Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Magical 'Myth-Busting' Tour
Mz6 writes "Microsoft has launched its 'Get the Facts' road show -- the tech equivalent of a political battle bus -- to tour the country and convince the wavering that Redmond is as at least cheap and as secure as its open-source rival and to spread the word that Windows is better than Linux. Nick McGrath, Microsoft's head of platform strategy, described the campaign as 'a reality check we're bringing out', aiming to tackle the 'myths' surrounding Linux. Microsoft's road show will be in Edinburgh on June 17, Manchester on June 29 and Newport on July 7."
This is a load of FUD.
Microsoft want you to believe that while, Microsoft software may be more in the purchase price department compared to open source software, it's less in implementation costs or maintenance costs, and its TCO will be lower.
This is, of course, considering the plentiful viruses, worms and other security issues, not the case in reality. The winner in this case is Open Source software.
Open Source software, of the BSD kind and the GPL kind, has totally changed the way we think about and work with software. One day, we will be able to scientifically determine what software we need to suit our needs. We will know ahead of time exactly what limits and what capabilities each piece of software has. IT managers will be able to sort through real facts based on real research, rather than a bunch of shallow articles and biased reports. Software will survive on its merits alone.
The whole industry is going to benefit by this, in a large, large way. The question one day will no longer be "Microsoft or Linux?" but "Which Open Source software should we use, and why?"
Microsoft is severely threatened and it knows it. Pay no attention to it and it will eventually go away.
Every day, Microsoft employees are physically in CIO and CEO boardrooms trying to convince executives that Microsoft is a better bet than Linux. Even with a large body of evidence to the contrary, this is something Linux is missing - the financial warchest to use the media and "war buses" to convince people to the contrary.
There's no such thing as reality - there's only what you believe. The best ideas in history of gone down because nobody believed in them. The worst ideas in history have flourished because somebody sold it stronger than anybody else.
So yeah, they may be spreading their own version of the truth, but, as is obvious, I think we should be very, very wary of that truth being accepted as reality.
I can't decide if this is a troll or if this is one of those "underground" marketing campaigns Microsoft like to pay for. Hmm, let me try:
I tries switching to Windows 2003, but switched back because the lack of standards compliance, security flaws, and high costs of training made it impossible to justify, even when MS offered to give it to me for free.
Yeah, definately underground marketing....
You are in a maze of twisted little posts, all alike.
Makes it easy to critique a straw opponent when you redefine the terms to mean what you want them to mean. Microsoft defines "free" as in "beer" and anyone who knows much of anything about Linux knows the "free" aspect of Linux that represents the most value, is the "freedom" aspect of the OS, not the purchase cost.
As long as Microsoft is comparing based on cost, they either just don't get it, or think they can bamboozle their audience.
On the other hand, anyone who is interested in a comparison based on the "free"dom-ness of the two OSes, will find the Microsoft presentation a complete non-sequitur.
'.doc' and '.ppt' are the two of the three (with Excel being the other) most important file-formats to support. (Actually, you could probably list each version of DOC and the rest. It's not like MS ever releases a new version that can be read in the old...)
Those are what businesses use everyday, and have thousands/millions of documents in. If your desktop platform doesn't support them, you're business doesn't work these days.
Of course, that is for desktop platforms...
'Sensible' is a curse word.
Linux does have that now. Do you think IBM, Novell/Suse, and Redhat are just sitting around? IBM has gotten a bunch of big installations of Linux done. Novell/Suse just got McDonald's to test changing over it's POS's. Microsoft is not the only one doing this anymore.
Yes, that's subtle, comparing Linux advocates to Al Qaeda and Iraqi rebels. This is after Jim Allchin calling Linux a "destroyer", Ballmer calling it a "cancer" and so forth.
I take it as a matter of faith that Microsoft desires to destroy Linux. Part one is public relations, part two is getting the government to go after it.
