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Microsoft's Chief Linux Strategist Interviewed
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."
When you're getting something for free, [vendors] get a lot of "get out of jail free" cards. You see [people saying], "Oh well. We didn't pay for it anyway, so we shouldn't care too much about security. We'll fix it ourselves. Oh, there's no regression testing. Who cares? We'll do that ourselves." But once you start writing a check, you now have demands, and rightfully so.
And indeed, for me, this marks the start of Linux having the potential to be a threat. It means that if a commercial Linux is a viable option, then more commercial software will be written.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
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.
Novell? They'll be lucky....more like Knoppix!!
Could anyone explain that to me? This guy is explaining that people put KERNELS into DISTRIBUTIONS?
At least as far as this interview goes, it's all about corporate strategies AGAINST Linux suppliers and integrators. Little to nothing about OSS's/Unix's/Linux's strengths. Again, they are fundamentally missing the point in the interview.
That doesn't mean they aren't using their legal and financial blunderbuss to defeat the Linux vendors/integrators the same way they wiped out Netscape, though. If so, they almost certainly won't talk about it in an interview.
I didn't RTFA though so troll me if you wish.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
It could have been stranger:
An Interview With Microsoft Linux's Chief Strategist, Bruce Perens
As you can see here with this little nugget:
And you can end up with Linux not being Linux, but Red Hat Linux being different than Novell SUSE Linux, Debian Linux and Mandrake, or whatever the case is.
Very nice. His teacher at FUD school must be beaming now.
Oh well, did you really expect a MS Linux Strategist (nice title btw) to say or do anything different then what we read in the article? The same would be expected from a Linux MS Strategist (if there is such a thing) doing spin on Windows.
Circle of life...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
Anyone who thinks Microsoft is going to announce its GENUINE thoughts about Linux to the public world is deceiving themselves.
Not knowing anything about SUSE (other than its German focus), why would Novell choose them as a Linux distro? Does it have some capability that other distros do not?
customers generally adopt Linux to get a better TCO than Unix, not Windows
While that may be more or less true in the US, from what I've read it seems like a lot of foreign countries are switching to Linux from Windows for the better TCO as well.
In the US, it seems like a lot of big Unix companies are switching - but eventually there will be a large Windows to Linux switch here to.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Total cost of Ownership ?
I thought and it was Microsoft and its BSA/SPA satellite that software could not be owned, hence the EULAs.
So, they imply one might OWN a system ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
they think of Internet Explorer..
No one pays for that, so Microsoft "Get Out Of Jail" for that? I think not...
And also according to those click-through licenses my rights pretty much include "up to but not more than $5".. so that's a comfort is it?
Ahh but to a business it is. I'm not sure if you are aware but most corporate IT groups at some point in their chain of command end up reporting to finance. Accountants could care less about whiz bang technological tricks, they just want to know what it is going to cost.
Indeed, My guess is that this started right after you "funded" SCO's litigations and started to pantent every damn thing under the sun.
And you are surprised customers brought up something you brought on? Puhleeze..
-RG.
They're absolutely right. The major migrations in big corporations tend to be replacement of Solaris boxes, with I suppose HP and AIX getting a look in too.
The home user running Mandrake isn't what they're thinking about here, though I'm sure they spend some time on that too. No - they're thinking about datacentre stuff. But don't take my word for it - ask Sun. Ask 'em how their sales are recently, and why they've had to start offering Linux and x86.
Cheers,
Ian
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
That's because Novell has withstood the onslaught from Microsoft and still managed to eke out a survival. The folks at Novell know how to fight back against Microsoft.
--
A neighborhood journal
Microsoft's anti-Linux strategist, on the contrary, will probably be recommending more changes to Microsoft networking to put more roadblocks in the way of the Samba people, more file-format changes to Word and Excel to screw OpenOffice, and stuff like that. It's rumored that Microsoft has in the past hired actors to behave like really obnoxious Linux fanboys at trade shows, damaging Linux's image - if it's true, no doubt he'll have a hand in that, too.
Just unreal. It sounds like he's basically saying that IBM, Novell and RedHat will start stabbing each other in the back, and fuck over customers in the process, pretty much for the sake of stabbing each other in the back.
In the real world, strategic alliances exist because you realize that by co-branding or working with another company, you can make more money, grow market share and benefit customers.
Apparently, that's not how it works at Microsoft.
Buy the President
From the linked article:
When I talk to customers and they say, "Hey, we can get better TCO with Linux," they're not always saying better than Windows. They're saying better than Unix.
Hardly surprising. For a customer migrating from a commercial UNIX version, the switch to the UNIX-like Linux will probably be much easier than the switch to Windows.
In this case, the difficulty of switching to a completely different environment works against Microsoft. But this merely balances out some of the Windows environments, whose owners find the switch to Linux too difficult.
C - the footgun of programming languages
It's not the MS execs who think that TCO is the most important thing (well, OK, they do), but the execs at MS's client companies that think that TCO is the most important thing...cheep, fast and easy is the motto for a lot of big co's....
LOAD "SIG",8,1
Any other surprises? The surprising thing, a little bit, is how predictable our conversations are now with customers. ... One other thing that's come up more over the last 12 months is this notion of indemnification [against patent and copyright claims]. More and more customers are asking us, "Help me understand what you do from an indemnification perspective versus HP or IBM or Red Hat or Novell." That's weighing into decisions more and more. ... Customers began introducing it and asking me about it more than I was introducing it to them.
The FUD is working, and working well.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
IBM has had a deliberate strategy of not having its own distro. This guy obviously thinks that is a bad idea. He is implying that IBM has no idea of where it is going with Linux. He seems to like what Novell is doing though. Personally, I think he is totally underestimating the enemy (IBM). IBM has shown that it can totally re-invent itself if necessary.
You got to love the title.
It's like:
Chinese government's Chief human rights activist.
Vatican's Chief birth control strategist.
McDonald's Chief vegetarian strategist.
What a great title!
Do you have any lined up for the future?
They're going to continue to be around the scenarios that customers say are important -- TCO, security and reliability.
--END QUOTE--
Well, one out of three aint bad. MS don't have a super reputation for either reliability or security and even their TCO studies in favour of MS are very suspect. I guess these must be future goals for the company.
All those moments will be lost in time, like tears in rain.
It's kind of sad to me actually. If customers *are* talking (to Microsoft) about indemnification issues, then any of Microsoft's allegedly behind-the-scenes investments in SCO's legal actions have paid off for... for Microsoft at least. Another FUD issue successfully on the table.
