiring Senior UNIX Admins, and that's basically what it all comes down to.
It really depends on the size of the network. UNIX scales better in cost as the size of the network increases. Unless, of course, the company is locked into Exchange, for example.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
And in other news, Microsoft STILL runs some of its servers on FreeBSD, Linux. Check out http://uptime.netcraft.com/up/graph/?host=a147.ms. a.microsoft.com
and
http://www.netcraft.com/whats/?host=ad.law10.hotma il.com
for info. (see how they try to secure this information by obscuring it down a few layers? How Effective!)
MS using linux is like Senator Joseph McCarthy carrying around The Communist Manifesto with him.
Really, I might believe one of these, maybe even 2 or 3, but 7? Come on...where are these coming from, and what are their motivations? Are these really leaked? or are these deliberate misinformation?
-- Who is the bigger fool? The fool or the fool who follows him? --
Oh Microsoft, you don't get it, let me count the ways.
Bad-mouthing Linux doesn't work. It fails because people _like_ Linux, and Linux _works_. What else can you say? Trying to tell people that a free operating system has a higher cost of ownership than their product which costs hundreds or thousands of dollars makes Microsoft look foolish. Arguing that "you'll need to pay people to maintain it" is almost laughable.
Microsoft, the life cycle of your products is deplorable. It used to be that businesses were willing to cede that due to hardware advances, they'd have to replace office PCs every 3-5 years. That's no longer the case. The office staff will hardly tell a difference between a Celeron 800 and the new Pentium 4 machines. So, businesses are finally going to get some realistic life out of the investment. However, Microsoft still wants to maintain the same life cycle of their operating systems. Even worse, if you don't fit into their upgrade schedule, you have security problems that are likely to be unresolved as your version of their OS retires. Microsoft, people are understanding that the insecurities of your operating system _work in your favor_ to promote the obscenely short life-cycles of your product.
Microsoft fails to understand that their money grab in licensing changes, their unmitigated gall at calling their customers thieves via the BSA and many other ways of annoying the IT managers through-out the world has -- Microsoft, get ready for the clue here --
_alienated customers_!
That's right. Microsoft, take a long hard look at the likes of large monopolistic phone companies and see why people will opt for something that's not necessarily better, but tolerable in order to eliminate the intolerable dealings with Microsoft.
Only now do they produce some quality products. This can be attributed to the fact that they have buckets of money to pour into development. Money that can be extorted from other market segments that have no choice but to buy.
You don't think Microsoft spend $150 million improving IE just to give it away out of the goodness of their hearts? ($150 million according to trial testimony.)
You don't think, a few years ago, Microsoft was giving away Microsoft Money for free out of the goodness of their hearts? (Prior to giving up on the idea of killing Quicken and then trying to buy them instead.)
These are the classic tricks of the monopolist.
- You can give away products for free, subsidizing them from customers who are locked in to something else you make.
- You can develop quality products, after many poor releases that would have killed any other non-monopoly. Microsoft can afford as many screwed up releases as necessary to develop quality products. It simply doesn't matter. After some number of years, they'll get it right, and a whole new generation of Microsoft shills will appear to trumpet the goodness that is Microsoft.
Lets face it, Linux has a long time to beat out Microsoft in Workstation landA long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away, people were saying that anybody, including Microsoft has a long time to beat out IBM in PC land. Now we have commodity hardware, and Microsoft, not IBM, makes all the profits. And it didn't take very long either. By 1985/6 the war was over. Things can have a way of snowballing. Microsoft seems to be very much on the defensive.
You mentioned support and service. Modern Linux distros are getting pretty darned good if you hadn't noticed. Now both Red Hat has announced their intentions to go after the desktop. SuSe, and others, too.
for companies that want to be able to hire any random Joe for pennies and not have to document every step of their network, Microsoft is more or less the only choice.
Trained chimpanzees for admins? No documentation? Sounds like either:
- A recipe for disaster
- nothing custom or innovative being done (In which case, the same reasoning would apply to Linux, install out of the box, nothing custom.)
This is why Microsoft has the edge, it's EASYThis is why Microsoft has the edge: It's a MONOPOLY!
With an already segmented market!
(Segmentation is another monopolist trick. Take an identical product, and at no cost, or tiny cose, turn it into multiple market segments. Hence, XP Home, XP Embedded, XP Pro, XP Advanced Server, XP DataCenter, XP Media PC, etc. Got competition in one segment? Crush it, subsidizing it by charging the other segments.)
Those who would give up liberty in exchange for security and DRM should switch to Microsoft Palladium!
To state the obvious, Sun isn't Microsoft. Microsoft is a convicted, predatory monopolist. They have the money and the power to completely ruin OSS, as soon as they figure out how to do it. Don't think they aren't trying.
OSS isn't a company they can buy. It is difficult to sqaush something that is intangible and revolutionary. This is interesting to me because I love OSS, GNU/Linux in particular. I don't want to see it go away, and I want to know what Microsoft thinks about it, and what their strategies are. I want everyone else to know this too, especially the people who are able to fight against Microsoft.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
You must be mistaken. According to Microsoft, Windows 2000 NEVER BSODs. And neither do XP, NT4, Me, 98, 95, WfW, 3.1, or 3.0 either.
On the other hand, Linux DOES freeze from time to time. Happened to me this afternoon. Had to go all the way to the neighboring cube and telnet to the machine and run top to see which X-windows application was eating 99% of the cpu time, and then kill -9 it. That's what happens when one develops real time applications under root. Lucky for me, Linux has the
Yeah, sure, Linux is something only those fanatics at
When MS stops releasing service packs and hot fixes, what choice will you have? Can you afford to be a target for every script kiddie on the planet? It's not open source where anyone can pick up and maintain old versions of the OS.
.doc format at every release. If you want to continue to seamlessly integrate with other users of MS products, you will have no choice but to upgrade. This will probably force you to upgrade your OS if nothing else will.
MS announced that Office 11 won't run on Windows 98. What do you bet that Office 12 won't run on Win2K? History proves that MS changes the
So the answer to your question is "Microsoft." They are pretty good at forcing people to upgrade through planned obsolecence.
IMHO, not releasing sercurity fixes for some of their not-so-old products is a crime. Win98 is only 4 years old, Nt4 was sold as recently as 2 years ago. MS has made MORE than enough off those products to support them (from a security standpoint) for at LEAST 10 - 15 years.
Most other OS vendors charge customers an annual maintenance fee (generally about 20% of the purchase price) per year if you want to continue to get updates. IBM still maintains and supports OS's and HARDWARE for machines that are 25 years old or MORE - and they don't have NEAR the userbase of ANY windows product.
MS has other options too. Sell off support to some third party company. Let THAT company charge for, and provide updates for MS's old code. MS WILL NOT do that because it breaks their business model of forcing upgrades.
Now I'll go out on a limb here (I'm not an MS fan by any stretch of the imagination) but MS has every right to do this (yeah, I just said above that it should be a crime, but it currently isn't.) For the way they designed their revenue stream, it's the right move for them. I'll go further to say that anyone who buys MS products should be aware of this, and plan (budget) for this. It's part of your TCO. Note that you can actually go to MS Licensing v 6 and pay through the nose anually, but that still won't get you support for older releases.