Slashdot Mirror
Linux Lands Big Bank Account
An anonymous reader writes "The European arm of Banco do Brasil, the largest bank in South America, is switching from Windows to Linux to cut costs and centralise support. The long-term strategy is to phase out Windows completely. Linux is also being used to replace Windows on desktops. Vnunet has the whole story."
A sweaty Steve Ballmer was rushed to the hospital this morning after suffering a massive heart attack.
Doctors clam the heart attack was brought on by his recent over commitment to winning back his old customers. One Doctor was quoted as saying "He's just too over booked."
Karma: The shiznight, mostly because I am the Drizzle.
Microsoft: Nanny nanny boo boo! Bill: Nanny nanny boo boo! Bwaaaaahaaaahaaaahaaahahahaahahahahahahahaha!
Ser iously now. DOS-based systems have historically been convenient for embedded and other systems that don't have the power to provide complex services. I say DOS-based because there are many different DOS lookalikes that serve the same purposes. Unfortunately, the design of Windows has built too strongly upon assumptions made in DOS, and even though it is no longer running on DOS in newer versions, certain problems do exist due to the system's background. On the other hand, the design of UNIX has always been a better architecture than the DOS-based operating systems for complex, flexible systems that provide reliable services. Although it has many shortcomings, these are being addressed today so the architecture is changing to support the today's needs. Linux gives business the ability to use an architecture close enough to UNIX that it can be considered the same for discussion purposes. It has the support of programmers and heavyweight companies worldwide. It can be customized by anyone for any purpose. Corporations and governments can be sure that no company will hold them or their data hostage. And there are no per-user licensing costs, regardless of Total Cost of Ownership arguments. I strongly believe that these advantages will eventually displace Windows in such a serious manner that, although it will continue to exist, I think it will become one of many "front-end" systems on the market, and Microsoft will have a very difficult time differentiating it from other products so that they will have a competitive advantage with it. Even if assholes, I mean, Microsoft, tries to compete by releasing code or whatever, it'll never help them because nobody cares. And their code is probably a pile of ugly crap that somehow works only because a hundred zillion programmers are hacking it together so that it works somehow. Although they'll probably be around for a while, I have a feeling Microsoft won't be so powerful anymore, and FINALLY, computing won't be held hostage by them. So there... nanny nanny boo boo. I hope that in 10 years, Microsoft's entire distribution will account for 1% of the entire software market. And I hope they don't spread to other markets. Actually, what I really hope is that they'll go out of business through huge fsck-ups that will leave all Windows-based systems crippled, as they are tied into the existance of the company. That would be cool. Microsoft SUCKS! Linux RULES! Microsoft SUCKS! Free Software RULES! Microsoft SUCKS! Open Source RULES! Microsoft SUCKS! BSD RULES! Microsoft SUCKS! Talking shit on them RULES! Microsoft SUCKS!
To: Linus
Subject: Patch to move all rounding errors into a Cayman Islands bank account
superman-III.diff.gz follows....
Anyone want to explain to me how a whopping 9 boxes is considered a "big" account? I may be a bit confused, but last I checked, 9 is a relatively small number. True, not as small, as say negative 10 billion, but since the number of computers can either be be zero or greater, 9 is relatively small. I mean, the only way you could have fewer boxes is if you had 8,7,6,5,4,3,2,1, or 0 boxes. 9 machines. Whoa. Now, I am blown away. I'm thinking that /. should just start reporting every time someone installs any kind of OSS software at home. Headline, "Bob Smith of BE, NJ installed Redhat on 10 PC's at home today!" Now 10. That would be impressive. More so than 9. One more, actually.
So let's see, we go to the MD of an old-skool UNIX place and say "we want to use Linux", the MD says "So tell me, who's switching to Linux and who's switching to Windows?".
We say, "Banco de Brazil is using it, that's 70,000 employees and millions of customers", Microsoft say "Hard Rock Cafe dumped Linux in favour of Windows", and we say ".... and now they have an average uptime of 4 DAYS".
Zing! We win that round I think..... 4 days is pathetic even for Windows. Max uptime of a month? What on earth are they doing??
Noticed this at the bottom of the page. "The number of Unix installations has grown to 10, with more expected." -- The Unix Programmer's Manual, 2nd Edition, June, 1972
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Go canucks, habs, and sens!
Dear Mr Employee #115932,
You have been fired as under the Company Act Section #3.4 "Don't tell your boss what to do".
Sincerely,
Your Boss.
All your Peso's are belonging to US
Anyone care to make a wager? Next issue of slashback, assuming the eds will swallow their pride to print it, will include a story about how the same bank is buying brand new Microsoft licenses at disgustingly discounted prices... "Leye nux" what now?
[o]_O
Finally a step towards debugging the machine that led to the imprisonment of Mr. Buttle, shoe repairman, instead of Harry Tuttle, illegal freelance Heating Engineer.