And notice how the TCO issue is spun... "oh the real Linux TCO issue is versus Unix"... so one might overlook the savings one would have using Linux rather than Microsoft. Why do I run Samba rather than paying $1000 for Windows Server? Or Apache rather than $1000 for IIS+Windows Server? Why does Microsoft cripple their software so that "Software Update Services" (which allows me to check from a central workstation if the PCs running on our network are patched to fix *Microsoft's* security holes) so it only works with Windows XP Professional? In a small/medium business, I now have to run around to all the PCs to doublecheck them because Windows XP Professional on every desktop is one more expense we don't need. And one has to take care that all the laptops which come and go at the end of the day get checked. Compare that to remote administration of Linux systems where it's super-simple to login remotely in the middle of the day or scan programmatically...
Linux isn't strategic for businesses because it lets them reduce a few Unix expenses (although any shrewd businessperson will take what they can get)... it's worth pursuing so you don't end up beholden to one big vendor for all your software. Microsoft's prices *do* keep rising over the years you know...
--LP
I mean, when have you ever heard of any reasonably competent Windows admin (yes, they do exist!) installing, say, a service pack without some serious testing beforehand?
HAND.
When some company starts offering cash for tradeins of original Windows cds for a linux/bsd install, then you will know linux is a commercial threat.
Unfortunately unless I invoke the underpants gnomes, I can't quite see the business plan - unless I am IBM flogging services.
The Singularity is closer than you think
Quant
One other thing that's come up more over the last 12 months is this notion of indemnification [against patent and copyright claims].
...
Yes I wonder who is making it an issue.
More and more customers are asking us, "Help me understand what you do from an indemnification perspective versus HP or IBM or Red Hat or Novell." That's weighing into decisions more and more.
Yes because again Microsoft are trying to tie people down with fear that what they will touch they will loose again because the big Microsoft guys will spoil thier fun.
Customers began introducing it and asking me about it more than I was introducing it to them. And I began to say, "Wow. We really stand behind our technology in a pretty aggressive way.
Hahahah yes you are plenty aggressive, like a cornered animal, even the Ministry of Truth could learn from you guys.
We should make sure that we get credit for that compared to Linux in many ways." And it's actually been something that tips the scales sometimes when people are on the fence.
Is that the barbed wire elecrified fence of 10 year supply deal, licensing terms, special backhanders, propriatary formats et al.
Lets all hug this guy. Anyone notice how Microsoft are finding security holes in its own software right when it wants you to upgrade?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
IBM has stated that the future of the RS/6000 is LINUX. At some later date they will be converting them from AIX to LINUX. LINUX is slowly replacing UNIX and making headway against Windows in the server environment.
I'm not sure, but MS Bob probably predates their love of the internet.
When MS first became aware of the importance of the internet (somewhere in 1995), they started up MSN. MSN was supposed to become a "Microsoft Internet", with all content provided by MS. Something like AOL or Compuserve before they connected to the internet.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, people prefered the "real" internet over a proprietary online service [1], and MSN had to be revamped into a regular ISP. Since they couldn't provide a real advantage, MSN wasn't very successful as an ISP.
[1] AOL, Compuserve and other services like them had to do the same.
WWTTD?
See for yourself:
R.I.P.?
I really find the opengl to be a far more worrying story, who will get linux for free, and pay EXTRA to play games on it because Microsoft want to huddle in opengl.
Someone should rule that Microsoft cannot buy openGL, just like big company ABC might not be able to buy other big company XYZ if they become to big.
Shocking.
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
He says that IBM thinks: "Hey, because of our global services business, we can cobble things together and try to veil that for the customer and deliver solutions."
"Cobble"... "veil"... Ouch, that hurt real bad. Can it be this guy bears a grudge against Big Blue - just a bit?
It's sensible in a 'spin' interview like this to focus on persuading people that windows is better than what's currently out there.
.NET API, Office/music/video DRM, putting increasing resources into the .NET versus Java battle, dropping the price of windows to emerging markets and encouraging the use of non-standard MS technologies by bundling new API's and apps into windows at every opportunity.
I'm sure they also have an anti-OSS strategy internally but this is likely to be very sensitive information. Probably their anti-OSS strategy includes creating new standards for the Web via Avalon/Indigo that become reliant on having the windows
These are the kind of strategies that are neccessary to discourage linux adoption. Every change to windows that makes it less easy to migrate to linux must be hidden as either eye-candy, ease-of-use or a DRM "feature".
Matt
They're absolutely right. The major migrations in big corporations tend to be replacement of Solaris boxes, with I suppose HP and AIX getting a look in too. I can tell you one thing... AIX running on a p690 is in a totally different league compared to linux running on the same hardware. Linux stability, scalability and especially I/O performance is nowhere near AIX performance on said hardware. It's the small to midrange Unix server market that gets a hit... but the high end servers are still Unix all the way. Linux doesn't even come close.
To make this quick (and hopefully readable/coherent), as long as there are quite a few Linux players (and even *BSD ones) competing with each other, multiplying centers of FLOSS development, M$ will have a hard time dealing with the FLOSS movement, especially if volunteers keep playing a significant role, because Bill & co. just can't wrap their minds around the whole phenomenon (sp?).
As long as the various Linux distros and the BSDs don't play in the "traditional way", in the way that M$ understands, as long as *anyone* can contribute to the FLOSS movement, "we" will stay an elusive, hard to kill target. This was said repeatedly over the years, that what makes GNU/Linux a nightmare for M$ is the fact that there is no single company to buy out or to Netscape (the "cutting the air supply" thing).
The minute you shrink the field to only two (big) companies behind GNU/Linux (doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in development, BTW), you've just ~agreed to play on M$'s terms. M$ understands other, traditional, companies following a traditional business plan and getting traditional results/objectives/whatever.
The minute M$ can understand you, the minute they can "frame" you, you are f**ked.
This is why I sincerely hope that Novell will only be one of many players in a field where the loss of one of these players will not be a significant loss to the FLOSS movement because it will be able to pick up and continue more or less as if nothing happened. The same goes for Red Hat.
I want to go back to a world where I can choose between 4 or 5 shrinkwrapped distros updated at semi-regular intervals, each contributing in his own way to The Movement but not being *the* cornerstone of FLOSS.
If Novell or Red Hat become too important, if they "become GNU/Linux", M$ will simply have to kill them off (which should be easy in the case of Novell, sadly) and simply sit back afterwards, reaping the rewards of having killed off yet another (potential) competitor.
