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Any Reason To Buy Microsoft?
zymano writes "This yahoo article says that almost everything enterprises once found unique to Microsoft they can now find somewhere else -- without some of the baggage that comes with Microsoft purchases, like ongoing security concerns and mystifying licensing practices and that in a recent survey of CIOs, Forrester Research found that about 25 percent of them were already in the process of replacing Windows servers with Linux."
Nobody ever got fired for buying Microsoft.
There are two reasons we're staying with MS. First off is the consistency across the board. It's not just a glib overgeneralisation to say that it helps admin, and from what I've seen of OSX server it has much the same advantages. To Admin one system is to admin another. To update, run, install and fix a service is consistent, and the need to retrain when a service is added just isn't there. We DO use Linux and BSD in some of our systems, and while the people exist who can administer those, the configuration for say, Apache, is wildly different to just about anything else, and anything else from each other. Just an observation.
The 2nd point is support. It's impeccable, and having guaranteed 24-hour help for those times when things foo bar up so badly we can't repair things is essential to running a service for our clients.
Those are two features of "going MS" that are important to us. Some people will not find they need both, or even either. I won't comment on their business practices, but suffice it to say that's their choice.
One reason :
/dev/hdd /cdrom
unmount
I love everything Linux, but seriously, what will my secretary do when her CD is stuck in the drive despite hitting the eject button furiously, and she doesn't know how to get it out ? And yes, I know you can learn Linux and it's not that hard and yada yada, but she's already taken months to leave her typewritter and get going under Windows. You think my secretary is an old thing from another generation that has become rare ? think again.
So, yeepee-doo for Linux, let Linux take over the world, but please leave my secretary under Windows so she can do her work.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
Corporate buyers and technologists are notoriously conservative and things like long term longevity of the company, market capitalisation, project history, locked in technologies and pure tradition (ie we have always bought from Microsoft) have a massive impact on buying decisions.
As someone once remarked to me, "No-one gets sacked for buying Microsoft software"...
So I think they'll be around mighty longer than anyone anticipates (providing they don't make a huge technological miscalculation). And judging by their past aggressiveness and competitiveness I would say they can't be written off yet.
When pricing a firm there is much much more to it than saying that someone else sells everything they do.
---- The Open Source Record Label : : LOCARECORDS.COM
Thank Microsoft for inventing the idea of Visual Basic and obstructions to the c++ standard that make it difficult if not impossible to port apps. This was done on purpose to force bussinesses to be dependant on Windows. Fact of the matter is during the 90's they viewed Microsoft as the good guys needed to set standards. Now its payback.
.net train even though they are critizing Microsoft's licensing practices. They will surely be locked in. Infact according to the Gartner group %50 of all companies are looking at .net migration! They just do not get it. Today its mostly Unix based but they are afraid that java might die under the almighty Microsoft view .net as a safe way to avoid risk managment.
I remember the old saying "Don't code it include it!". The point is that your apps are really just wrappers for some ms specific code.
If it took 30 years to replace cobal/IBM 370 code then it will take 30 years to get the com/.net/Windows back out again. I predict Windows to be used for 30 or 40 years thanks to the proprietariness of the whole environment.
Also look at prepackaged software. Its all Windows based. Peoplesoft, great plains accounting, autocad, etc.
Sadly many companies today are ready to jump on the
On another note Microsoft does make the best Office suites around. Not to mention I found no ide that approaches VC++. Vi is cool as a great text editor for many different langauges but it does not have autoword completion, autoclass completetion, class browsing extra that VC++ has. Kdevelop sucks goatballs and only eclipse is close. Unfortunatly its for java development.
http://saveie6.com/
What possible reason could there be for a technophobic secretary to need to mount a CD in the works machine. If she's not capable of coming to terms with the mount command then she shouldn't be installing software.
People usually needs a (strong) motivation to move, even if it leads to a better state.
Linux is not a threat to Windows. The general behaviour of MS against it's custommers is.
Facts: (AFAIK)
_ Windows XP has been out for a while now.
