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IBM Tells Employees To Hold Off WinXP SP2
robpoe writes "As reported by ZDNet, IBM's technology department has warned internal users to not install Windows XP SP2 until IBM can fix some known issues with the way IE6 is updated, and Big Blue can make a customized version of the patch - 'The company's technology department said the delay is 'due to known application problems and incompatibility with IBM workstation applications.''" However, the article also mentions that: "One IBM employee in the company's internal technology department characterized the decision as routine."
Hey, lots of companies install policies on their IT assets that flat out prevent installing unauthorized patches on corporate systems.
This is a pretty big patch, and people have known for a while that it's going to change the way some things work. It makes sense to show caution before allowing a mass deployment. There's not much news here.
Isn't this sort of decision standard in any large organisation? As with any upgrade, IBM will want to ensure that the upgrade isn't going to break any internal applications. No large organisation is going to want employees installing significant OS upgrades without central verification.
IBM's technology department has warned internal users to not install Windows XP SP2 until IBM can fix some known issues
And of course, the first thing that happens is, this internal memo somehow finds its way to ZDNet. Looks like PR FUD to me.
It's good though, at least Microsoft gets a little of its own medicine once in a while...
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
The reason we're being told to hold off is that the new IE might not be compatible with some internal applications on the intranet (stuff like, payroll, expenses claims etc). There's no wording that SP2 breaks stuff in general, just that some critical IBM apps are effected. So stop scare mongering!
Its better to have a system with known quirks than an system with unknown quirks
Rus
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So if you deployed a Linux on 10000 machines on all your tech, marketing, IT, sales teams computers, and you had developped specific applications, drivers for some specific devices, and all the crap, you would just tell them: Sure, let's upgrate from 2.4 to 2.6 and cross your fingers?
The fact that they are cautious doesn't mean they distrust SP2. Like any major upgrage to a kernel (to any OS), it is going to break some of your specific devs, would it be only slightly.
This would be true for any OS. The fact that this one is Microsoft doesn't make it something against MS.
Write boring code, not shiny code!
* Disclaimer: I work for Microsoft. You can either moderate at face value, or actually read what I have to say first. *
After working for the company for the past two summers as an intern, I've come to know a bunch of people who actually *gasp* work there. I'd say that 1/2 of them are Linux geeks who understand that while Linux is great and all, it will not cure AIDS, feed the poor, or save the whales/children. Neither will Windows. They're fucking OS's that you can either RUN or NOT RUN. Choose one and leave the preaching to the guys in the Vatican. The company is as evil as any other public company who is responsible to their bottom line and their shareholders (that goes for any company, not just software houses). Beyond that, its just a bunch of people who love to code, love what they do, and whether you believe it or not, are pretty fucking good at it (if you don't believe me, go through the interview/hiring process yourself and let me know how it goes).
It's come to the point where after having sat in both the "Microsoft sucks, everything they do is awful, evil, and will bring about a world dictatorship" camp and the "Eh, I'll work there for a bit and see what its like" camp, the only conclusion I can draw is that those who hate Microsoft with a passion, have some sort of underlying motivation for doing so. My whole life I had used Linux exclusively. My whole life I had coded solely in Linux. However, I decided to give it a shot, because I have a *gasp* open mind, and interviewed there. I went in almost viweing the entire experience as a joke, but I left loving the people, loving the campus, having a great time, and wondering whether or not I should consider this more seriously. So while I was being flown out to Seattle on MS's dime (hey, why not fly out to Seattle, all expenses paid for the weekend, even if I don't take the job) the rest of the kids in my CS program were bitching about how evil Microsoft is while at the same time complaining that they had nowhere to work. Unbeknownst to them, and many of the people here, there is this place called the "real world" and RMS's vision of an IP-unencumbered future is not a part of it. Rent, car payments, tuition, and food, are a _major_ part of it, however. Microsoft takes care of these things. Writing free software, for the vast majority of people, certainly does not.
Microsoft is just a software company. That is it. They are not some evil empire obsessed with world domination. They are not the fucking Third Reich. If you don't like them, don't buy their software. Is there any need to go any further than that? Do we really need to devote a front page article to the fact that IBM advised their employees not to upgrade their internal computers to XPSP2? When the newest Linux kernel comes out, do you honestly think that companies with hundreds of thousands of computers in their enterprise deployments tell all end-users to immediately upgrade? How about OS X users? How about ANY OPERATING SYSTEM ON THE PLANET? Regardless of what OS or software package we're talking about, if you have an internal user base of that many people AND you're running custom apps, you're going to advise people to hold off for a bit. Get over yourself.
I had offers from a bunch of companies, many of whom are much more highly respected by the group-think-drunk Slashdot community than Microsoft. Which full time offer did I take? Microsoft. Did they pay me more? Nope. Were their benefits better as a whole? Maybe. Is it the best company you can work for in the software industry if you can get over the "OMG!@# It's Micro$oft and that's evil" ideology that most 12 year old script kiddies hold? Yep.
I have no problem with you being a fan of Linux. I am too. In fact, I'm typing this message on a years-old IBM Thinkpad 600 running Slackware 10.0. However, I ask that just for one second, you take a step back from your own ideology. You can do one of two things. You can either admit that for all its flaws Microsoft makes a bunch of pr