We just cannot let M$ define the playing field and play by its rules. Not to sound too much like ESR, but prior/current behaviour on M$'s behalf leave no room for peaceful coexistence unless they've been kicked in the nuts very hard and brought down a few notches, just like IBM was in the '80s and early '90s. We, nor anyone else, cannot compete in any traditional fashion with M$: they only way to do battle with The Beast From Redmond is gerrila tactics, more or less like the FLOSS movement has done up until now.
Change tactics, start playing the traditional game and see your dreams go down the drain.
It should be Microsoft's Chief GNU/Linux Strategist, except if they feel that only the kernel threatens them.
To some extend they miss the point focusing on Linux only.
Firefox, OpenOffice on MS-Windows are very good mid term alternative on the road to the linux operating system.
Once a user is used to these FLOSS tools on MS-Windows, the cost of change towards Linux as the OS becomes marginal.
Know what really annoys me about this interview? How this guy continues to spread FUD while trying to make it look like something other than FUD by attributing it to his "customers". I.e., "our customers keep asking about indemnification" or "before Linux was commercialized customers were willing to cut it some slack for poor security". Nice try, Martin.
Actually, I was trying to be Insightful, not Funny.
Microsoft's patches have been known to create quite a few problems, you would hope that a company with the resources they command would be able to perform a relatively compentant test of a patch.
I offer this as a first question
You state that MS should get credit for how aggressively they stand behind their product. Are you referring specifically to Lawsuits and indemnity? I sure have never seen MS step up to bat about the damage to the internet, small and large businesses etc... caused by the uncountable number of viruses written to your platform. Please do clarify.
I'd guess that this focus will end up biting MS in the ass, in the end. Currently, Microsoft is trying (well, still trying) to get Windows on servers, datacenters, etc. If it's not a desktop, Microsoft is trying to put Windows on it. Why? Because they've saturated their growth in the desktop market (that came about as a result of the mass computer buying of the 90s). The only way to continue their growth is to diversify. And the biggest and most successful brand name they have is Windows.
The problem is, while they're busying trying to still penetrate the server market, which Linux is doing a nice job at expanding into (at the expense, mostly, of Unix machines), Linux has the real potential to encroach on the desktop market. I'm sure Microsoft realizes that. I'm sure they also realizing that "circling the wagons" to "weather out" the Linux threat won't work. That's the whole point of Longhorn. The fact that WinFS *still* isn't coming in Windows is a real disappoint/problem, though. It's both a sign of a core problem (backwards compatibility, both in the outside appearance but also in the code itself which is surely a major reason it was put on hold) and a sign that Microsoft's strategy of adding in tons of features (vapor or otherwise) isn't working.
In the past, the FUD/vapor of a perspective product launch, even if it kept being pushed back, would end up killing or crippling the competitor's product. Instead, Linux really hasn't done anything but slowly grow in the desktop space. Without an actual strategy to combat Linux, a sudden burst in people using Linux could severely cripple the Windows money stream for Microsoft. Then, Microsoft will have to use its massive cash reserve to try to come up with a way to continue to make money.
Of course, if Microsoft develops another highly profitable department, this becomes less of an issue. But, the only thing that's even close to that is XBox. Maybe that'll keep Microsoft alive, but then Microsoft will only be known as a #2 or #3 console maker. I don't think the CEO of Microsoft would like that too much.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
More and more customers are asking us, "Help me understand what you do from an indemnification perspective versus HP or IBM or Red Hat or Novell." That's weighing into decisions more and more. ...
"Well let's see first we find some really angry people, then give them tonnes of money to engage in a lawsuit on a completely spurious charge. Oh yea we get them to threaten ridiculous buisiness proposals if they win.
It doesn't really help anyone but um it won't hurt you as long as you join us.
>Linux doesn't even come close
That is until you put in n+1 active configurations. We went from a shop of purely big iron, SGI Origin 2000, Sun 6800, HPUX, Sequent. And have replaced it with Linux and have a higher overall stability, scalability and performance.
Compared just 1 linux to 1 big iron the big iron will beat it, but all I've got to do is buy 1 or 2 additional linux box and my availability is better (and been proven better over the past 2 years in our environment) than just 1 big iron box and a much better capital price point.
This has traditionally been one of the most important ways for Linux to get introduced into a company. Some employees need to do something, getting financing for the project is just too cumbersome, so Linux and other Free Software is used. It used to be done in deep secrecy, but nowadays, employees will even tell their managers about it.
Finally! A year of moderation! Ready for 2019?
Another marketdroid Information Minister. As long as they're paying this fool, we have nothing to worry about. Clumsy attempts to differentiate between Novell and Red Hat. Bizarre statements about IBM. TCO pie in the sky. Regression testing my ass. Lame kernel jokes.
Keep this one, MS. We like him. Cute, clueless and cuddly.
insecurity asks the wrong question irritation gives the wrong answer
What I have thought for a while is that the hardware vendors will learn from the mistakes of the past. Instead of just creating hardware, they will also supply their own brand of linux with their machines.
Even today you see hardware manufactures creating their own software, look at HP and everything they are doing. IBM? APPLE....
I think companies like IBM, DELL, HP will be the first ones to do this, with NOVEL and IBM leading the way. It would give them a very high jump in revenues, not needing to pay for all the different licenses, allow them to bundle their own software (music store software the big thing I can think of first, then changed into a mulit media application like I see ITunes becomming), and partnerships with many companies (I cant belive AIM is not bundles with any manufacture PC's).
So yeah, pc manufactures will be the ones killng of MS (if anyone) because they will be the ones who change the home desktop.
TruePunk | Games
That's because Novell has withstood the onslaught from Microsoft and still managed to eke out a survival. The folks at Novell know how to fight back against Microsoft.
Or perhaps thats how they want it to be. One big target is much better than many small ones.
Think Napster. Its was much easier to sue Napster (they even disrupted the service), than to sue individual users in decentralized p2ps.
So, they probably expect one linux vendor to dominate the market, so then they hit it (patents, advertisement, whatever), and damage linux image (because whatever they do, we will always have non commercial distros).
http://www.computerworld.com.nyud.net:8090/softwar etopics/os/linux/story/0,10801,95988,00.html
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
http://www.computerworld.com.nyud.net:8090/printth is/2004/0,4814,95988,00.html
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
In other news, Microsoft has a Chief Linux Strategist!
Okay, let's look at the XP license:
That's really backing up your software guys.
FOSS == Free / Open Source Software. What's the "L" for in FLOSS? Are you just really keen on dental hygeine?