_ With such an amount of time, there likely more hardware update needed (and applied) for a lot of computers.
_ A set of 3 changes triggers the mandatory registration process.
_ To have a locked computer on sunday morning because you just installed a RAM upgrade is really a pain. (*)
_ To have a very unpleasant MS guy on the phone Monday morning really improves your general bad feeling about MS and Windows. (**)
I know a few people who experienced that kind of story those last six months. Most were MS tolerant. Some are now planning to give a try to a Linux distribution (SuSE).
Since this kind of trouble is going to happen more and more, I think that MS is more a threat to itself than Linux.
(*) real story
(**) part 2 of the real story
Irrelevant news and morons using moderation to mod down what they disagree on. 2018 resolution: so long.
Reasons MS works in corporate environments:
1. Pre-trained user base = nil training cost for MS Office users
2. So many corporate apps that can be run on a variety of databases/servers, yet demand MS desktop OS's for their client app that is required. Many of these setups have no intention of moving to anything other than windows for the client side of things.
Many organizationss have Win2K clients that log into a Domain provided by a Linux box running SAMBA. Once set up properly, it can be a Domain Controller and also replaces many of the other tasks that a 2K Server does, and without the huge license fee for the server (based on the number of clients connecting).
Because people who have businesses care very much whether or not they succeed or fail. Microsoft has succeeded, in most cases, to convince those that matter that if they go with the alternative, they are taking a risk with their business.
Microsoft, to most businesses, is the "safe bet". It's considered the superior choice only because it's mainstream.
The real threat will come to Microsoft not via some certain tech advance - it will come in the form of a slow penetration of anti-MS and pro-Linux gossip being spread throughout the business community. Once this happens the game will be over and MS will have to *totally* re-invent themselves - another product release won't save them.
dmiessler.com -- grep understanding knowledge
Add to this the cost of loss of data. Linux' native file system, EXT2FS, is known to lose data like a firehose spouts water when the file system isn't unmounted properly. Other unix file systems are much more tolerant towards unexpected crashes. An example is the FreeBSD file system, which with soft updates enabled, performance-wise blows EXT2FS out of the water, and doesn't have the negative drawback of extreme data loss in case of a system breakdown.
/. you are a much more credible source
Alpha support for ext2fs was added in 1993. So the FreeBSD fs from 2003 blows Ext2fs out of the water? No shit Sherlock.
According to Linux advocates, an alternative to EXT2FS would be ReiserFS. Unfortunately, ReiserFS is still in beta stage. This means it is not intended for production use (although according to many Linux advocates this shouldn't be a problem, which makes me wonder how (little) valuable they find your data).
Hmm the kernel help text doesn't say that ReiserFS support is experimental. But of course as an AC on
The other proposed 'solution', EXT3FS, is nothing more than an ugly hack to put journaling into the file system. All the drawbacks of the ancient EXT2FS file system remain in EXT3FS, for the sake of 'forward- and backward compatibility'.
Yeah, the only drawback they removed was the non journaling nature of EXT2FS.
Back to Linux' cost. Factor in also the fact that crashes happen much more often on Linux than on other unices. On other unices, crashes usually are caused by external sources like power outages. Crashes in Linux are a regular thing, and nobody seems to know what causes them, internally. Linux advocates try to hide this fact by denying crashes ever happen. Instead, they have frequent "hardware problems".
Yep, having full controll of the hardware platform and documentation will do that...
The steep learning curve compared to about any other operating system out there is a major factor in Linux' cost.
Lets compare it to Unix as you did above. I'd say the learning curve is almost non-existant. If a sheep farmer from Victoria Australia who used to use Windows (We actually have one in the Gentoo forums) can teach himself Linux so can a Unix sysadmin.
The system is a mix of features from all kinds of unices, but not one of them is implemented right. A Linux user has to live with badly coded tools which have low performance, mangle data seemingly at random and are not in line with their specification.
That has not been my experience. If you find something that irritates you file a bug report.
