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Latest Ballmergram Bashes Linux TCO
Phoe6 writes "Microsoft chief executive Steve Ballmer has used the software giant's latest executive email to stoke up Microsoft's fight against the rise of Linux. The 2,600 word missive was titled 'Customer focus: comparing Windows with Linux and UNIX'. In it, Ballmer repeated the key themes of Microsoft's controversial Get The Facts campaign. Zdnet has its report here." Linuxworld also has a story.
Yankee's study concluded that, in large enterprises, a significant Linux deployment or total switch from Windows to Linux would be three to four times more expensive - and take three times as long to deploy - as an upgrade from one version of Windows to a newer release. And nine out of 10 enterprise customers said that such a change wouldn't provide any tangible business gains.
Whoda thunk that it'd be more expensive to entirely change your infrastructure from Windows to Linux than it would be to simply upgrade to a new version of Windows????? Wow! We should install Windows everywhere!
Who here also thinks it'd be just as expensive to convert from Linux to Windows?
Excerpt from last paragraph of Ballmer memo:
If the evidence at our www.microsoft.com/getthefacts Web site doesn't sufficiently convey the benefits and value of the Microsoft platform, we want to hear from you so we can work even harder to get that information to you.
I can't wait to read the the response to his invitation.
Security
About three years ago, we made software security a top priority
please... but i think they are starting to see Linux as a viable threat, thus the verbal out crys lately trying to defend themselves
Also worth reading the groklaw article on this, which is available here.
http://www.fdic.gov/news/news/financial/2004/FIL11 404a.html
A fine is a tax you pay for doing wrong and a tax is a fine you pay for doing all right.
the number of security vulnerabilities is lower on Windows
WTF??!?!?! how can infinity be lower than anything? Seriously though, lower vulnerabilities? Where the hell did that come from. From what I understand, linux is more secure, unless you purposely open it up or ignore the installs which tell you not to run as /root
We're tired of hearing your useless FUD.
1. Price of Windows $299
2. Price of Linux $0 to whatever distributor you wish to pay
3. Having the Freedom to use the software you want to how you want to and being a part of a world wide Free(dom) software community: Priceless!
w0uhf
It seems like they think that if they say Windows is more secure enough times it will become a reality. They should put more focus on developing secure software, than simply paying lip service to secure software.
--
Brandon Petersen
Get Firefox!
I don't. It'd be much more expensive IMO to convert from Linux to Windows. First off, you gotta buy it. Second off, you'd have to hire all new IT staff, because the previous guys would've committed hari-kari in the bathroom. Second, you'd have to figure out how to get all of your applications running again in an environment that is as stable as a drunkard on a fence.
-Jesse
Nothing says "unprofessional job" like wrinkles in your duct tape.
I am so sick of "get the facts" and "Windows TCO is lower". I am a big fan of windows on the desktop, but it sucks as a server. I contend that anyone who says "Windows is easier to admin than Linux" has never had a Windows problem.
Since Tuesday, my DFS has been totally screwed up and not replicating. With Linux, you'd just look at a samba config file or something, but NOOO, not with AD and MS domains. I totally removed all of my replica sets and spent HOURS on google trying everything under the sun.
We ended up having to call Microsoft and paying $245 for the privilege. Well, in case you're wondering, yes they fixed DFS, but now my SysVol is marked as tombstoned. So yeah, my profiles are replicating, but now my SysVol is about to delete itself. Microsoft is trying to figure out WTF it is trying to delete SysVol and every time you set the flag to 0 it goes right back to one, regardless of whether or not you stop or start the File Replication Service(FRS). We had to totally blow everything away in LDAP with ADSI edit and in the registry under HKLM\System\CurrentControlSet\Drivers\NtFRS and DFS.
Anyway, I hate windows on a server, but you just don't have the same abilities on a Linux domain as you do on a windows domain with windows desktops. We used to have a samba domain, and we're transitioning to AD. I hope Ballmer gets to read this, preferably before my SysVol deactivates and deletes itself.
This message and SysVol will self-destruct in five seconds.
What would we expect of Ballmer? "Okay, okay, I give in, Linux is actually better, cheaper, more stable, faster" and so on? Of course not. He is lying, true, but that is his job (used car salesmen, bow before Ballmer, for he is your god).
Stupidity is an equal opportunity striker.
Fellow slashdotter Bill Dog
will be the one that the most people that have to interact with it know it. If on the server, and all the admins know unix that would be linux or unix. If on the server and all the admins know only windows then it would be windows. On the desktop windows will win most (read 95%) of the time. Unless you have a very very techly set of employees then it just might be linux.
how ironic.