When you lose something irreplaceable, you don't mourn for the thing you lost, you mourn for yourself. - Harpo Marx
The MS guy was comparing what novell offers "stack-for-stack" to what MS offers. Novell has things like Directory Services (NDS) and ZenWorks that are as good or better than MS's Active Directory stuff. With the acquistion of Suse and Ximian they get things like OpenExchange & Evolution that also potentially challenge the Exchange-Outlook team. Add in the fact that Ximian's Mono could help break any MS stranglehold over .Net. The question is whether Novell can get their act togather and integrate all these *potentially* great things into a coherent and polished suite that would let you run a complete "Novell Shop" with a Novell server-OS (e.g. Suse), Novell manangment solution (e.g. ZenWorks/NDS), and Novell application servers (e.g. OpenExchange) in the backroom and a Novell client-OS (Suse Desktop) and applications (Evolution) on the desktop. Add in the ability to itegrate a "legacy" windows enviroment and tie it all togather with Mono. That is Novell's potential. We will soon see if they can live up to it.
There are a tremendous number of half-truths and misstatements in what is, in reality, a very short interview.
From bringing up indemnification, to the implication that IBM can only implement Linux because it has so many wonderful techs to throw at a problem-child operating system, through the implication that IBM, Novell and Redhat will begine infighting over the code, this interview is pure Microsoft FUD. It's a rather well-done piece, though, and it is easy to get confuzzled by it all.
I'd just like to point out that this is a mighty interesting trio of players Microsoft is whining about... IBM, Novell, and Redhat... Gee, where are those three tied together again?
The only surprise, really, is that there was no sniping against Autozone in this piece.
It was a joke! When you give me that look it was a joke.
Picking Suse as the primary target implies Microsoft realises they already lost a world market to linux. Big swarm of linux distros, so many movable targets they cannot compete with.
That implied the need to defend at least at home. I bet you can expect some big law about operating systems in the U.S.A. in near future, based on DRM control, with publicity motivated by terrorism, as usual.
There you are, staring at me again.
I know some people _think_ rpm is standard, but if package management was the same for every distribution (read, they all agree on some packaging standards), then distros could flavour their Linux, and vendors could reliable create one package for their software which would correctly account for all dependencies on all distros.
I think this is the number 1 problem that needs to be fixed... and it is solvable with co-operation.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
> [...] his realization that customers generally adopt Linux to get a better TCO than Unix, not Windows.
Of everyone that I know personally that has switched, not a single one did it to "get away from Unix", rather all of them were Windows users and totally ignorant of Unix until they tried Linux.
Once again Microsoft is getting its version of reality from somewhere unknown to most of us and once again they believe they can dictate the reasons users do what they do.
Wise up Microsoft, YOU'RE NOT LISTENING.
THAT'S why people are fleeing in droves.
I don't know the meaning of the word 'don't' - J
I like the way he stokes people's fears over the SCO suite by referring to the whole issue merely as 'indemnification'. Like they're not the ones responsible for the inferred threat to start with.
I can't stand slimey bastards that use indirect references to things to be 'terrified' of, whether it's a Microsoft employee or the neo-conservative basket cases running the show in the US at the moment. How about talking about the real issues, both of you!
TCO means nothing if your systems are down and you are unable to support revenue generating activity during peak business periods.
Also, TCO is a tenuous thing. What will matter more are real capital and operational expenses. Certainly American companies are far to fixated on the current quarter to fully appreciate even meaningful TCO numbers.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
Step one, ignore Linux.
Step two, bad mouth Linux.
Step three, file patent suits against anyone who uses Linux.
BTW, we're at step two now.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Microsoft commissioned analyst firms to do reports to help you "get out the facts" about Linux. Are you still doing that? If someone says, "Hey, Customer X says, 'If I had this data, it will help me make a decision, comparing Microsoft to Linux.'" And I basically hop on the phone with all the folks [at the analyst firms] and say, "Hey, I talked to four or five customers in the last two months, and they all care about x versus y. It's something that I think people care about. Can you guys go do something?" And sometimes they come back and say, "Yup. We've heard that, too. We're going to go do some analysis." Or, they come back and say, "Actually, it's not that interesting to us, but if you care about it, we'll use our methodology and stand behind it, but you have to fund it, because it costs money to get the samples, get the customers, get everything." That's going to continue to be my process. If there are facts or things that are needed, I'm going to hope that I can entice the analyst firms to go do it on their own because they think it's also important. But if they don't, then I'll commission it.
I have an enormous amount of difficulty believing this guy when it comes to his answer to a question on Microsoft's FUD tactics. Him claiming that Microsoft is nice and easy going about the methodology used in Microsoft commissioned analyses and that Microsoft doesn't use financial pressure (or that Analyst firms don't offer to cook the report in exchange for cash) on analyst firms strikes me as a total lie.
For example, the most well known example of Micorosoft's lower TCO claim (and the one displayed prominently on MS' website) was made by comparing Linux on a mainframe vs. Windows on cheap x86 commodity harware. There was no mention of the reasons a customer would go for a mainframe (reliability, bandwidth, scalability), just the FUD about Win2k3 on a dell box.
I think this is just the new (old) MS tactic of pretending to be nice in public and fucking everyone over in private.
Oh, ok. Nothing to worry about, then. In fact, no point in having a high-paid "Linux strategist" on the payroll - get rid of that guy, it's a waste of shareholder profits.
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
Yes, the lower TCO of Linux versus Unix is a valid argument. I agree that Linux adoption is seen as a means to lower the cost of providing services on Unix systems. However, these services are generally provided on Unix systems in order to provide sufficient power, at a lower TCO than a suitable Windows system. So, ultimately , Linux is just a cheaper Unix, which is cheaper/more capable than Windows.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
I adopted Linux because I decided I wasn't paying Microsoft ever again, and couldn't afford a name brand UNIX for workstations.
My new server is a SunFire V240 running Solaris...
Sleep is for the Weak
The major migrations in big corporations tend to be replacement of Solaris boxes, with I suppose HP and AIX getting a look in too.
Although I generally agree with you I think AIX gets more than just a look in. Where I work (Telecom company), for most smaller servers, the choice is SUSE's line of OS packages, in part because of the ease of administration as well as good support. For really big rock solid production systems the choice is AIX and to a lesser extent HP-Unix over Linux since our experience of AIX/HPUX vs Linux shows the former to be more stable if you need absolute reliability. We usually try to replace Sun OS with machines running Linux or AIX, and that is not just brand snobbery. We inherited some numbes of quite new Sun Machines in a recent merger so we have actually had a chance to make a balanced comparisons. Microsoft OS'es are only used for customers specifically requesting MS solutions, failing a specific request for an MS server the customer defaults to a UNIX or Linux system. Apart from that MS OS'es are only used on workstations and for proprietary measurement gear that does not run with anyting else. The general trend for Microsoft server systems has been to minimize their number as much as possible and fortify them heavily because of the disproportionate amount of work we have to sink into them. This has largely been due to security breaches even though we autopatch the MS boxes the moment the patches are posted by MS and generally make every effort to secure them. Incidentally the number of MS Workstation installs is on a (slow) downward spiral for the same reason. People are spending more time than they can spare dealing with adware, viruses, worms etc...