On top of that a lot of them spit out the most childish and unprofessional messages, indicating that they were created by 14-year olds with too much time, no talent and a bad attitude.
Yep, my Linux prinserver contains bad language. Better get rid of it.
I could go on and on and on, but the conclusion is clear. Linux is not an option for any one who seeks a professional OS with high performance, scalability, stability, adherence to standards, etc.
What is clear is that you have a chip on your shoulder concerning Linux. Considering that there are lots of companies currently using Linux it clearly is an option for some.
Windows really has to change to be able to compete.
Open Source software offers you the advantage of a propritary in house solution (customisability, flexibility) without having to go away and autally write all the code yourself - just change the bits you want changed.
Windows solutions (shared source being something of a joke) offer you very little more support or indemnification (read the EULA and see what's covered!) yet take away your flexibility.
In the long run, support costs with someone like CSC being similar for Windows or Linux (unfairly IMO, they must be raking it in even more than normal on Linux contracts, but there you go) a business needs to work out if the costs of customising an OSS app to make it perfect are more than the costs of licensing Windows. Factor in the cost of lock in to a Microsoft format and the loss of control in the figures, and you have a basis of comparison for your company.
-And of course if you contribute your changes back to the commnity (which you don't _have_ to do with the BSDL or under the GPL if you do not distribute outside the company) you will suddenly find yourself with Karma:Excellent in the geek community, which may or may not be good for your business.
Beep beep.
Everyone should use free software, free software should be used for everything and no one should write software that is not free. Only free software truely respects the user in one very important sense: Free software understands that if you hide the source from the user, the user will do it themselves. All other software is built on the assummption that the author is so clever that no one else can do what they do. The users have rewritten everything and the day of propriatory closed source software is over. It was not easy for the authors or the users of free software to get here, but now it seems obvious that it's the easiest way to go.
This does not mean that people will not make a living coding. Free software is just as valuable as the closed source stuff it's replacing. Society has and will continue to find ways to support people who know how to make and use it. In fact, free software lowers the barriers of entry so that more people than ever will be able to use their tallents. The losers in this transition will be those who have made lots of money screwing people around with upgrade trains, broken file formats, broken 3rd party software and other forms of intentional waste built on dissrespect.
There are many people unfortunate enough to have started with non free software. The comercial software world was created along with the personal computer industry in the late 1970s and early 1980s. The reasonable reaction to that was the creation of free software movements, BSD and GNU being prominent. It has taken a long time to get from there to here and in the mean time, M$ provided a path of least resistance that many followed. It was a false path because of the core values of the comercial software world, but once emeshed in that trap it's difficult to get out. A friend gave me his 1987 copy of the Emacs manual. There is no doubt in my mind that had I installed emacs on the XT clone I bought in 1987 and learned it instead of Word Perfect 4.1, I would be better off today. As it is, I took a long trip down the M$ path through Windows 3.1, 95, 98 and through work 2000 and countless applications on top of those platforms. The effort put into learning the differences between those versions of software is much greater than the effort I've had to put into the free software I've learned since because free software does not impose useless changes on it's users. Those of you who are just comming into the world of computing are very lucky.
You can keep free software alive and give something better to the next generation of users if you remember to have respect for them. Those of you who lack respect for your neighbors will only repeat the mistakes others have made since the 1980s. All it takes is the wrong attitude for the walls to start going up again.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
Real world examples:
"We need to recommend Mac's. Apple was THE FIRST SERIOUS PC, and Mac was the first GUI. It is far superior to anything running on the PC." (1987)
"Novell has 80% of the Network Operating System market. Go with the defacto standard; the industry leader." (1992)
"The Netscape team INVENTED browsing. Deploy Netscape Communicator to the desktop. Their browser and mail client will continue to dominate the desktop." (1996)
"The ONLY serious competitor in palmtop computing is the Palm Pilot. Why consider anything else?" (1998)
You can say it again and again for Apache (market leader, practically invented the market), Java (re-invented the concept of write-once-run-anywhere), home gaming systems, and forty other technologies.
