Slashdot Mirror
Meet Martin Taylor Of Microsoft's Open Source Test Lab
securitas writes "Martin Taylor was recently appointed as Microsoft's open source and Linux strategist and is responsible for Microsoft's open source and Linux test lab, mentioned on Slashdot last week. Taylor says his goal is to change Microsoft's competitive strategy by pursuing a fact-based approach instead of continuing the previous discredit-and-undermine strategy that was characterized by calling open source and Linux software 'a cancer, un-American and bankrupt' among other things. Taylor says he plans to focus on (and fund) studies that 'will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership.'"
Fact-based UNIX Debunking. Why confuse the argument by trying to have it match reality?
I'm much funnier now that I'm a subscriber.
this is what they should have done in the first place. The best way to win customers is to earn them -- show them that your product is better than the competition. You'd think, with billions of dollars, a standing army of support personnel, and a solid customer base, they'd focus on making their products better and more reliable rather than trying to push their monopoly around. I hope some excellent upgrades and fixes to MS software come out of this.
--My other sig is a ferrari.
Taylor says he plans to focus on (and fund) studies that 'will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership.'
So in other words, completely unbiased and perfectly objective studies that people can trust to give an accurate picture of Microsoft products.
I mean, I don't necesarilly trust OSS-sympathetc studies... but that doesn't mean I'll swallow MS propaganda whole.
no thanks
It's bloody hard to compete against free software and I'm actually amazed to see them try this approach instead of their usual media contamination methods.
Of course, I don't hope they win as I think Windows stinks (you can pry my OS X from my cold, dead fingers) but kudos to them for playing fairly for once.
Gee, I wonder if their TCO study calculations will include the cost of worms and virii(?) that only affect Windows platforms/outlook/IE? Every time a new worm comes along I wonder if people realize the hidden TCO costs that sticking with MS incurs.
Translation:
"The open source license is not open, becuase you can't take it and ever use it in a job-creating activity at Microsoft "
One of the best features of open source, is its ability to melt away unnecessary expenditures of money on software not directly related to the business goals or your company. It is inconceivable that any right-headed CIO or CFO would spend penny one on a "Word Processor", for example. The ONLY company that this decision would hurt is Microsoft. A company frees up virtually 100% of their software dollars to hire real, local software developers to develop solutions to their own, personal, business problems.
-- -pjk Perry Kundert perry@kundert.ca http://kundert.2y.net
thats gonna be a short and empty studie
Not so sure for now. For example, ActiveDirectory has many features that are currently lacking in open source implimentations, including multimaster replication. And network administration in a server/client network is easier with Windows, I think.
Also, security is a fact of product design, not of coding methods, so people still use Sendmail despite its monolithic architecture, and the fact that a security hole causes *root* compromise. Microsoft is not that much worse than many open source products. And you can expect them to pick on industry standards such as BIND and Sendmail. As well as making unfair generalizations.
But Microsoft is losing ground FAST. In the end, there is no way I see them winning.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
I know quite a few Microsoft people who are quite knowledgable about Linux and open source software (some of whom contribute to open source projects in their spare time, etc), who are quite capable of rational discussion on the topic of open vs. closed source, and why it's good for customers to use MS products. If MS starts attacking open source software on rational grounds, they certainly have the resources to do so effectively. And in the world of technology, such an approach might be more successful than their emotion-based attacks.
After all, it's been fairly easy for open source advocates to discredit Microsoft's initial relatively incoherent ramblings; "cancer" and "communism" type name calling did more to discredit MS than their opponents. So while MS' FUD attacks were dangerous because there was a lot of money/press behind them, they were ultimately unproductive.
If MS can make a solid, businesslike case that MS soutions are better than open source that's likely to carry more weight. Imagine, for example, if there were a credible, objective study that showed that (to make up a hypothetical scenario) the total TCO for Windows 2003 as measured in production is lower than Linux, or the application development costs are lower using Windows and the associated frameworks, that'll at least allow them to retain current corporate customers, and perhaps even go back to growing enterprise marketshare.
I think that even though MS competing more effectively makes everyone's else's lives harder, ultimately a shift towards civilized debate is good for the industry. In business settings, Open Source must be able to win on objective, pragmatic merits, not just on principles. Winning on both principles and pragmatics makes open source unstoppable. If the competition reveals weak points in the open source arguments, that's _good_ because that means that they can be addressed, and everyone wins.
Enable 3D printed prosthetics!
I disagree. I think that IBM (who is credited with getting Linux a green light from Homeland Defense) has plenty of money to setup a fact finding group for Linux. I know you may hate to think of Big Blue as a "Linux company" but they have pretty much bet their server business on it.
How could the parent get modded up as "insightful"?! At best, for the humor-challenged, it could be seen as a pretty meager attempt to secure "funny".
Of course Microsoft will produce white papers that show Microsoft winning! Why would they possibly do otherwise? They're a *company*, not a *charity*. Besides, it should be seen as the highest form of flattery that Linux warrants so much of their time and energy. It means that Linux is at least making an impression.
Maybe by taking Microsoft seriously for once, rather than spouting some glib "Microsoft is going to show themselves winning" tripe, you would see that these sorts of comparisons benefit Linux. Microsoft *may* be able to fudge a little, but direct, fact-based comparisons will put a spotlight on Linux failures. And give us some needed attention to boot.
Guess how long it'll take take the Linux folks to solve any "problem" that Microsoft graciously points out? Not long. How is that a loss for Linux? Seems like it makes Linux stronger *exactly* where MS sees a temporary weakness.
The parent does exactly what MS has learned doesn't work: relying on emotion and FUD. I wish there was a -1, uninsightful.