^_^
"You worthless post!"
-Shakespeare, 2 Gentlemen of Verona, 1. 1. 147
And as Yankee Group noted in its Linux, UNIX and Windows TCO Comparison study, "Linux-specific worms and viruses are every bit as pernicious as their UNIX and Windows counterparts - and in many cases they are much more stealthy."
Well they have to be...the simple viruses that invade windows machines wouldn't stand a chance against linux.
Also, they totally ignore to state the fact that the frequency of Linux viruses on Linux is pretty much null.
I think some of the MSies, such as Ballmer, can officially be declared rabid. or at least werewolves in Redmond. (Warren, we need ya!)
What??? The initial change from any OS to any other OS would cost money? Don't they cover this sort of thing in economics 101?
Good to see that Micros~1 is running out of ideas to fight Linux, and must resort to recycling their same old collection of lies, damn lies, and statistics.
BTW, why is it none of these "TCO" studies consider the effects or cleanup costs of Windows trojans, worms, viruses, or spyware? I wouldn't trust any study which doesn't include those figures into the equation for a "total" cost of ownership.
Developers, devel... erk, Security, Security, Security!
Do you like Japanese imports?
I don't think I understand your point. Its expensive to switch from linux to windows or visa versa. So the report says that if you are already a microsoft customer, don't bother spending the extra money it takes to switch. Do you think they are saying that makes Windows a better operating system than Linux? Or are they extending the point too far to imply that starting from scratch, Windows should always be installed? I don't get it.
Well.. maybe. Or Maybe not. But Definitely not sort of.
Yankee's study concluded that, in large enterprises, a significant Linux deployment or total switch from Windows to Linux would be three to four times more expensive - and take three times as long to deploy - as an upgrade from one version of Windows to a newer release. And nine out of 10 enterprise customers said that such a change wouldn't provide any tangible business gains.
It could be true If you take into account the custom applications that may be running on windows now. If you have to migrate from Windows to Linux you also need to develop those custom applications to run on Linux. May be they are taking that into considerations. But if it is just office applications(Like MS Word) that should not so much costly as there are Free alternatives available and are as (In some cases More) efficient as MS Office.
Chicago Browns? That IS bad. I think you mean Chicago Bears or Cleveland Browns, both of which fans' are fueled by the lukewarm fires of past glories hesitant to return.
Yankee's study concluded that, in large enterprises, a significant Linux deployment or total switch from Windows to Linux would be three to four times more expensive - and take three times as long to deploy - as an upgrade from one version of Windows to a newer release.
It's more expensive short-term to switch operating systems than to not switch? Shocker.
And nine out of 10 enterprise customers said that such a change wouldn't provide any tangible business gains.
And one of them said it would.
Did any of them say Windows was actually better? I doubt it - if any of them had, they would have mentioned it.
Training for IT employees was significantly higher for Linux than for Windows - on average, 15% more expensive. The reasons: training materials were less readily available, and customers spent more on training to compensate for the lack of internal knowledge about Linux.
There are more Windows admins out there. This surprises who?
So you've got #1, which basically says "If you're already running Windows, stick with it!" You've got #2, which says "If you're already running Windows, stick with it!" And you've got #3, which says "Right now, there's more people running Windows!"
Am I the only one who hears an undertone of "Please, please, for the love of God, keep using Windows"?
Microsoft's marketing, right now, is focused entirely on "Don't switch to Linux". Perhaps this is because many companies still use Windows. Or perhaps it's because they can't come up with plausible reasons to switch *from* Linux. But don't worry - we'll be seeing their first attempts in a year or two, I'll wager.
Breaking Into the Industry - A development log about starting a game studio.
I wonder if their TCO figures include rebooting all your servers weekly to install new patches...
Oh, and let me guess... the Linux vulnerability count includes all issues found in an entire distribution, while the Windows count includes only the base OS. I'll bet we'd get a much more accurate picture if they included IIS, SQL Server, Outlook, etc.
Seriously, this is just the marketroids doing their thing. When the accountants start warning about threats from Linux, we know there's a real threat. Linux is getting mention in the latest annual filing, too.
See what I've been reading.
The single biggest reason for the proliferation of open source software like Linux and Apache is that they are free to own. Most Westerners are relatively honest and do not pirate commercial software; the piracy rate is only about 15%. The sheer high cost of commercial software thus creates a market for free software like Linux and Apache.
