Slashdot Mirror
Ballmer on Windows Server 2003, Linux
no_demons writes "Microsoft's CEO, Steve Ballmer, has given an interview to CNet about Windows Server 2003 and Linux. He claims that 'our customers have seen a lot more innovation from us than they have seen from that [open-source] community'. Discuss." Also in the news: two critical security vulnerabilities (MS03-014, MS03-015), and this piece about Windows 2003 mentioning that Microsoft is trying to develop a command-line only server.
So, this command line server, let me guess, the name will be MicroSoft Disk On Server V1.2?
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Open source is based on the very principles of communism...
But the biggest difference is that Linus isn't going to send you to N. Finland and have Alan Cox shoot you if you whine on /. about your latest/greatest kernel patch...
;)
And the best part is, it's so simple to use! It has only one command: "reboot."
Because direct implementation would require a complete rewrite of the codebase, anyone suspecting that the command lines you type will actually move a cursor and click on GUI elements internally, just without video output?
Then in response to the XBox,
Remember, we brought Windows 1 out in 1983...
I love interviews with Balmer.
We created tools that run across the code and understand almost all the attacks. Microsoft Research built a tool that can find almost all the buffer overflow problems
Yeah, that tool is called "a non-firewalled internet connection."
There are no Linux infidels is in any of the data centers, some of them. They are not within 100 miles. This is an illusion. They are trying to sell people on an illusion.
They tried to bring a small number of web and print servers through the backdoor but they were surrounded and most of their infidels had their links cut.
I can say, and I am responsible for what I am saying, that they have started to commit suicide under the walls of Redmond. We will encourage them to commit more suicides quickly.
You can go and visit those places. Nothing there, nothing at all. There are DRM checkpoints. Evrything is okay.
I've been wearing pants for more than 20 years, but I don't think my customers would appreciate if I decided to innovate in that area.
A chess master once told me: "Never neglect the obvious. Usually it's obvious because it's right."
"I will no longer be performing the monkey dance," said a sweaty, flatulent Steve Ballmer on Friday morning to a confused crowd at a Redmond Dunkin' Donuts. "I have decided to adopt the 'Iraqi Two-Step' as my favorite mode of expressing my inner funkitude." He then proceeded to bounce up and down, slap his chest and slice his head with a small sword.
"It his outer funk that worries me," said Randy Jarvis, a FedEx deliveryman who stopped a moment to watch the early morning spectacle. He held his nose against the olfactorius assault. "Geez, my eyes are watering. Does this count as a chemical weapon? Will I need to be decontaminated?"
Neither Geroge Clinton nor Tarik Aziz could not be reached for comment.
PS: I love how he said, "This is an interesting time." You think he knows that's a curse in many cultures?
--- Ban humanity.
I'd be very impressed if Microsoft actually came out with a command-line only version. The fact that "it's a very tangled subsystem" makes me wonder how possible that would be.
;)
They did already. It's called Microsoft LAN Manager.
My journal has hot
Wouldn't it be funny if he had then said:
Then we're going to go totally nuts, plug in the network cable and run something on it. Oh shit, I wasn't talking out loud just now, was I?
Sigs are bad for your health.
Keep in mind that Ballmer holds a Senior Management position at Microsoft, and that everything that's being said from the top level PHBs has to be translated first (top level management lives in a different universe, and possibly in a whole different dimension as the rest of us). Since my job at $BIG_CORP unfortunately involves contact with higher management levels, I can offer you the following helpful translation of some of Mr. Ballmer's quotes. This is not Microsoft-specific BTW, we just dissected a message from the CEO of our employer today and it wasn't any better.
Quote: "I'm not saying that it doesn't have some place for some customers, but that is not an innovative proposition."
Translation: "It's a big fat blimp on our threat radar. We're out to fry their asses before they get ours."
Quote: "On the other hand, in terms of putting a clear, simple proposition in front of the customer, I think we have a leading edge proposition."
Translation:"We'll make them an offer they can't refuse."
Quote: "I do think there are things that people don't understand very well about the new alternative, where it is important for us to help customers understand the issues."
Translation: "Our FUD tactics worked well in the past and I don't see why they shouldn't work as well in the future."
Quote: "[...] some people are choosing Linux. I don't think that is going to continue to be the case."
Translation: "Yeah, we're pretty scared about customers considering a switch and haven't really figured out how to counter that threat yet, but why admit it?."
Quote: "If the lead developer for this component chooses to do something else with his life, who will carry on the mantle for that?"
Ballmer's thoughts: "Let's hope the interviewer doesn't ask what happens if we decide to discontinue a product."
Quote: "There are still challenges in parts of Asia. We have seen improvements in Latin America."
Translation: "In Asia, they steal our software like there's no tomorrow. Latin America isn't really much better."
Quote: "By hook or by crook, so to speak, there will be 5-plus million servers, roughly, sold in the next 12 months."
Translation: "If this server consolidation thingy that's been going on lately is just a fad, we'll be doing fine. Otherwise, well..."
Quote: "everybody likes to talk about Google, which is fine. They are doing a good job as a company. But for traffic, Yahoo is doing quite well and we are doing quite well."
Translation: "Google is kicking our collective pasty white rumps so hard you woldn't believe it. Let's just hope they go public so we can buy them out."
Quote: "No, I don't anticipate making a change of that ilk [Licensing 6] in the foreseeable future."
Translation: "Our vendor-lock-in strategy worked, and now we have them by the balls."
"There are already a million monkeys on a million typewriters, and Usenet is NOTHING like Shakespeare." - Blair Houghton
enough with excuses, dude, CHANGE YOUR PANTS.
Microsoft Bob.
You need to restart your computer. Hold down the Power button for several seconds or press the Restart button.
Rumors are that the US goverment is going to appoint Balmer as the new Information minister for Iraq. "We need someone to match the format of former information minister Muhammed Saeed al-Sahaf in his formidable communication of current events" a spokesman for the Bush administration comments...