Dell CIO Says "Unix is Dead"

An anonymous reader writes "I thought this might spur some good discussion on this board, including jabs at Dell and MS, which I always enjoy reading. Dell's CIO believes that the end of Unix is here, in fact his opening slide in a recent presentation was "Unix is dead." Specifically, he talked about the savings he claims in moving Dell's Oracle databases from Solaris to Red Hat.

Comments

Re:Same old

[nomadic]

Didn't ask you.

Re:Learn to spell, Dude.

[Anonymous Coward]

$gal,
I notice your posts frequently, because you comment on most stories, and your comments are usually interesting enough to be mod'd up.
However, I would like to bring to your attention the fact that Slashdot is basically a men's club -- when someone makes a post, no one thinks twice about referring to the parent as "he", and many times crude and sexist comments, and ones that presuppose that nerds are all male and interested in pornography, are mod'd up to 4 and 5 and stay there.
In this atmosphere of exclusion, it does not help that basically the only comment on most stories that refers to its poster as female is yours. Regardless of your gender, and regardless of the fact that you're the one posting this (i.e. it would be just as bad to say: yes this geek is a GIRL, etc, and point at someone else's journal), it is harmful to people aspiring to demigod admin status that the only people of their demographic (which is a majority no less), are represented in the sex industry.
There's nothing wrong with sex, but as you probably realize, for historic reasons it is very disempowering for a professional (many IT professionals are on Slashdot) to think of an aspiring professional based first on the sexual implications, if she is female, and only later about any possible professional skills she might have.
How many people, supposing you female, responded to you based on what you had to say, and for example congratulated you on being a positive rolemodel to the many women who also read slashdot? Whereas, how many people, on the other hand, responded instead to the sexual connotations of your "gender".
Do you have any idea how hurtful it is that when someone who is female does anything worthwhile, there are slashdot comments that stay at +5, among just a few others, about unfortunately how butt-ugly she must be.
Literally the best way to enter this community as an acknowledged female is to say you have a geek boyfriend or husband -- acceptance is based on sleeping one's way to the top.
I'm male, and I feel a need to add this so that I won't be flamed by people who are absolutely bigotted, and would not consider objectively my viewpoint as detailed above if I were female, but will have nothing to say to me now.

If you'd like to talk more about this, feel free to say hi to me on AIM at "cl no harvesting ay2z". (obviously remove no harvesting and the spaces.)

Thanks for your consideration.

Robert.

Re:Disruptive technologies and Dell

[llywrch]

> Dell can't stay loyal to Microsoft and not go down with them.

Maybe, but every Dell employee is more interested in keeping his employer in business than sucking up to Microsoft; they make nice to MS only because Dell's bottom line depends on good terms with Bill & Co. While even now it's still not crystal clear that Linux has the momentum to take over the server space (although I would say it's only a matter of time before it does), they have to watch what they say for fear of pissing off Redmond. So I'd guess right now Dell is making all sorts of cooing noises to their contacts at Microsoft, while preparing behind the scenes for a possible Linux win in the server space. Once that happens, they'll be able to shrug & say ``But we have to sell what the market wants to buy" & begin the inevitable migration from their dependency on Windows, perhaps even making a serious effort to sell Linux desktops.

Then it will be just a question of how quickly Dell can reposition itself to join the Linux seachange. Without a lot of research, I wouldn't bet that Dell can't do it -- nor would I bet that they can.

Geoff