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
Do you have any lined up for the future? They're going to continue to be around the scenarios that customers say are important -- TCO, security and reliability.
So, when Windows "wins" any one of these, we know the research is pure bullshit.
I love the talk about indemnification, too. People are worried that they won't be indemnified, so they'll run to Microsoft. Brilliant. Is that the same Microsoft as here? Surely it's another Microsoft we're talking about...
For those who don't want to click:
Do you have ESP?
Because SuSE is basically in bed with AMD, and the support for AMD from SuSE makes RedHat look like a garage effort.
My prediction: RedHat will slowly go away if they don't adapt to what SuSE is doing....namely, bringing better hardware support. Case in point: 64bit. RedHat's 2.6 kernel 64bit support sucks it on many levels.
no martin taylor, you are mistaken. we ARE syaing that Linux is better than Windows. we are even willing to learn OS internals, compile our own kernels and applications, contribute our (better, more stable and more secure) applications to our comnnity for FREE rather than use your putrid excuse for a product and have to swallow all of the PR (in most polite terms) that your outfit spews. please keep your miserable opinions to yourself.
Same comment applies to install time ... if you choose a minimal install, it takes very little time to install -- however, you have to take the time and frigging deselect everything that is preselected for you, and then go through the million dialogs saying "xyz depends on this library" and turn a bunch of things back on you way in the negative as far as install time goes. If you choose a default install, be prepared to wait about 4 hours.
An XP install takes about a half hour.
Hmmm... interesting. The last Linux install I did (SuSE personal 9.1) took approximately half an hour. I did customise the package list a little; I didn't have much trouble with dependencies -- it just present a list of packages that were being installed automatically to resolve them, which I accepted before it installed. I'll admit that I ended up installing some stuff I didn't want, but then the entire installation came to only about 700Mb, including many applications that aren't included by default with a Windows installation, like an office suite (OpenOffice), personal information manager, viewers for several file types that MS don't provide (e.g. PDF), a selection of text editors (vim, joe, kwrite, kate), an up-to-date Java runtime, and lots of other random things.
Once I had finished the install, the online update installed a couple of security patches that downloaded in about 10-20 minutes over my modem link.
With XP, the install took a similar amount of time, but I additionally had to install several other applications that took about 10-20 minutes each to achieve the same level of functionality. Also, the download of security updates after the installation took somewhere in the region of 2 hours, and I had to reboot twice in order to install everything (the Linux updates did not require a reboot).
It's not "Linux versus UNIX", it's "UNIX versus Windows" with Linux being a very cost-effective version of UNIX.
Microsoft depends on expansion, they're running out of places to expand on the desktop, and they're going after the UNIX server market. The UNIX market is firing back with Linux, but it's such a big fluffy diffuse market that Microsoft is trying to (and in some cases succeeding) convince people that doing a complete conversion from UNIX to Windows is going to be cheaper than converting from one UNIX to another.
Which is just as ridiculous an idea as the one that you automatically save money in the short term by doing a sudden switch to Linux on the desktop: platform swaps cost money. Even Microsoft took multiple tries to do *theirs* at Hotmail, and eventually ended up using Interix to run existing UNIX software on NT... so they didn't do a full conversion after all.
Talking about Linux as if it's an "alternative to UNIX" is just playing into their hands. They know they have to split the competition, that's why they're pushing so hard on the whole SCO case and "indemnification". That's why they did this strategic interview to keep cranking the old SCO FUD machine...
Well, that explains the papercuts on Steve Ballmer's face recently.
"America has done some terrible things. But I know that Americans don't cheer when innocents die." -Dave Barry
...why I needa know about Microsoft strategies around Linux?
BTW I did not RTFW.
http://www.pbs.org/cringely/pulpit/pulpit20040916. html
How about poisoning USB for linux?
h
Patriotism is a virtue of the vicious
If I may revert back to high school, "No, duh!" Man, it is totallly revealing how clueless that Microsoft is regarding Linux that it took them this long to figure that out. It was obvious to me about four years ago, despite ALL of the industry rags saying otherwise (i.e. saying Linux is a threat to Windows) that Linux's first victim would be flavors of Unix that had ossified and weren't innovating but were charging huge fees.
.NET). The biggest threat to the current installed base of Linux is generally recognized as .NET. Linux developers need to develop a competitive offering (Mono, Java, whatever) as a purely defensive move to maintain share, assuming .NET allows developers to do things that they cannot do on any other other platform for a comparable price.
The primary reason is that the people supporting these ossified Unixes already had the skill (for the most part) to support Linux. As Linux gained the requisite features it was a relatively simple substitution for the Unix in question.
In order to switch from Windows to Unix, all of your admins would need to be trained or replaced and their salaries would go up. The cost of salaries can in some cases (especially in small to medium sized deployments) add more to TCO than the licensing. That's why some of the first companies to switch to Linux from Windows were huge companies that were paying millions of dollars in licensing fees. They couldn't care less if they were paying a few hundred thousand more in salary when they were paying millions less in licensing fees.
Of course, this begs the question of why they were using windows at all, but it may relate to the cost of development on windows. It is still easier to develop on Windows than on Linux or Unix. That's why many developers prefer Windows and that's why Windows is so appealing. It has tons of software available. Therefore more people are willing to deploy it. That's why Billy Borg Gates is always saying "it's the API, stupid."
Anyhow, Windows will only move upmarket where Unix and Linux rule now, if it can lower its licensing fees, which it is doing (note Malaysia Thailand, etc) or get such a critical mass of software developed on its platform that customers feel compelled to deploy it, which it is doing (note
If Linux wants to eat Windows' lunch, it has to become easier to develop on. An IDE needs to be developed that is comparable to Visual Studio. Once the software is easy to develop it will start to happen. It also needs to be at least as easy to use as Windows 2000. People can point out all of the flaws that they want about 2000, but it is good enough and it wins on ease of use for most people. Linux is getting there on ease of use, but it's not quite there yet.
