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Microsoft Deploys Linux, Open Software in Test Lab
securitas writes "Microsoft has deployed Linux and other open-source software in test labs used by business customers to experiment with Microsoft's products. The products include Linux, Apache, MySQL and Open LDAP directory-access software on Intel-based computers, according to Martin Taylor, who is in charge of Microsoft's Linux competitive strategy. He said the goal was to learn 'what can you do and how can you do it' using open-source software in a competitive analysis. This step comes after Microsoft's recent admission that Linux is Microsoft's biggest threat after economic conditions. Mirrors at CMPnetAsia and InternetWeek." It'd be cool to see some patches come from Redmond, but that's probably wishful thinking.
I know this is no big secret, but...
I have heard from MS employees, while talking to them in person, that MS uses Linux internally in certain places. One person stated that his first account there was on a Linux box. Apparently they also use Perl too. (Any MS employees care to comment? Even as AC?)
Which makes this story that much funnier.
Surely Microsoft has already done extensive studies with Linux involving actual usage and deployment before? If not, this is long, long overdue.
I find it pretty unlikely though that this is the first time Microsoft has conducted a serious investigation into Linux's capabilities by actually using it. It's known at least that some people at Microsoft have used it significantly and reported on its performance; there were the leaked "Halloween" documents which gave glowing praise of Linux, and there was the report from Hotmail on migrating their servers from *BSD to Windows (after Hotmail was acquired by MS) in which the author detailed the flexibility offered by *BSD that also happens to exist in Linux.
"IMO The problem with MS is they no longer understand the customer"
But they understand the customers' wallet. MS is doing this to find subtle ways of breaking LinWin compatibility wherever they can. Then they'll offer expensive connector software to restore the broken functionality. They'll spin it like they're playing nice with the other kids, but all the while, they'll just be taking everyone for a ride.
Uh, afraid it can. There *IS* a distro for 8088..
http://elks.sourceforge.net/introduction.html
When I worked for the evil empire, I was amazed at how many Linux/*nix/*BSD machines they had on the network, either from users running it or for testing in the lab.
Because I supported the desktops for call center people, I didn't have direct access to the ITG (Information Technology Group) management software. So instead, I found an old DEC dual p200, installed Linux on it, set up Nagios and started monitoring the ITG servers. I could call ITG to alert them of a DHCP server not assigning addresses before they could. And this happened a lot actually.
The most shocking thing about working at Microsoft during the Code Red, and Nimda outbreak, was finding out how much Microsoft eats their own dogfood. And they really do, even if that means putting untested servers into a production enviroment. The Nimda outbreak literally brought the whole corporate network to it's knees. Even the phone systems were down.
But Microsoft running Linux? Old news, in fact I think the Linux machine I made and placed under my desk in my office, is probably still monitoring the network better than the Microsoft software they used. Probably has better uptime too.
Your mom always said, a PB&J is better than nothing, and God is nothing, is a PB&J better than God?
When you write and distribute a problem using, MFC, MSXML, DirectX, or any of the other libraries they produce you don't lose control of your source code.
That is because microsoft had no server OS robust enough to serve dumb clients at the time. They marketed what they had.
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
WIndows 2k, and 2k3 are quite stable. The reason being was that NT4 was not the unix killer it was supposed to be. NT 5 was supposed to come out in 97 but MS decided to do a kernel rewrite instead. Less reboots and more stability are certainly supported since MS listened to their customers.
Java = c#.
Expect remote managability, the ability to turn off the gui for servers, and a powerfull scripting langauge next according to MS employee's.
Unix has had these features for years and Linux is improving Microsoft products.
http://saveie6.com/
Yes, I also do testing for:
Regressions - Make sure that previous bugs don't pop up again.
Integration - Make sure that all the pieces work when you put them together.
Globalization - Make sure that none of the user messages / interfaces are hard coded.
Localization - Make sure that it is translated into other languages correctly.
Accessiblity - Make sure that handicapped users (blind / deaf / etc.) can use the product. (Can you use the program without a mouse? Does it work with large fonts, high contrast, etc?)
Scalability - Large numbers of records, large amounts of data.
Performance - Is it sufficiently fast?
Reliability / Memory leaks - Can the system stay up for multiple months without hint of reliability problems?
Security - Do we verify the data before we use it? Do we protect sensitive data?
Update testing - Does data persist and functionality work correctly after upgrades?
Dogfood deployments - run the business on alpha and beta releases to make sure we find problems before the customers do.
etc...
There are hundreds of criteria for each item on this list and there are a number of other major quality areas that most test teams attempt to cover in their test passes.
You would probably be surprised at how much testing actually happens at Microsoft.
I would beg to differ about Compuserve being started as a competitor to the Internet - Compuserve's roots, IIRC, predate the Internet by a few months. Compuserve did have its own data network up until the great AOL-Compuserve-Worldcom eff-over took place.
Up until 1996-97, Compuserve was very friendly to all sorts of oddball computing platforms - as long as your box could speak ascii to a modem, you could log onto CIS. In the early 90's they started working on their proprietary HMI and started to make it mandatory by '97.
The forums on CIS were very much like Usenet done right, the moderation kept the flaming to a minimum. Usenet, FWIW, was distributed by UUCP for several years before nntp was developed.
A Shadeless room is a brighter room.
Journaling file system xp doesn't have it
Wrong. NTFS
Why did MS choose to have every menu in the entire system cascade down except for the single most important one? Any sane UI designer would put the Start button in the upper-left of the screen.
Click on start bar, drag to upper part of screen. Done.
Exchange Server 2000 - QMail
^^^^^^^^^^
If all you want is a pop3/smtp server than of course qmail would be cheaper. If you need a fully collaboration based mail server with calendaring/scheduling/tasks and many features I can't think off the top of my head you got with Exchange 2000. There's nothing remotely close yet that works out of the box in less than an hour. I just installed a seventh exchange server in our environment last week, flawlessly. Note: this isn't for redunancy either. Remote offices prefer to use a local server instead of crossing the internet via a vpn.
Some companies would die without the functionality of Exchange so in their eyes price does not matter.