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Details of Linux-in-Munich Deal Revealed
An anonymous reader writes "USA Today is running a piece about the lengths which Microsoft went to in order not to lose the government of Munich's account to a Linux-based proposal from SuSE. Interesting to see how these types of contracts are structured, and just what Microsoft is willing to give up to prevent losing to Linux."
goes to show how much they hate microsoft in germany
bite my glorious golden ass.
weird so do I
What length WILL M$ go to in order to preserve their market share?
Somebody should test this and put in the contract that Bill has to do dishes or clean toilets at the company for a month. Then we'll REALLY see to what lengths they'll go...
Bill Gates was seen curled up in the fetal position after learning the marketshare held by Microsoft would drop from 90% to 89%
"ooh...can't lose marketshare...can't lose marke-...gaahh!!"
I guess Ballmer's "Ich bin ein Bavarian Creme Pie" speech didn't go over so good with the Mayor. ;)
I watched C-beams glitter in the dark near the Tannhauser gate.
Well, they actually considered buying from Microsoft until Ballmer showed up doing the monkey dance.
How about: A web browser that thinks its an irc client, email reader, etc, etc and the kitchen sink too.
Or: A completely bloated pile of horse shit.
The only feature I want from a browser is rendering pages correctly.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Hey Steve, where's your Moses now??
Ballmer cast open-source software as having 'no center of gravity'
What it means is "We don't know where to attack, because we can't buy them out"
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"And may your days be long upon the earth."
I'd like to ++ the moderator who marked you funny.
More details to follow...
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
As many of you know, at the recent O'Reilly Open Source convention, Microsoft provided sack lunches to attendees for free. The Munich article reminds me of one guy's comment: "They should get used to us eating their lunch."
include $sig;
1;
so I don't hate Microsoft because they're greedy, manipulative and all-out evil? I hate them because I'm German? I'll be a sonovabitch.
First, there was UNIX. Then, came UN*X. I saw just yesterday, *n*x. And now, *n**. At this rate, in the next 5 minutes, someone will use **** to mean "any unix or unix clone", and someone else will mistake it for them saying "shit".
In an opposing decision, microsoft won the contract to suppply server and client software to the department of homeland security here in the US.
- You don't know how to maintain a station wagon either!
Goes well with the bill quote "We will never have a price lower than Linux"... Only to be the low bidder. I found that really funny myself.
On Arrakis: early worm gets the bird. Magister mundi sum!
Costs estimates failed to take into consideration the costs in lost productivity due to having solitaire installed on every desktop! Yep, my corporate installed Windows XP box has the productivity enhancing suite of FreeCell, Hearts, Solitaire, Pinball, Internet Backgammon, etc. What that hell were they thinking when they decided to give games to every employee?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
My fave quote is this one:
Ballmer ... suggested IBM adds an illusion of support and accountability to Linux.
I laugh out loud. IBM adds an Illusion of support? Gimme a break. IBM's support has, in my experience, been pretty darn good. Maybe we got a green tech from time to time, but at least they showed up and I could tell my boss IBM was on it. Management will usually take that for an answer.
What does Microsoft contribute in that arena? A fingerpointing game with the OEM?
I distincly remember waiting two years and five service packs just to get NT4's DHCP server fixed(*). Who do I hold accountable for the decision that integrating IE4 into the server(!) so I could view my server's desktop 'as a web page' (whatever that means) was more important than functional DHCP? Will they reimburse my employer for the *nix box they eventually bought to do DHCP, after having been promised that functionality in Windows at time of purchase? How about me, for my OT and aggravation, and having to explain to unreceptive Management that yes, the product they blew their budget on (against my recommendation) was defective and there was nothing I could do to fix it until MS patched it, which they were apparently in no hurry to do, so they had to spend more money to get what they paid for the first time?
At least I had the good sense to quit the next year when they shoved Outlook/Exchange Server down my throat. I hear my replacement spent a lot of nights and weekends cleaning up the worms and script attacks that I warned them were inevitable. Who at MS is 'accountable' for deciding that auto-executing attachments as SYSTEM was a good idea?
And people wonder why we hate Microsoft so much. After over 15 years working with (more like cleaning up after) their products, nothing triggers FUD in me like 'New from Microsoft.' Where'd I learn that reaction? Redmond taught me, the hard way.
(*) Well, DHCP did work as far as distributing IP leases from a block, probably looked just fine at the trade show demos. Problem was, once the block was exhausted and it wrapped around to the beginning again, it reassigned addresses without checking to see if they were still leased, knocking both users off the network and generating two support calls and two workstation reboots each time it happened. If you had to reboot the server for some reason (which in Windows, could be any minor change to anything), it started at the beginning of the list again, and every client on the network would need to be rebooted before the network would stabilize. MS support's answer: Don't use DHCP, use static IPs. They even suggested using Excel to track the assignments - yeah, I'm going to buy another MS product to replace the one I already bought that doesn't work. 'Illusion of support,' indeed!
but 600 pounds? Sheesh, that's just being mean.
"God, root, what is difference?" - Pitr, userfriendly
C'mon, Microsoft hardly killed innovation. Both Linux stuff and MS stuff are very innovative, just in different arenas. Linux innovative, IMHO, is largely spent in catch-up for mainstream apps, while MS is trying to dominate think-ahead markets like all internet commercial activity (DRM, P3P, proprietary streaming formats) and home interconnectivity. The problem with MS innovation is that it generally doesn't appear to be ever in the consumers' interest except very short term 'gosh, new feature!'.
No, IANAMSE (I am not a Microsoft employee)!
"Linux is cheaper if your time is worthless"
Windows is only $100 if your time is worthless. (Otherwise it's much, much, much more.)
microsoftword.mp3 - it doesn't care that they're not words...
Most people (Judge Jackson included) get emotional and condemn Microsoft summarily, without giving them credit where due. Here's a little guide, how to treat MS fairly:
.Net, and tell us why your losy mktg team removed the .Net brand from seeral products."
1. When throwing an egg, ensure it's a golden egg.
2. Don't say Windoze sucks. Be specific. Say "Windows 95 is fast, but doesn't have USB. Win98 sucks bad, no security. WinNT4 is actually good - no wonder you withdrew support. Win2K supports USB, but breaks a lot of code. Win2K also gives us useless DRM. WinXP Home sucks, and doen't include networking. WinXP PRo sucks bigtime - lots of Spyware, builtin lousy fiewall, builtin DRM enabled CD writing s/w etc..........."
3. Don't say ".Net is complex" Say instead " Please explain
and so on... Be fair to them - they spend $5bn every year for R&D, generate lots of Linux jobs,make more people hate the US by their attitude and behavior, etc. Praise them for all this.
Peace.
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If you keep throwing chairs, one day you'll break windows....