Although, I have to admit that ease of use is less of an issue than getting developpers. Incidentally, this is why Apple hasn't grown share. There is nothing special about MacOSX other than ease of use and that is not enough to get it in the door of any corporation. Apple hardware and software are more expensive and in many cases cannot do as much as the competition or are simply comparable and not significantly (i.e. order of magnitude) better.
So, in sum, it's not Linux that will kill Microsoft. It is the insular, narcissistic, navel-gazing culture that has its blinders on to the rest of the world. They were blind-sided by the Internet, then Linux, and most recently by the "search paradigm". Linux just needs to not fall into the same trap. It can't be just software written by geeks for geeks, assuming people want Linux to succeed, where succeed means being ubiquitous and spreading freedom to everyone. Of course, on technical grounds, Linux in itself is already a success, but so was the DEC Alpha. Listen to the customer!
If everybody would converge on Debian we'd still have the distributed development going but without the cross-distro compatibility problems.
Installed the Bubblemon yet?
It's obvious from the first 2 sections. You know it's FUD when Microsoft executives start telling us what "the customers" are asking them...
:-/ This is categorized under the Uncertanty part of FUD. Uncertant about all the positive press Linux is getting with regards to being cheaper than Windows.
First he says that it's about Linux TCO vs UNIX and not Linux TCO vs Windows. He tries to solidify this point by saying that when customers are telling them they're getting better TCO with Linux, that it's not always about Windows. Why would a Microsoft customer, say to Microsoft that they are getting better TCO on Linux vs UNIX? Remember also, they don't have to prove any of this and can make it up as they go. Heck, they do that in court too.
Next was how he was saying that MICROSOFT CUSTOMERS are asking Microsoft about protection from patents and copyrights. Is SCO going after Microsoft or something? This just seems silly for a Microsoft customer to be asking them. Especially with all the Microsoft licenses they have to agree to in order to use the software. IMO, this is another on of the "the cutomers are asking" PR stunts to try and add credence to the SCO vs Linux issue. ie, the Fear part of FUD.
I could go on, but it's pretty obvious this is just a PR presentation and ComputerWorld offered up their stage for it.
That part about Novell just means they now have a target they can shoot at. Especially since Novell is once again going after the desktop OS market( Ray Norda started this back in the mid 1990's. With Linux too! ). Anybody else notice how they've been using 'birdshot' in their PR gun against Linux/OSS the last couple of years? They are no better off today though. IMHO.
LoB
"Anyone who stands out in the middle of a road looks like roadkill to me." --Linus
He says the conversations are predictable, he says they are saying those things.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT IS HAPPENING EVERYWHERE.
Just because this guy says there is a trend toward these FUD items, does not make it so. What else is he going to say?
Don't get me wrong, I think the FUD is having a negative effect. However, you can't simply take his word for anything really. He is a paid spin doctor. The first interview posted here demonstrated that.
Blogging because I can...
I propose a new law:
Whenever a Slashdot poster mentions MS BOB (released almost a decade ago) the thread is officialy over.
Okay, so lets go with it taking 4 hours, almost all of that unattended.
Compared to installing XP, installing MS Office, install winrar and winzip or whatever it is these days, then mirc or something for irc. Then getting firefox/mozilla/whatever your cup of tea is.
Then acroread or something for pdf's, and all the other tools you need to install.
Once I had finished the install, the online update installed a couple of security patches that downloaded in about 10-20 minutes over my modem link.
... yeah, for a server that is in production they suck, and that is a valid complaint, but setting up the machine initially? It isn't like XP takes 15 minutes to boot ...
... if I really wanted to, I could spend the time figuring out how to get stuff done right (once upon a time I had an m68k version of the kernel running on an Atari TT030). Back when I was in college, I had all the time in the world fiddling and twiddling with things. Problem is, I don't have that kind of time anymore -- I just want to use the darn thing.
This was my biggest problem with the install actually. It presented a huge list of locations to download patches from. The first five I selected (at random, because duh, which one is a good one to pick?) didn't work. There were also 2 or 3 poorly worded checkboxes, each which was ambiguous to the point where I wasn't sure if selecting or not selecting the checkbox would cause patches to actually be downloaded and installed. I decided leaving them alone would be the safest.
After that, I click whatever button there was that tells the thing to start, and proceed to spend the next 2 hours (via cable modem) waiting for patches to download. I eventually gave up and went to bed -- the next morning I discover that an error occured during part of the process and it stopped (not too long after I left it alone for the night, as the progress bar hadn't moved that far). What the error was, I couldn't tell you. What I was supposed to do about it, I couldn't tell you either -- the only rational options were a. reinstall from scratch and try again or b. continue with the install and hope that some other process would update it properly next time or that I'd figure out how to do it myself. The "error" sure as hell didn't suggest anything on the issue.
Don't even get me started about the mess that was setting up KDE or X or whatever the hell it did afterwards...
With XP, the install took a similar amount of time, but I additionally had to install several other applications that took about 10-20 minutes each to achieve the same level of functionality.
Yeah, net "install" time with that factored in (ie: time to install applications) is probably much closer, though I can't remember the last time it took me 10-20 minutes to install an application aside from Visual Studio.
and I had to reboot twice in order to install everything (the Linux updates did not require a reboot).
I don't get what the obcession over reboots is
I'm not an idiot
Of course one could drive a large truck bomb to m$ and co and do the same thing.
Well, I'm ready to get modded to -1 coz reading ur post made me see a similar analogy, so here goes -
MSU.S.
FLOSSterrorists
Same battle concept right? The first does not know how to deal with the second because the first does battle in a TOTALLY different way.
Now, just to clarify things, I'm a Linux guy myself and I use OSS wherever possible. So PLEASE PEOPLE, I'm not saying that FLOSS are terrorists, ok? I'm ONLY TALKING about the battle plans here.
Find a job you like and you will never work a day in your life.
I remember watching a talking heads technology show on PBS in the late 80's where a spokesperson from IBM was describing how they were going to put the WinTel threat to rest with their PS/1 line of computers with the advanced MCA bus running OS/2.
This guy's entire line exhibits the same level of brand-centric myopia. Hell, he just noticed that there were different distros of Linux:
Now the challenge will be [that] they're going to need to do stuff to differentiate themselves from Red Hat, which then means that they need to find ways to basically almost have a customized distribution. And you can end up with Linux not being Linux, but Red Hat Linux being different than Novell SUSE Linux, Debian Linux and Mandrake, or whatever the case is.
For this analysis Microsoft pays this guy a 6-figure salary? I'm no genius, but I knew that Linux was not a specific distribution (e.g., "...Linux not being Linux...") in 1994.