Now, consider China (which includes Taiwan province and Hong Kong). The Chinese steal what they do not want to buy; the piracy rate is about 95%. In China, there is no market for open source software like Linux, for all software is free. Windows XP is "free".
TCO is not even an issue in China because Microsoft will not support pirated software. Chinese pirates get support for, say, Windows XP from other pirates; the behavior is similar to Westerners getting support from other open source supporters for Linux.
...but when I went to read the article at Linuxworld , the formating of the web page was all over the map.
Now, I'm using Firefox...which I would think Linuxworld...being to promote Linux and such...would be formated in a way that Firefox/Mozilla wouldn't have a tough time reading. Yet, when I open the page in Internet Explorer, everything is fine.
Why is this? What's really going on over at Linuxworld? Is everything over there put together on Linux/Apache and other open source apps?
Just find it interesting...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
you gotta learn how to count
Just the cleanup costs? How about the cost of damage that those can do ?
...This memo was passed around at my firm to the people who handle the MS accounts and all of the sudden their eyeballs took on the shape of dollar signs. Nobody wondered about the debate over the veracitiy of the "Get the FUD" campaign when I brought it up. All they thought about was a way to get a piece of the market research action with MS funding, of course.
Overall, I wasn't tremendously impressed with the email. I didn't see anything that was literally wrong, but parts of it were stupid or misleading or based on third party studies that weren't necessarily accurate. There were also some things that were completely true. If you can refute every single point in that email then you are making stuff up, and you should re-evaluate your arguments to determine which ones are true and which ones are nonsense.
Whoever corrects a mocker invites insult;
whoever rebukes a wicked man incurs abuse.
--Proverbs 9:7
Getting Linux TCO news from Ballmer is about as reliable as getting news about Iraq from Dick Cheney.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I depend heavily on M$ products for my paycheck, and have certifications in M$ products. but I am also a realist... there are times that Linux just does the job better.
;)]
I feel that they both get the job done in different ways, and sometimes one is better than the other. We (the team who manage the servers at my place of employment) have been slowly introducing more and more Linux boxes, just because we can do more with the functions we are introducing them for. [Well, that and the fact that the security team is very Windows centric and can't crack these, much to their frustration and chagrin.
However, Ballmers contentions that Windows is just better are beginning to sound more like the ravings of a man demanding that the wind stop blowing.
As for the facts on the website? My college stats teacher proved that you could make the numbers say anything if you try hard enough.
Here I come to save the da... *thud*
I gotta get me a shorter cape.
A quick comparison for complete system upgrades:
CPU: AMD XP1700+
FreeBSD: 3 hours (includes: cvsupping the entire source tree, making and installing world and kernel, running mergemaster), of which 10 minutes of actual console presence is required from the system admin.
Windows XP: 3 days if you are lucky, of which constant presence is required from the system admin since you cannot predict when you will be prompted for what and what exactly is the next step.
Time is money, but forget about money for a second. Do you want to waste your life promoting Microsoft? By wasting your time trying to install, configure and maintain their products, that's just what you are doing. Making your life worth less. Worthless.
As far as updating goes, generally, debian is much easier to update in my experience. Using the packages included in debian (and this is a HUGE number) you essentially never have to worry at all about dependencies.
... unstable. :)
Of course, if you use the unstable distribution, occasionally a package gets uploaded that is a little
But using stable, or even testing, you almost never get this kind of problem. Certainly nothing like the problems with winxpSP2, and of course, the viruses/spyware fun on windows requires far more frequent updating than anything in linuxland.
Anyway, if all your experience has been with redhat, especially if you weren't using yum or apt-get in it, things can be greatly improved.
Yeah, that takes the cake. But it's worded pretty cleverly, dontcha agree? "About three years ago, we made software security a top priority." Notice they don't say they've actually done anything about it, they just say they've made it "a priority". Hell, anyone can do that.
Beautiful piece of marketing doublespeak.
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
"First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win."
I'd say we're well into Stage 3.
I want to delete my account but Slashdot doesn't allow it.
Check out hosting from http://www.1and1.com/. Linux hosting is $4.99 a month; MS Win hosting with the same features is $6.99 a month. I wrote to 1and1 and asked them why Windows-based hosting was more expensive. I was told that in terms of licensing and maintainence costs, Linux is definitely cheaper.
How do you respond to that, Ballmer?
Thank God I'm an atheist!
