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Microsoft's Chief Linux Strategist Interviewed

Posted by CowboyNeal on from the shape-of-things-to-come dept.

sl0wp0is0n writes "Computerworld has published an interview with Microsoft's chief Linux strategist, Martin Taylor. It's interesting to find out that Microsoft thinks and predicts Novell (SuSE) will be the dominant Linux distribution they'll have to compete against. The interview also has Taylor talking about indemnification, IBM and his realization that customers generally adopt Linux to get a better TCO than Unix, not Windows."

5 of 369 comments (clear)

  1. Re:A most interesting interview by bersl2 · · Score: 4, Informative

    Oh, there's no regression testing.

    1. Not always true.
    2. Admins don't (and shouldn't) rely on Microsoft's or anybody else's regression and breakage testing anyway.

  2. Let me tell you about TCO. by MongooseCN · · Score: 3, Informative

    I just setup a linux file server for my business. If I bought a windows server with enough licenses for the computers in my store, it would cost me $3000. Linux on the other hand cost me $0.

    Now if a person who needed a server like this didn't know anything about linux, I'm sure he could hire someone for less than $3000 to set it up for him. $100 to hire someone for an hour would be reasonable.

    I just thought I'd throw in that example...

    --


    Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
  3. Re:I don't understand... by speighd · · Score: 4, Informative

    It is a good solid distro using KDE as the default desktop environment. It has one feature that IMHO puts it at the head of the list for non-geek use, YaST. It makes maintenance a lot easier than the standard LINUX methods. Since YaSY is now GPL, maybe we will see other distros adopt it. Now if only SuSE would adopt apt-get from Debian. I hate resolving dependecies..... Luckily it doesn't occur very often.

  4. MS stands behind its products? by Quila · · Score: 5, Informative
    One other thing that's come up more over the last 12 months is this notion of indemnification [against patent and copyright claims]. ... We really stand behind our technology in a pretty aggressive way. We should make sure that we get credit for that compared to Linux in many ways.

    Okay, let's look at the XP license:
    Privacy: (MS) 16. DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES.... ALSO, THERE IS NO WARRANTY OR CONDITION OF TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, QUIET POSSESSION, CORRESPONDENCE TO DESCRIPTION OR NON-INFRINGEMENT WITH REGARD TO THE SOFTWARE.


    That's really backing up your software guys.
  5. Re:I can't work out what this means by Waffle+Iron · · Score: 5, Informative
    WTF is a "stack" in this sense?

    A stack is a vertically integrated solution. For example, it can be a combination of OS, network severs, application servers and management tools all provided in one package by a single vendor. Ideally, all of the components of the stack have been pre-tested to work together smoothly.