They need to wake up before they become another DEC.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Maybe they only see Novell as becomming successfull because they want to split in the Linux industry - and make it so all the players are fighting and trying to destroy each other rather than competiting and posing a genuine threat to Microsoft.
What a softball interview. When he started talking about analysts doing studies of TCO, wtf didn't the interviewer call him out on that bogus study that was recently condemned in Britain as false advertising? The one where they showed Linux costs more than Windows, but failed to mention in the advertisement that they included the hardware costs and had Windows running on a dual Xeon system and Linux running on a huge IBM mainframe?
Enabling and encouraging people who don't know programming to write code for your platform is no better than encouraging people who don't know civil engineering to build bridges for your roads.
Yes, but to do otherwise is requiring a civil engineer to paint your house.
The internet is a beautiful example of what happens when power is divulged to the many. You may argure that this isn't really a good thing, but nobody would dispute that the internet will be fading away anytime soon.
That was his point.
The last thing we need is a flood of insecure, buggy crap giving Linux a bad name.
Hello? Ever taken a look a sourceforge? I hate to tell you this, but insecure buggy crap is already prevalent. The argument is whether or not allowing as many people as possible to write code easily will move Linux forward, and I agree with the orignial poster that it will.
If the Linux development community needs anything, it's fundamentals -- a deeper understanding of computer science (as opposed to code monkeying), relational database theory, functional languages, interface design (not that MS is much better)
At it's core the statement is directly against the GPL, and related philosophies. Limiting access to reasources through either hiding the code (ala closed source) or requiring vast amounts of technical know how is directly contradictory to having the freedom to control your own computers your way.
I know I stretched your arguement a little to make a point, but the road you're on is very rocky indeed.
You forgot "hiring a Linux strategist to instill fear in customers who take SCO's claim seriously" and "pay SCO a 'licence fee' to fund their 'operating system'".
It's called OSX.
NT being a winner had nothing to do with infighting, and everything to do with the www.
Hmmm. Depressing isn't it.
For enterprise, it's easy: Our products it's supported on RHEL 2.1, 3 and Novell Suse Enterprise 9. That's it. Using Mandrake, Debian, TFM Linux? Sorry, not our problem.
(note, when I write "USA" I mean the government, not the people).
4 hours???? How on earth did it ever take that long? By the way - maybe I should have specified - I am talking about easy to install distributions like Fedora or RedHat. Not some of the fringe distros that downloads the packages and/or compile them at install time or have very bad installers (i.e. Debian).
You can do a Fedora/RedHat server install with very very few clicks and prompts in less 30 minutes on decent hardware (greater than 2GHz CPU, 250MB of RAM). IF you want to customize it death (by hand selecting packages to install) - maybe 1 hour. Dependencies from selecting packages manually are automatically resolved by the way. I have never seen "million dialogs saying 'xyz depends on this library'" - I have seen one at the end of selecting packages at which point you can safely click OK (since presumably the packages you selected you wanted, and therefore you want the dependencies as well).
If it took you 4 hours to do it, well, that's because you wanted to take 4 hours to do it, not because it had to take 4 hours to do it. You can indeed tweak it to death which is a luxury that Linux gives you, not a neccessity.
Patches can be downloaded and installed automatically. Unlike in Windows world, I have never seen an update ever breaking anything (again, with the RedHat and Fedora distributions.) If you don't want to install them automatically - fine - the update process is no more difficult than Windows Update.
XP does install in about 30 minutes as well, yes I agree with that. Of course that just gives you the OS, a browser and a Media player.
You mean a lower total cost of 0wnership.
"I'm not an idiot ... "
It sure sounds like you an idiot. You are comparing how long it takes to install something vs how long it takes to install something else PLUS applying all the patches over a cable modem.
It also sounds like you are comparing how to install debian with dselect of all the fucking things to installing XP. Debian is not for beginners. Why didn't you just get a FC, Suse, xandros or lindows ISO and install that instead? That's like picking up a rocket launcher and then complaining that you shot yourself.
If you are going to install linux and you are a newbie (which you obviously are) just get a distro made for newbies. Why is that so difficult for people to understand. There are distros for every level of user and debian is NOT for you.
It is for people like me however. I can install debian and customize it to my needs very quickly. Once you get good at this stuff it's amazing.
evil is as evil does
me, too.
His whole perspective reduces people to cash cow-asaurus. The guy doesn't even live in this world. He comes across as someone needing to be beaten with a clue stick.
Here's a good idea... I just so happen to need to format and reinstall my Windows box tonight (I made the stupid mistake of installing the SP2... it totally nuked my system).
:
So right after format, I'll start the timer and install these
Windows XP Home
Windows XP Service Pack 1
Windows XP Service Pack 2
Firefox 1.0PR
Adobe Acrobat Reader
MS Office XP (full install)
MS Visual Studio 6
And I'll stop the timer here.
I won't format and reinstall my Mandrake box though (for some reason, it doesn't *need* to be reinstalled), so we won't be able to compare exactly, but at least we'll have a very good estimate of how long it can take to have an up-to-date Windows box that on which I can actually get some work done. I bet it's more than 30 minutes...
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
And you know what, that's perfectly OK. Windows made
its headway in the server market in the same way, chipping away at the low-end and making its way onto
the midrange as enhancements were made.
Since a move from big iron Unix to Linux is easier than moving to Windows, Linux will get the enhancements it needs to compete.
If you doubt this, then ask yourself why IBM would bother pushing Linux so aggressively when they already have a better OS with a larger installed base on the high-end hardware.
Pain is merely failure leaving the body
You don't need to install XP SP1 if you're going to install XP SP2. Also, don't forget to install the Office XP service packs as well, same with Visual Studio.
pot, kettle. Black.
It was a JOKE!
Now, back to a job that's safer than feeding trolls.
"We don't know what we are doing, but we are doing it very carefully,..." Wherry, R.J. Personnel Psychology (1995)
Bullshit. The companies I've moved over to Linux are SME's dying to get out of the lock Microsoft have on them with things like Windows Server, CAL's and then the client OS's. There's a lot of money in small business, and a lot of companies who've never heard of Unix who're ready to save a buck or two running Linux/Samba etc.
No.
Linux is a MAJOR threat to MS, and all of the major Linux vendors acting together would be *death* for MS.
Which is how the whole SCO thing is panning out. The big boys are realizing that there is no co-existance with Microsoft other than in the fashion that a slave "co-exists" with its master.
Because of Microsoft's predatory behavior, it'll either be hunted down like a man-eating tiger and killed by the members of the village, or it will simply eat the villagers one-by-one.