It didn't escape my attention that the Alexis de Tocqueville Institution's Ken Brown is saying he's looking into the employment agreements of Linux contributors to see if any of the employers might own the copyright to off-hours work of Linux contributors. I remember a prominent case a few years ago where some developer wrote something after work and his employer sued him later saying it belonged to them even if it wasn't work related. The battle stretches from the workplace, to the government, to big business as far as I can see - the employment agreements wage slaves have to sign due to poor collective bargaining power helps lead to the destruction of Linux (or perhaps just a monkey wrench like the one that stalled BSD for years and years in litigation). It is already having an effect - Linus is spending time worrying about legal nonsense instead of developing the kernel. It doesn't just go away when ignored, Microsoft and company seem to desire some sort of primitive accumulation of the digital commons. The solution is to look into the OSDL and their Linux legal defense fund and that sort of thing. The travesty of employment contracts which comes in to haunt Linux has to be fought in workplaces. These people are playing for keeps. And it has already had an effect if you think about it.
They claim that Windows is more secure because they compare Windows 2003 (new product, not a lot of time to find security holes) to Red Hat 7.2, which has not only been around for years but it's been unsupported for years, having been replaced many times over.
You can prove anything through selective analysis.
-Jem
For a few admins, possibly. For the majority of users? No, it doesn't follow.
Well, since they don't seem to offer this software for Linux, I would need to wipe my hard drive and buy a copy of Windows. But wait, my machine is too slow to run XP (can you even still buy 2000 off the shelf anymore?) so I better go get a new machine too. Which is good, since I would hate to wipe this machine, since I use it every day as a desktop, as well as the machine that provides our internal web server (low volume) and houses the CD burner. Not bad for an old tired machine with software that cost about $1 (for the cds we used to burn the OS onto).
I Am My Own Worst Enemy
Also, shouldn't ease of exploitability be taken into account? As I recall, there was a theoretical kernel vulnerability in Linux (in mremap()?) that remained unfixed for a long time, but no one could seem to demonstrate how to exploit it.
Not that I particularly mind MS shooting itself in it's foot, but I really wonder if Microsoft is doing itself more harm than good by bringing so much attention to Linux. I know a lot of people who completely dismissed Linux prior to Microsoft making such a big deal out of showing it's competitive. I just wonder if microsoft is inadvertently drawing attention to the competition.
Famous Last Words: "hmm...wikipedia says it's edible"
can't forget, when they say "Publically known flaws" does that mean flaws that they have released information about? or are they flaws that they know about but havn't released info about? or are they flaws that the entire public knows about regardless of microsofts "official public awareness" or them?
apples to apples, thats all i want. they just need to clarify this.
Well. Here you have it. A perfect opportunity.
Disclaimer: I don't like Linux much. The only reason I pay attention is the thorn in Microsoft's side that Linux represents. No matter how you slice it, it's darn difficult to compete with free.
The problem: Linux has usability holes you could drive an aircraft carrier through. Luckily, Windows is bad enough that even that doesn't matter as much as it should.
My advice? Go to the road show. Learn what it is that they think they're better at. Learn which of those things are the most important to their customers. And then, get to work: Do it better, preferably by the next day or so.
I see an opportunity. I hope you take it, because if you do, the day you can convince me (and lots of others like me) to become interested in Linux will draw measurably nearer.
Back to your regularly scheduled discussion of whatever it is that this post is about...
I find it highly amusing that Microsoft chose to use PDF files on this particular page when throughout the rest of their site they've pretended that Word documents are some sort of universal standard. Finally an admission by Microsoft itself that Word isn't the best format for publications you acually want EVERYONE to be able to read.
Go to the tour stops, and act responsibly while you pass out flyers, cds and hurl tough questions at the speakers...
Dont act like a bunch of idiots that came to heckle.
We all have a chance to make OSS look good and make a useful statment.. on Microsoft's dime!
---- Booth was a patriot ----
One funny section from 'The Soul of a New Machine' (Tracey Kidder, 1982 Pulitzer Prize for non-fiction) details how IBM instructed their sales staff to warn customers about Data General.
According to staff at Data General this was the best advertising they had ever had (and they had some good advertising). As they told the story, quite a lot of IBM's customers straightaway came over to chat, saying, "IBM warned us about you guys; you must be doing something we ought to know about."
As Kidder put it, it was like: "Where is this 'Data General'? -- so we can be sure not to go there. What's their phone number? -- so we can be sure not to call it!"
Why the fcku are we seeing microsoft advertising on slashdot? blech. wtf?