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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.'' ""
I'm just curious. Let's say MS finds an IP "violation" in the Linux kernel, in some fairly core area. Which of these do they have the right to sue, and who would they most likely sue?
1. Linus.
2. Developers who wrote IP violating code.
3. Red Hat / SuSE / Debian / Mandrake / other distros.
4. Companies selling Linux-based devices e.g. Tivo.
5. Companies deploying Linux in their workplaces.
6. Cowboyneal.
Basically what I'm asking here is this: If Linux were found to be in violation of someone's (MS's) IP, would it be illegal to sell/distribute Linux or just to "consume" it?
...that MS is more and more treated like some political institution rather than a company? E.g., the U.S. v. MS posed the two almost as equivalent entities. I can't imagine all this chatter about "leaked" memos from IBM or Adobe or Apple. Bill Gates is the potentate, MS the Empire, and so on -- at least as this is made out. Maybe Linus Torvald is Martin Luther?
The paradigm is unique to the industry I think.
Sadly, I'll have to agree with this. I'm an NT Admin. I make my daily bread by supporting and using MS OS's. I just can't find a gig that'll pay me to Admin (or even use...) a *NIX OS.
Flame me however you may (not the poster, just anyone who reads these words), but I have to put food on the table somehow, and I have yet to find a way to do that with *NIX. Perhaps I'm not looking hard enough (and that could very well be, but) I have an OK paying gig running an MS shop that is a 10 min drive from my house. That's pretty hard to beat.
Alhough I certainly do not feel passionately about Microsoft, they are the reason I have a good paying job. It's mostly because their OS is crappy and needs constant support, but beside the point. I have a good job because MS exists.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
I disagree wholeheartedly. 2k has been FAR more stable than XP Pro in my experience. 2k is just about as stable as Linux is, and my applications rarely if ever crashed under it. XP on the other hand has totally locked on me on several occasions and frequently causes applications to crash...the same applications that never crashed under 2k.
That combined with the major speed hit over 2k and the DRM EULAs is enough. MS should've left out the bloat they added to XP...about the only useful new additions are superior Plug and Play and ClearType. Those are not worth the degraded stability and 30% lower performance IMHO.
While your poor attempt at humor is noted, the facts are that many larger businesses / government agencies use the same software for much longer time periods than the typical Microsoft product lifetime. Many systems are custom software - software that usually needs only minor enhancements over its lifetime, or continually evolving depending on business need.
In looking at TCO, the MS numbers begin to fail when you take into the constant cost of licenses, upgrades, re-deployments, re-porting custom software, constant re-training / recertification of staff to handle the "latest and greatest" versions of windows, etc. Many of these costs are hidden, but valid. If you look at any flavor of UNIX, they haven't changed much in how they work or how you interface to them.
It wouldn't be so bad if MS just continued to improve their core (kinda like every other OS on the planet does), but it seems that with every revision or so they replace core functionality, radically change
look and feel, interfaces, API's, management tools, etc. This costs business big money. It's that constant sprial of useless updates and repurchasing the same core functionality over and over again.
Many (most?) businesses were caught blindsided by the true scope of the problem, and many MS pundits STILL don't understand. It's easy to get caught up in the "ease of use" arguments, and the relativly low upfront cost (although the upfront costs is nowhere NEAR as low as it used to be.) Now, many businesses are stuck with proprietary MS based systems and face a potentially HUGE cost of migrating to other platforms. It's no wonder so many balk, especially in a down economy.
On the good side, businesses and governments world-wide are beginning to wake up and realize that MS's answer isn't as good as they were led to believe. They are finding that they don't have the flexability, reliability, or control that they want, and the price is much higher than they expected.
OK, so read the above carefully. In NO place did I say MS is bad, or that MS software is bad. I AM saying that if you buy into the MS paradigm, you are going to pay, and pay, and pay many times over for only incremental improvements in technology, and the true total costs of doing this is much higher than other competing systems.
Again, when MS stops releasing security fixes for you product, then you will have no choice. That is not an issue for open-source systems, and other vendors of commercial OS's generally support their OS's for MUCH longer than MS does. Sun is still providing updates for Sunos 4 which is something like 8 years old, IBM still supports mainframe OS's from over 20 years ago, HP does the same.
Of course if you LIKE getting hacked and your business doesn't depend any info stored on these old systems, then stay with the old stuff. No big deal to ME.