Roses are #FF0000, violets are #0000FF, all my base are belong to you
With an educational discount, Windows 2003 server costs my department $142 (sure, it's more in a commercial environment), I can install it, set it up, run updates on it once in a while, run the baseline security analyzer on it, and forget about it. Give me a linux that does all this in an easy to use manner, and I'll switch. Sure, I could use apt and the others, but it just takes too much time, and you have to worry about various dependencies and what not.
At $142, that's $142 more you have to spend compared to FOSS solutions. What you've described, proved either that your educational institution is filthy rich and caters only for the rich and snobs, or you're just plain lazy.
Most educational institutions, whether state-run or even privately operated (esp. private with visions of education rather than for profit), are almost always tight budget! This is especially true in third world countries! That is why various bodies such as SchoolForge (and their Case Studies), K12OS, Moodle, OpenSourceSchools, KDE Edutainment Project and a lot more others are being founded and.. surprise! Thrives!
Personally, I love the K12LTSP Project. A branch out of the K12OS Project, which when deployed properly throughout the campus, can provide access to all students to high-grade apps in a very stable environment. Access from any terminal in any labs, authenticating via NIS, LDAP or whatever you prefer and access your mail accounts, website or whatever. With backend support tools available such as MySQL or PgSQL and PHP/Perl (okay, maybe that's a bit far out, but I've met 12 year olds who can code!)
Software cost? $0
Will sys-admin for food
I read this when it came out, and read it once again now. It is complete FUD.
of note:
They only speak of conversion costs, never upkeep. Conversion is always expensive. Have them look at conversion plus 5 years.
Look at the cost of downtime. They do not mention what the cost is to the core business.
Cost of hardware.
The hardware needs for windows platforms is much more robust compared to platforms for Linux. That's another trick they do... they say, you need P4s and we need P4s... not really. My new server (i.e. jenny's old laptop) is running off of 128 mb of ram and 600 MHz. It is considered overpowered for command line only freebsd.
Their notes:
Few companies know what they're really spending. Only five of the 14 kept detailed metrics - and each of those five found Linux more expensive (5% to 20%) than their current Microsoft environments. => Which 5 companies? Cost is one thing, but what are the potential returns? I wont be running any ecommerce website on IIS. Those credit cards will be jacked so quick.
Preparation and planning activities took 5% to 25% longer for Linux than Windows. What are we planning? => As a counter example... lets talk about active directory migration.
Training for IT employees was significantly higher for Linux than for Windows - on average, 15% more expensive. The reasons: training materials were less readily available, and customers spent more on training to compensate for the lack of internal knowledge about Linux. => Unknown to me, but I bet this is true due to simple supply and demand. However, if Linux had the marketplace and Microsoft was smaller it would probably reverse
All 14 companies said it was difficult finding qualified Linux personnel in the marketplace to support their Linux projects. When they did find third-party help, they had less leverage negotiating hourly rates than with Windows consulting resources. => What is qualified? I every MCSE is not qualified.
Victory is gained, not in knowing your opponents next move, but in preempting them.
Pope takes a shit in the woods.
_O_
.|< The named which can be named is not the true named
Okay, but remember, they will then come up with the argument that the only reason that these things are not on Linux is because the people that write the trojans, worms, viruses, and spyware target the largest audience.
Nope. If you read the letter you might notice they came up with an even better one.
Ballmer - And as Yankee Group noted in its Linux, UNIX and Windows TCO Comparison study, "Linux-specific worms and viruses are every bit as pernicious as their UNIX and Windows counterparts - and in many cases they are much more stealthy."
So you see, Linux has all the same problems as Windows. They're just hidden better! Fear the unknown!
Just look at the "security" of the Linux kernel. Users are limited to 16 groups?? Only one group can have permissions applied to a file? And no group nesting allowed?
Yeah, there's a security system I'd be proud of.
You can mod this comment down, but you can't propose a security system like THAT to a company interested in protecting their assets. WAKE UP SLASHDOT.
IHBT. Still:
First off, lots of large companies protect their assets using the standard UNIX security scheme, so that part of your argument is a non-starter.
Further, if you require a more flexible ACL scheme for some reason, you can always use SGI's XFS filesystem, which has had fairly good support for ACLs for quite awhile.
Or use IBM's JFS, which likewise has ACL support.
I believe that there are patches available which will add ACL support the ext2 and ext3.
So, in summary: Plenty of folks get by without problems with UNIX permissions, but if you want ACLs, they're readily available. Go ye forth and troll no more.
FreeBSD. Not only is the entire distribution integrated, but all future updates of all pieces are integrated in the same way.
