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Kill Bill, IBM vs Microsoft

theodp writes "Though IBM did not invent Linux, does not distribute it and earns nary a penny on it, the computer giant is spending billions in a crusade to make Linux the world's most popular operating system. All told, more than 12,000 IBMers today devote at least part of their time to Linux. To hear IBMers tell it, all this effort is a matter of giving more choices to customers tired of the Microsoft monopoly. But according to Forbes, IBM has a broader agenda--undermining Bill Gates' company in the battle for a new $21 billion market for Web-linked software."

28 of 560 comments (clear)

  1. Eureka! Endorsements! by michael+path · · Score: 5, Funny

    one spot likens Linux to an omniscient child prodigy who resembles Eminem.

    Maybe that's what Linux needs to cross over as a mainstream desktop OS? Celebrity endorsements!

    Imagine ads featuring Colin Farrell beating up his Windows PC and putting out cigarettes on the keyboard! A Dawson's Creek ripoff where Katie Holmes's "private, amateur photography" gets lifted off her computer through because she happened to be running an unpatched IIS, part of the default Windows 2000 installation.

    Or, best of all, Snoop Dogg chillin' with a bunch of penguins in his own language resource center, showing them all kinds of shizzle on his Thinkpad laptop running KDE. ....and Twins.....

  2. Go IBM by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    All in favor of overturning evil software monopoly and rooting for evil hardware and software monopoly say "Yes!"

  3. News? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    "IBM has a broader agenda--undermining Bill Gates' company in the battle for a new $21 billion market for Web-linked software."

    What? You say IBM has an agenda? They don't support Linux just to spread peace and love and free software? Quick, stop the presses!!!

  4. Re:Do it while their backs are turned! by TwistedSquare · · Score: 5, Funny
    "[It's] Like getting free bread in a restaurant,"

    I think he means free beer in a bar!

  5. Re:Eureka! Endorsements! by Rhubarb+Crumble · · Score: 5, Funny

    Nah. Paris Hilton going "so I was using windows, and then it was, like, bleep bleep bleep, and I'm like, what? bummer."

  6. Re:Eureka! Endorsements! by bludstone · · Score: 4, Funny

    Just animate tux!

    He could be a national icon, like mickey mouse or toucan sam.

    The question is, what kind of voice would he have? A swedish accent? bork bork bork?

    --

    no .sig
  7. In 2004.... by M-2 · · Score: 5, Funny
    IBM is gonna Kill Bill.

    The fifth ad campaign by Quentin Tarantino.

    Starring David Carradine as Bill Gates
    Michael Madsen as Steve Ballmer
    Uma Thurman as The Bride (Tove Torvalds, avenging her dead husband Linus, her reign of bloody revenge sponsored by IBM)

    and Chiaki Kuriyama as Gogo NT, the prototype Microsoft Killing App. (because really, when you're dealing with this stuff, you need a killer android, preferably Japanese in a schoolgirl outfit, for the sheer surrealism factor.)

  8. Re:Eureka! Endorsements! by Wavicle · · Score: 3, Funny

    Wow! I hadn't connected Paris Hilton and Ellen Feiss, but now that you mention it...

    --
    Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army.
    Edward Everett (1794 - 1865)
  9. Kill Bill by Tyler+Durden · · Score: 5, Funny

    "Looked dead, didn't I? But I wasn't. But it wasn't from lack of trying, I can tell you that. Actually, Bill's last OS put me in a coma - A coma I was to lie in for four years. When I woke up, I went on what the movie advertisements refer to as a 'roaring rampage of revenge.' I roared. And I rampaged. And I got bloody satisfaction. I've squashed a hell of a lot of competitors to get to this point, but I have only one more. The last one. The one I'm driving to right now. The only one left. And when I arrive at my destination, I am gonna kill Bill."

    (Apologies to Tarantino)

    --
    Happy people make bad consumers.
  10. I for one... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    I for one, welcome our new GPL contributing overlords.

  11. Did IBM get a hanso katana as well? by evdp · · Score: 2, Funny

    This seems like it would be nice fodder for some parady site to pick up. But somehow IBM isn't as sexy as the other person who went out to 'killbill' But it is ironic that my thinkpad that I commonly use when reading and surfing from bed is commonly called 'my girlfiend' and carries the hostname 'bitch'.

  12. Hah by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Funny

    *Gasp* You mean all this time IBM's had it's own adjenda insead of being just a linux lover... I never would have guessed *rolls eyes*

  13. Wrong. by 2names · · Score: 2, Funny

    Trading one monopoly for another makes no sense. Kind of like what we Americans do every four years or so with our Presidents...trading one bad thing for another.

    --
    "I'm just here to regulate funkiness."
  14. Re:IBM's LINUX Commitment by lpontiac · · Score: 4, Funny
    PowePC based desktops that are fast, quiet, consume less energy, have open hardware specifications and sleep effortlessly (none of that ACPI baggage).

    I found a small company that makes machines just like this! They have a web page here.

  15. Re:Register Device Drivers by Tenebrious1 · · Score: 4, Funny

    so continue Microsoft's rise in the POS operating system space.