The bottom line is that you better have a GREAT reason to bet against "Dollar Bill". He knows that there's more to the market than superior products (in fact, product superiority is probably low on Microsoft's strategic list, behind good marketing, product interoperability, and spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt).
I think Microsoft's here to stay as long as Bill's driving the ship. Why bet my business by betting AGAINST Gates?
I think an important counter argument can be made against each of your points:
1. Manageability. If you think that Windows is unique and UNIX/Linux doesn't have comparable tools, it's because you have not worked with a comparable sized UNIX installation. Rdist and LDAP can do everything and more that SMS and Active Directory can. Furthermore they do it cross platform using open standards that are interoperable across a wide range of platforms.
2. Accountability. Baloney. Microsoft isn't accountable to ANYONE, including the Department of Justice. Sure, you can BLAME them, but that is not the same thing as accountability. What you are talking about is the old 'Nobody got fired for buying IBM' which is of course a dead letter these days. Accountability means that you can recover damages from somebody when it breaks, or you can switch to a different supplier. The former is impossible, and the latter is only possible if you are using open standards (i.e. Linux).
3. It's cheaper. Microsoft is cheaper? Have you factored in the costs associated with license compliance, the poor stability of Microsoft platforms compared to Linux, the forced site licensing that requires you to buy TWO licenses per employee for every software package? And hardware is cheaper? Since when? Linux uses the same hardware. The only real advantage Microsoft has with cost is due to vendor lock-in of their user base. And you know what? You PAY and PAY and PAY for that because Microsoft has you by the short hairs. License 6.0 is the shot across the bow. Microsoft got away with a major price increase in the middle of a recession, and they KNOW it. Wait 'till you see License 7.0.
People are not switching to Linux for fun. They are doing so because it gives them an advantage.
If everyone uses free software, and nothing but free software...where do all the programmers go?
I like getting paid to write software. If nobody bought software, I guess that programming would be a 'hobby' and not a 'profession'.
I think the free software people are idiots. Kinda the same if 1/2 the plumbers in the world went around doing the job for nothing- because 'everyone should have water'.
I like getting paid to write code. I'm pretty sure that a lot of other people do. If the companies don't sell the products, and make a lot of money, then the whole idea of a paid programmer will go away. That would be a bummer.
So why the hell do you want to give your work away for free? That's some crack that I ain't smokin'.
At this rate programmers will be like artists- all underpaid and 'struggling'.
Who the hell came up with the idea that my time, effort, and labor is not worth any money? Please don't offer my employer to replace me with something that is free. You may be on your moral high-horse, but what you are really doing is killing one more tech job.
No reason to lie.
Quoth the AC:
If you had R'd TFA then you'd spot that a lot of it does relate to things other than the OS side of the market, and many of the claims made are general and across the board. In fact, from the original article, and citing a guy from SuSE of all places:
Some of the other more telling quotes from the article follow.
That is still true, if anything more so today than it was five years ago. MS still totally dominate the desktop. In particular, their Windows development tools and office suite still completely outclass the OS equivalents. To give credit where it's due, a couple more years at this rate and OpenOffice could be a real threat. I haven't seen any open source project currently in development that's even close to Visual Studio.
Because of course, open source things are immune to bugs and security problems... not. If you really think "almost everything" that was once unique to Microsoft now has a serious open source competitor, you haven't been looking very carefully.
It may be a competitor, but it ain't a better product. It's got a way to go before it challenges either the raw power or the ease of use of the Microsoft suite. For geeks who are happy to play with new toys, it's great, and maybe in the future it will be great for Joe Average as well, but enough with the kidding ourselves, OK? It isn't there yet.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
It seems to me that the one missing link in open source software replacements is some kind of replacement for MS exchange.
I would LOVE to be able to have some kind of solution that could do group calendaring, mail, and shared addressing. As it is now I'm using cyrus imapd, a webmail program, a different LDAP web gateway, and a different web calendaring program. We had used a trial of exchange about 4 years ago, and people still miss the features (even though we didn't stick with exchange due to cost)