But that aside the reason why I as an IT guy am not impressed by Windows is that it is difficult to administer remotely (when Microsoft shows me a version of Windows that I can admin over a 9600 BPS serial link with a CLI I'll be interested) and the fact that I don't want to be Microsoft's bitch. If I don't like IBM's Linux solution I can buy from HP or SGI. If I don't like Microsoft Windows I'm stuck with it.
Microsoft's history of price increases is also an issue. When Windows NT 3.51 came out I could purchase it for $95 dollars a license at Academic discount, NT 4.0 cost 135 dollars, Windows 2000 and XP are $165. Microsoft will counter that Windows XP is more functional than NT was and that that justifies the extra price, but my hardware is more functional than it was 8 years ago when NT 3.51 came out and it's cheaper, why hasn't Microsoft's operating system followed the same evolution? (that's a rhetorical question, but in case you're confused it's because they have a monopoly) In addition I take all of Microsoft's claims of increased functionality driving software price with a grain of salt as a lot of what those new releases deliver is bug fixes over the prior version.
Even if Microsoft can deliver solutions for the same price as Linux a lot of companies are going to look at Microsoft's recent history and say "Do we really want to be their bitches?" and when the answer is "no", go with that Linux solution.
cheap labor conservatives - they want to keep you hungry enough to be thankful for minimum wage.
I think:
simple == good security
So I like the classic Unix security scheme on Linux.
Windows has no equivalent. It's tricky, you can't see what's happening at a glance.
Users are limited to 16 groups??
32, I believe. Still, it isn't perfect, and we should perhaps look at ways to improve it.
Only one group can have permissions applied to a file?
Not true. All major Linux filesystems support POSIX ACLs now, enabling you to apply whatever permissions you like.
And no group nesting allowed?
What are the security benefits of allowing this? Personally, I am not aware of any, as I believe whether it is allowed or not the systems are actually equivalent -- it is merely an implementation detail that should be ironed out by any reasonably well written management system.
You can mod this comment down, but you can't propose a security system like THAT to a company interested in protecting their assets. WAKE UP SLASHDOT.
Even without ACLs, it is more than adequate for 99% of companies. Hell, most of them wouldn't want to spend the admin time required to manage anything more complex.
It seems like they think that if they say Windows is more secure enough times it will become a reality
This really works... for a recent example look no further than WMD... everyone suspected that it was bogus, but found the media campaign somehow compelling. Sad to say, marketting is very powerful
They should put more focus on developing secure software, than simply paying lip service to secure software.
It would be very naive to believe that a company (whose loyality is to shareholders), will sit still on such a burning issue. They have finally realized that they most do this, but it will take years. In the mean time, lip-service it all they can offer.
Like all pain, suffering is a signal that something isn't right
Presumably they replaced old servers with new ones, so, say, 4 old i386s with 2 new Athlons ? Hardly surprising it is ?
Any one got any old pics of Ballmer, I'd like to see how much his nose has grown by this last year.
In terms of talking about the operating system itself, Microsoft's statements come across as the same FUD we'd expect. However there is one thing I noticed in this letter which caused me to think a bit...
"All of the major Linux vendors...have begun charging hefty premiums for must-have items such as technical service and support, product warranties and licensing indemnification."
What this means I think is that Microsoft can't compete with the *operating system itself* on technical merit, and they know this. However, what it sounds like they're realising that they *can* do is exploit corporate ambivalence about Linux based on the major distributor companies' pricing structures.
I understand that in order to make money with Linux, it's always been about the services. What I've also heard talked about several times recently though is how greedy people think Red Hat in particular are becoming. If this is true, RH and the other companies IMHO need to be careful.
Microsoft as I said know they cannot compete with Linux based purely on technical merit. But if Red Hat and the other companies introduce overinflated pricing structures with regards to the services, this will largely erradicate the "free as in beer" element of Linux, at least as far as the corporate mind is concerned. If it gets to the point where Microsoft can compete based on *initial price*, (and no, I'm not talking about ongoing license fees here...I'm talking about the price of the *initial* contract/box/whatever) then they could even afford to cease caring about people knowing that Linux is a technically stronger solution than Windows. All they need to do is sell someone on the idea that an *entry* price is cheaper than the initial price one of the Linux companies is charging. Based on what I've heard about Microsoft's contracts, I'm guessing they could very easily do this.
1) Offer a corporation an initial deal comparable to the Linux vendors in terms of unit volume/amount of support, but at a marginally lower price, and of course with Windows rather than Linux.
2) Fill said corp's heads with usual BS about "independent" (wink, wink) surveys/studies and so on to grease the deal.