    Doesn't MS already have the lead in the Piece O' Sh*t operating system space?

    Oh you mean Point Of Sale... oops my bad.

    --
    -- If god wanted me to have a sig, he'd have given me a sense of humor.
  16. Re:Ringer is god.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Funny

    Ringer's theory of reality is also worth quoting daily:

    Let's not, and say we did.

  17. Re:IBM, HP and DELL by falconed · · Score: 3, Funny
    this is a little OT...

    ...IBM blasts Linux commercials on television; one spot likens Linux to an omniscient child prodigy who resembles Eminem.

    IBM's next commercial:
    May I have your attention please?
    Will the real Linus Torvalds please stand up?
    I repeat, will the real Linus Torvalds please stand up?
    We're gonna have a problem here...

    --
    USE='clever' emerge -u sig
  18. Absofuckinglutly by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 5, Funny
    Why take two evil companies (MS/Intel) into my computer when I can take only one?

    I prefer my evil to come from a company with a long history of evil. IBM got the history. Would you trust some tiny little upstart or a company that is now in its 3rd century of spreading Fear, Uncertainty and Denial? MS is still learning Slight-anxiety, Bit-of-doubt and Feeble-counter-argument.

    Also the penguin logo is so much cooler. You can make him cute and cuddly or a fearsome killer penguin.

    MS got some four colored thingy and a butterfly. Tsk. Might as well use a fruit and really show what kinda customers you expect to attract.

    Anyone else find it humorous that MS logo is a bug?

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  19. So if Microsoft begins developing for Linux... by AlexanderYoshi · · Score: 2, Funny

    ... will that mean that we have no choice but to commit technological seppuku? -Alex

  20. Re:Do it while their backs are turned! by Rupert · · Score: 2, Funny

    IBM used to be profoundly anti-alcohol. Something to do with Thomas J Watson being a Quaker. I may be wrong - it's been almost twenty years since I worked there. Anyway, company policy was offset by the employees, who all drank like fish.

    Hence free bread in a restaurant.

    --

    --
    E_NOSIG
  21. Re:Free as in beer by dylan_- · · Score: 3, Funny

    AFAIK, the USB toothbrush doesn't require any drivers because it only uses the port for running/recharging.

    Honestly, I thought you had to be kidding with that one...

    --
    Igor Presnyakov stole my hat
  22. The perfect IBM commercial on Linux! by Orion+Blastar · · Score: 2, Funny

    License "Statisfaction" by the Rolling Stones an parody a Microsoft Windows commercial.

    Show various users with BSOD, virus warnings that say they cannot clean the virus, spyware/adware pop-ups, systems that cannot reboot because they say they are missing a file, a system lockup, Windows error reporting happening one after the other, Missing or Invalid DLL errors, a slow moving Windows system, etc.

    Then near the end stop the music, show someone running Linux with no problems, then show a message "Can't get any satisfaction, try a Linux solution by IBM and get some satisfaction!"

    Genius! Brilliant! I am not just saying that because I thought it up! ;)

    --
    Remember, Slashdot does not have a -1 disagree moderation, and no, troll, flamebait, and overrated are not substitutes.
  23. Re:hehe, funny and yes I got two by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Funny

    > If people can forgive being killed then surely merely losing your data can be forgiven as well?

    Yes, but the people who lost their data are still around to whine about it. Hmm.. maybe IBM just didn't go far enough...

    Perhaps if the people who were killed were still around, they would do a better job of warning people against those cars... "Don't buy that car! It KILLED ME!! Also, the cup-holders are TOO SMALL!!!"

    -Mark

  24. IBM's revenge by Eudial · · Score: 2, Funny

    Could this be IBM's revenge against Microsoft for
    ruining their world domination plans (http://www.ibm.com/software/os/warp/)?

    Come on, they've gotta be a bit pissed.

    --
    GAAH! MY PRINTER IS ON FIRE!!! PUT IT OUT! PUT IT OUT!
  25. Bah! Lame moves by Tux. by raga · · Score: 2, Funny
    If we want Linux to beat out Windows on the desktop, Tux will have to learn to dance at least as well as Steve Ballmer can.

    cheers- raga

  26. Re:Eureka! Endorsements! by Mr.+Neutron · · Score: 2, Funny
    The question is, what kind of voice would he have?

    As long as it's not Gilbert Gottfried, I'm cool with it.

    --
    dinner: it's what's for beer
  27. hmm i see a pattern by MSDos-486 · · Score: 2, Funny

    screw me once shame on you screw me twice shame on me screw me a third and ill go open source on your arse anyone who knows the history of IBM-Microsoft dealings will get the joke.

  28. Huh? by gwoodrow · · Score: 2, Funny

    What a second... do you mean to tell me that the first goal of business is to COMPETE with one another in attempts to gain market control and increase profit potential?

    I... I'm speechless. I thought that companies simply enjoyed creating stuff for people, and that the money was an unimportant "perk" of giving openly to the community.

    What kind of a sick world do we live in? And why didn't anyone tell me this kind of thing sooner?