The MS "Linux Strategist" is hoping/dreaming that he can start some in-fighting among the villagers to prevent them from finishing the organization of the tiger hunt.
The boon/reward for cooperative behavior in this case, is that once the tiger is dead everyone will be able to freely compete for thier chunk of the 90% market share that MS currently controls on the desktop.
That's a powerfull incentive to cooperate against MS, and the examples of what has happened to every single one of the "Microsoft Partners" is a powerfull DISincentive for any of the big players to play nice with MS.
MS will be have to be incredibly lucky to get more than 10% to 20% market penetration on the desktop with Longhorn... and that will be the begining of thier end.
...it's the control, stupid! When MS Windows WILL NOT LET ME DO WHAT I NEED TO DO MY JOB and Linux will, guess which I will specify.
Oh, I thought it was a bank of monkeys surfing the MS Tech Web for the first tier suggested tips.
For second tier, all demoted MSFT contractors with marginal skills.
For third tier, all actual hard-working MSFT demoted employees with fair skills.
For fourth tier ($$$), all MSFT "non-employee, but should be employee"
For fifth "executive" tier (lifetime clients only), you talk to the developers directly.
-- Those are my experience only and not a reflection on anyone else. If your mileage varies (which can only get better)... stuff it.
Throw away an entire useless industry and something better ALWAYS comes along and replaces it.
-- I leave it to your mind to peg that "useless" industry.
I actually did all my Windows upgrades through Windows Update, which I launched again and again as long as it didn't tell me I didn't need any more critical updates.
Windows Update did require me to get SP1 first, then reboot, then get SP2...
I had forgotten an essential piece of software in the list... an anti-virus and a firewall. To cover those, I have Norton Internet Security 2004.
So basically, we got those numbers :
- WinXP, from scratch to first boot (not counting formatting) : 45 minutes (not only does the WinXP CD take forever to boot, after it has copied the installation files to disk, when the "GUI" appears, it says that there are 39 minutes left to installation) + 1 reboot
- Windows Updates till I don't need to update anymore : 40 minutes + 3 reboots.
- Norton Internet Security 2004 + Live Updates till I don't need to update anymore : 20 minutes + 2 reboots.
- Firefox 1.0PR : 2 minutes
- MS-Office XP (Word, Excel and Access) : 5 minutes (I'm actually impressed by this one, and no reboot required).
I can't find my Visual Studio CD at the moment, so I'm gonna stop here.
So to get a Windows box up and running (and useful), it took just under 2 hours of installing stuff (and 6 reboots). And I actually had to stay there waiting for 2 hours, because the Windows installer has that nasty habit of installing stuff for a couple of minutes, then popping up a window to ask you some info about which time zone you live in, then it installs some more, then pops another window to ask you about your network, then it installs some more and asks you about your keyboard...
Then came the Windows Updates. Some of them require you to accept a licence, so you can't leave the keyboard, and all the rebooting requires you to re-launch Windows Update. Same goes for the Live Updates of Norton Anti-Virus.
On the other hand though, from what I remember, my Mandrake 10 installation took somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes total, when I also couldn't wander very far away from the keyboard because of all those disc changes.
So, a regular Linux distro install isn't "a whole lot" faster than a Windows install. However, I do think it's much simplier. With Linux, you give all your info at first, tell the installer which packages you want, then click Install, and the computer only needs you to change CD's from then on. With a distro that would be on a DVD (I hear some of them already are), those disc changes would be eliminated and you could actually leave the computer after about only 15 minutes of configuration and the installer wouldn't bother you until your system is ready to use.
So installing Linux isn't necessarily faster than installing Windows, and to some people, it might not be easier. However, in my humble opinion, a Linux installer looks smarter than a Windows installer, since it gathers all the information it needs right from the start, and then leaves you alone afterwards. Plus, it doesn't need any rebooting at all.
My 2 cents...
P.S. I must also mention that my Windows box is behind a physical firewall, which prevented my computer to be hacked before I could get the updates... could have been much more complicated if I didn't have that.
P.P.S. I must also mention that I have no drivers installed yet, only the default drivers that come with Windows... meaning I can only have a resolution of 1280x1024 on my Radeon9800Pro :-S
After 3 days without programming, life becomes meaningless
- The Tao of Programming
I don't get what the obcession over reboots is...
My main problem is that I like to do some useful work while I'm waiting for the patch to download. If I have to reboot in the middle & then download another patch (as the XP install required) this disturbs my work, resulting in me being less productive.
Besides, running two p690's, while attractive from an IBM sales point of view, is not exactly something we want to do.
And, on a side note, the "Linux is good for everything" attitude is exactly what is putting off so many people.
In our situation it's not clusters, but farms. Each node is completely independant but they do the same tasks.
You do realize of course that a p690 is what exactly what I was referring to as a "big iron" system. I'm talking Dell, HP Proliant, IBM xSeries type systems $7k. You may be doing some extremely niche fluid dynamics that require a single image; but the majority of what high-end Unix systems are being sold for do NOT require that, a small percentage do but not all. You take your one p690 and replace it with a bunch of nodes of *SMALLER* systems (not two p690's), enough to handle your entire load then throw in a few extra. You increase your availability by being able to lose a node, you increase your performance by adding some extra nodes, and your incremental growth costs are some inexpensive nodes you throw in once a year for growth (no more forklift upgrades that finance hates to hear).
Never said it was good for everything, but that we were able to prove to our management that we can get better: performance, reliability, scalability than the traditional monolithic systems. It seems that you don't want to admit that low class linux systems could possibly fullfill the same requirements as your p690 system but at a much better cost point.
Maybe to better illustrate the point is that you don't require linux, you could get some of the low-end IBM boxes, etc. and do the same procedure scaling horizontally rather than vertically. You won't get as an attractive price point but your availability, reliability increases significanly beyond what you have today with one system. You might say I've less of a "Linux is good for everything" attitude and more of a "horizontal scaling is good for almost all business, and combining Linux & x86 make it an easy dollar win". What's even better is now you could drop hardware support contracts, lease for 3 years and get a 3 year warranty, by some extra for spares and you've removed another significant dollar cost from your organization (provided you have semi-technical staff) repairs also happen much quicker than having to get parts expressed in from the vendor.
It may not work for everyone (extremely niche single image systems), but we've had extremely good luck in replacing our mainframes, our high-end Irix and high-end Solaris systems (high-end being 16+ procs) and getting much more performance (upto 2 fold per CPU) more reliability, and more availability and it cost our business much less.