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Ellison: Linux Will Soon Decimate MS Windows
cioxx writes "Speaking to a few-hundred ISVs at an Oracle-sponsored event in New York, Larry Ellison made a bold prediction , also covered in Infoworld, stating: "(Microsoft has) already been killed by one open-source product. Slaughtered, wiped out, taken from market dominance to irrelevance [...]", referring to Apache's displacement of MS IIS server. He continues on with a claim that battle for datacenter dominance is looming with a clear advantage on the side of Open-Source platforms, and desktop would follow once Star Office becomes completely "usable" to compete with MS Office. "And it's going to happen to them again on Linux." Newsforge also has a related article on Oracles ongoing linux efforts.
on PostgreSQL and MySQL.
why should the market forces that apply to MS not apply to Oracle?
Build those yachts while the sun shines, Larry!
Humorous signatures are over-rated.
So how does that explain the chaos from Code Red?
it is great news to read Larry Ellison telling nice words about Open Source Software
I had to deal only remotely with Oracles licensing habbits. Seemed even more complicated than "open license" from MS.
I had to deal closer with Oracles interpretation of SQL-Standards "we don't obey them, we set them"
I had to deal with Oracles "bundled utilities" - documentation-files running across 400 screen pages. Comments like "if you want to change a tipped command, just simply erase it and type it new (decades after GNU readline)Where is the big difference in the companies attitude to Microsoft? Am I to blind to see?
MS wants to get people used to having a MS badged device in their home. One that just works, doesn't bluescreen etc, so that people are comfortable with it. They can then lever other services onto the platform; TiVo like capabilites, email, web browsing etc. This XBox follow up will be the hub of a home network.
Sony are aiming for a similar thing with the Playstation line. So far they have a head start on consumer trust.
You may think me a tired, old, cynic. I'd have to disagree about the tired bit.
Its not trying to be an IIS clone.
Other OS products are trying to implement tomorrow what Microsoft did yesterday. You can't beat someone in a race if you're trying to follow in their footsteps.
I do believe that Microsoft's power will fade, due in large part to Office competitors. I can't see how Microsoft can maintain their Office monopoly when they keep rachetting up the price. Even the OEM version, bundled with a new PC, is several hundred dollars. So many people will turn to alternatives, like MS Works. Once many people are running scaled back versions like Works, then some people will start realizing that StarOffice (and others) are better, and even cheaper. Not everyone will switch, but all you need is a critical mass, which will give competitors enough money to reinvest in improving their office suites, allowing them to compete head to head with the full version of Office. Microsoft will have to cut prices for an indefinite period, which will lower profits. Lower profits in the Office division will reduce or eliminate their ability to absorb losses in other divisions, forcing a retreat from other markets. Sure, they have large cash reserves, but you'd be amazed how fast you can blow through billions of dollars when you're forced to compete for the first time in years.
The only thing that's needed, as I see it, is a competitor to Windows. I would love for someone to make Linux into something the average computer user would be comfortable using, but I just don't think it'll ever happen. I'd love for OS X to run on commodity hardware, but I don't think that'll happen either. So I'm not sure that Microsoft will ever lose the desktop OS monopoly. I can always hope though.
"The question of whether a computer can think is no more interesting than that of whether a submarine can swim" -EWD
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What's not usable about OpenOffice.org now?
The one steady complaint I hear is "doesn't do a perfect job of opening Microsoft Office formats". THat complaint is, even if true, ridiculous. If OpenOffice.org is to replace MS Office, sure, the path to getting there is easier of people don't have to notice, but eventually the proprietary MS formats would become irrelevant. This isn't a real criticism. Might as well criticise Word for not being able to open all those legacy LaTeX files that scientists and mathemticians have all over the places, huh?
(Not that I consider anything legacy about LaTeX myself... I still think that is definitely the right way to do large and technical documents.)
The only realy complaint that I've got about OOo is the support for animations in Impress. It seems to crash on Flash animations even on computers where I've got the Flash plugin installed... and it seems to depend on the Flash plugin from mozilla, rather than from itself. First, I'd much rather there were an open vector animation format out there for OOo to use, but that's not necessarily OOo's fault; if there is one, it doesn't have widespread acceptance and prominence. But, even beyond that, I haven't figured out how to embed MPEG or similar animations into OOo presentations, nor have I figured out how to get OOo to put its screen to the back so that if I hack in mplayer via a command line script (not the best interface for most people using Impress, but one that works for me), the full screen animation can even be seen.