This could be a good thing - it gives open source developers a change to observe and plug any weaknesses. While MS examines and reports on the weaknesses of OS solutions, take note and don't get angry - get coding!
My rights don't need management.
Jan. 31, 2001 Wired: Microsoft thinks Linux is doomed, and predicts that many Linux businesses will falter and fail before the end of the year.
Linux didn't do that well in the comparison.
So what did the kernel developers do? Did they give up? Did they all mail their resumes to Redmond? No, they improved the SMP performance of the kernel, so that by the time 2.4 shipped, it could beat Windows 2000 - and I imagine XP now too - in similar benchmarks.
I don't doubt that Microsoft is going to find lots of things that Windows does better than Linux does. That will serve as a guide, to help the Free Software community set their priorities as to which problems to focus on first.
Request your free CD of my piano music.
Honestly, and flame me if you will (/. comments have always been themed with "down with microsoft") but this sort of stuff is what my boss looks at. And his boss looks at. But here is my take.
"Will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership."
Secuirty
No OS (Linux, Unix, BSD, Windows, ect) is secure by default. There are always exploits and holes. Yes MS has a bigger % of security incidents then other OS's because its used more. There are other reasons but take into the consideration that the more people that use software, the more bugs and holes will be found. Im not saying Microsoft is anywhere near secure out of the box as *nix is (because that would ludicrios) but they DO fix thier holes, which is really want counts isnt it?
Feature-completeness
Many of us think about MS OFfice, and Windows to be overloaded with features that we will never use. There is alot of junk there, but at some point someone had asked for that junk. I could see MS giving themselves a pretty high rating for this.
TCO
How easy is it to install and configure a MS server, how many more people are trained to do it? How many more MCSE's are there than Red Hat Certified people? I have seen them use this tatic before; The OS may be free, but whats it costing you to keep a person that is Linux qualified versus the people you already have that are MS qualified.
The whitepaper's that come out of this may be enough for my boss (or his boss) to stick with his windows 2000 running cold fusion when I am just starting to warm his feet in the linux world.
Bash MS all you want but they DO have a way of looking good in the executives eyes. Not to mention there is no centeral place to get TCO information on Linux. Yes, you can go to RedHat.com or any of the other distros and get thier TCO report but all of thier numbers are different. This makes it confusing for bosses everywhere, Microsoft.com is trusted to them, they will see Microsoft.com as the numbers that are most likley true, then where will linux be?
This is typical arguing from the conclusions. They already know what they want to find; now it is just a matter of crafting the studies that will find exactly that, not the reality.
But why be serious?
Like being so incredibly complex no one can properly manage permissions, hiding information so no one can actually understand what's going on, and making it nearly impossible to log stuff? Not to mention hiding source code so it can't possibly be audited? Now, that's security for me...
Like there will be a Microsoft Debian distribution with everything and the kitchen sink installable from CDs or network servers, following a coherent policy? Wow... can't wait for that... will take too long!
Like no more incredibly expensive MSCE that cost even more by always choosing the most inefficient solution? No more incredibly complex, expensive licensing that charges double for Terminal Server usage? Suddenly MS SysAdmins will be as efficient as their Unix counterparts? Toto, we're not in Kansas...
Leandro Guimarães Faria Corcete DUTRA
DA, DBA, SysAdmin, Data Modeller
GNU Project, Debian GNU/Lin
The way for Microsoft to compete with Linux is for Microsoft to stop being adversarial toward its customers.
For example, Windows XP has a crippled file system that cannot copy some of its own files. The purpose of the crippling is apparently to prevent copying. So, customers have to use third-party tools that often don't work well to make full backups of the boot partition. Because some people are pirates, Microsoft has chosen to treat every customer as a criminal. This causes customer a lot of lost time. When the backup tools don't work well, it causes customers grief.
The last time I mentioned this particular adversarial behavior toward customers, someone posted a comment saying it was not true, the Windows XP file system CAN copy all of its own files. However, Microsoft employees have often said that it is true. Sometimes Microsoft employees even suggest one of the third-party tools.
Microsoft recently declared that operating systems have a very limited lifetime, and that Windows 98 is dead. Windows 98 is the most commonly used operating system in the world! Now all of those hundreds of millions of people must suffer. Apparently Microsoft wants to force people to upgrade to Windows XP. However, many of those customers have computers that are not powerful enough to support Windows XP. Anything for money is the philosophy at Microsoft, I guess. If Bill Gates wanted to be truly philanthropic, he would make a good operating system and support it well.
These are not isolated circumstances. There are many ways that Microsoft is adversarial toward its customers. Bill Gates is the Chief of Grief.
But hey, Open Source is not always positive toward its customers. I reported a but in Mozilla on a Sunday at 8 AM, and got a message at about 10 AM saying they doubted that the problem was a fault in Mozilla. I asked for a new feature in another program, but the developer said it would have to wait until the next major version. So, open source developers are not angels; some of them are however, about the best people you will find on earth.
Of course, the cynic in me says that the outward looking will be focused on this particular lab only, and that the rest of the "bang your chest and think your'e the best" will not budge. Time will tell, I hope.
Anonymous, since I long ago forgot my password.
> You can't fix what is not broken.
Your faith that Linux is perfect is touching, truly.
I don't think many of the kernel development team would agree with you. If they did, surely they'd be putting their feet up and sitting back to watch their perfect creation slowly take over the world.
Any criticism of Linux that emerges from this lab can be addressed by its developers and users. Simply saying that any criticism that is levelled at Linux must be a lie because Linux doesn't need improving is dogmatic nonsense.