As far as I'm concerned, solve that issue in Impress, and OOo is way more than anything I'd want out of an office suite like that.
Well, OK, and the equation editor is severely limited. (Only 8 colours?) Plus it's a pain... I speak TeX equations, and am resisting learning a new one. Right now, I usually use TeX and ImageMagick to put equations in my Impress presentations as transparent PNG images.
What are the things that people like Larry Ellison think are missing that make it only "almost" usable?
-Rob
Not true. It's derived from the term for punishment for Roman legions, in which every tenth man was executed.
Actually, where IIS is dominant is in Workgroup servers on Intranets. Companies have departmental websites, and the administrative secretary and team leaders can open up the web pages with Microsoft Office if they're served on IIS. It cleanly prompts them for a password when they choose 'save' in Word and the web page is updated.
It's kinda one of the things that Netscape was hoping to use their proprietary Server/Client features for before Microsoft drove them out of that market. And it's a big revenue area for Web Servers, unlike where Apache does well. Apache excels in the lose-money sector, where Internet sites are scrambling to find a revenue stream to back up their content.
I know, I know, this sounds like Microsoft marketing boilerplate, but it's how things are.
I just checked today these 10 top selling books in IT in one of the largest bookstores here in Brazil.
As you can see, not much for window~1 in there; people are buying books on Java, Linux, Operating Systens. And just one in 10 titles is specic to a M$ product - Excel.
-><- no
A contraire, Linux IS ready for the desktop, I started my study of a Linux as replacement for MS Windows XP last year ( August ) and haven't gone back to Windows since. You have easy to use GUI, the installation detected and supported all of my devices ( printer, scanner, sound card , etc ) and which help files and community support galore.
The feature list of Linux systems IMHO outdoes Windows XP by far, I especially like the ability to access my home system via my work computer ( Windows XP ) using putty and Cygwin. The stability is profound, the options it give you ( shell, GUI file system, etc. ) stuff Windows into a garbage can. And if you are ( like me ) and are forced to use MS IE at work with no other browsers allowed, its great to have the ability ( as I mentioned earlier in this post ) to be able to run it remotely from my home linux box.
I could go on for hours about what Linux has that Windows XP wish it had ( MPLayer, anyone ? ), but then I would be late for work,
Oopps, time to go, I hope I didn't make any major typos. Enjoy the post, and one more thing, for Gaming use WINE/WINEX. Nuff said.
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I can't afford a sig!
I think, in order to really get Linux moving on the desktop, there will need to be some fairly major and widespread use of desktop security holes in Windows. I think the problems with IIS security and stability are the main factors pushing MS out of that area. We know there are security problems with Windows desktops, but there are usually not very many widespread attacks on them. Which is good, but it's not bringing the matter into the light like it did with IIS.
I'm migrating the IIS setup to Apache and I see a few differences.
With samba shares, it's almost as easy to open a site for editing (\\server\site) but not as intuitive as FrontPage extensions (http://server/site).
Samba shares aren't accessible over the Internet without a VPN. People like editing sites at home the same way as at work.
Previewing in FrontPage works great since you're editing the same place you're browsing. With Samba, the relationship is broken and you must manually preview everything in your browser yourself, typing the full URL or navigating.
A great feature for Intranets/frontpage is source-control of the site, with checkin/checkout and ability to roll back a file from VSS to any prior version. It's all supported by the FrontPage client.
These are serious issues that I'm finding take a lot of time for "users" to deal with when the setup changes. What, you mean "http://server/site" is edited at "\\server\site"? What the hell is \\? Where am I? Did I leave the iron on?
I've considered the sourcesafe issue for my situation, and realized that a daily CVS would work fine, rather than every single check-in. Especially since most people wind up checking out and forgetting to check in. But for more version-sensitive documents, this could be a problem.
Not to mention the lack of a single decent WYSIWYG HTML editor in Linux, forcing the clients to continue to use FrontPage. If I'm wrong, PLEASE guide me to it.
# Erik