3) Include a fixed term no-vendor-transfer clause in the contract...basically specifying that they can't migrate for a certain time period. 5 years, 10 if they can get away with it.
4) Once the time period for the Linux "clone contract" runs out, then we're in purely Microsoft time, and can then commence MS fun and profit. Jack up the price for additional support, service packs, bug fixes or whatever, and justify this on the basis that these weren't mentioned in the original contract, or that these are "optional extras." (Even if they are actually mandatory to keep the corp's machines functioning) Use extra context-specific BS as necessary.
Any client company unfortunate enough to fall into this trap would basically be screwed for the duration of the contract.
As a systems admin, I don't want to fuss around with kernels, deciding between a distribution, and all that jazz
:) There was some guy who set up a RedHat web/db/mail/cvs server. He wasn't an uberguru, just a guy who knew what he was doing. That machine has been going and going for more than 3 years without being stopped, only on power failures. I had to replace it this summer because it's CPU fan stopped and the CPU just went bye-bye, and it was pretty old anyways.
:)) but that's not the point. The point is, once/month dist-upgrade and it's a runner for at least the next 3 years if the gods of hardware permit :)
Well, you must be some kind of a system admin. One thing certain: you'll never be root.
Thing is, what you say is only true for one type of admin: who raises a hand when asked who wants to do it. No history, no experience.
Ok, didn't want to do this, but I can't hold it
The new one is going on Debian/Woody of course
I would openly directly naturally and severly fight any argument war on all fronts of server capabilities against anyone who would replace it with any Windows server version.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
I appreciate the fact that it's going to cost a company some money to switch from Windows to Linux, mainly to hire competent administrators (and if you're thinking of doing so, hiring competent administrators is an absolute must).
However, I also appreciate the fact that said company is never going to have to pay for a software and/or operating system upgrade ever again. This is called smart spending. You shell out money in the short term to save significant amounts of money in the long term.
Speaking from experience here, my company has switched every machine in our office to Linux, both servers and clients, and we've saved a bundle in the long run by doing so.
--It's Pimptastic!--
Look at what he says.
"# Training for IT employees was significantly higher for Linux than for Windows - on average, 15% more expensive. The reasons: training materials were less readily available, and customers spent more on training to compensate for the lack of internal knowledge about Linux."
So everyone and their dog "thinks" they know Windows well enough to run a windows server... Except that it all the security issues that seem to be caused by poorly administrated Windows boxs seems to say otherwise. Linux experts are pretty rare.
"# All 14 companies said it was difficult finding qualified Linux personnel in the marketplace to support their Linux projects. When they did find third-party help, they had less leverage negotiating hourly rates than with Windows"
So if you know Linux you are more in demand than if you know Windows, and you will make more money doing it.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
The very fact that Ballmer wants to take on Linux gives people the impression that Linux is a worthy opponent.
It's the same with with US presidential debates, where the incumbent usually tries to negotiate his or her way out of as many debates as possible. Why? Because the mere fact that a challenger shares a stage with a sitting president tends to help the challenger.
The lesson those of us who use Linux in our daily work, and who see the value in things like open source and open standards, is just to hang loose.
Ballmer is offering free publicity.
---- Richard L. Goerwitz III
As a systems admin, you don't have to fuss around with kernels, you can also decide on one distribution if you want. Most distros are freely available on the net for download, so a discount isn't even needed. You can install it, set it up. run updates on it once in a while. Baseline security analyzer? Give me a break. Run a port scanner like nmap on the machine and run 'ps aux' to get a complete list of processes. Keep track of these and most security problems should be avoidable. Fedora does this, Red Hat does this, SuSE does this, the latest Ubuntu does this. You can use yum or apt, how much time does it take anyway? Dependencies are also handled by yum and apt, so no problems there. All these work.
Here's my question... if you're a systems administrator that believes that Windows 2003 is so easy to use, and takes little time, then why not use that extra time to learn the other side of things? You might actually like it if you read enough. Imagine the advantages of having both Windows and Linux on your resume. Or are Windows problems a little too much that you don't have time to learn? Imagine how much money your boss could save if you spent that extra time learning. Then he could get you to download Linux distros, and use those, without having to pay for additional licenses. Imagine the possibilities of opening your mind to new knowledge.
As a systems administrator and business owner, all I can say to you is... sheesh.
Thing is the UK government have already identified that the upgrade cycle for hardware and software with Linux is less frequent at 6-8 years compared with 3-4 with Windows.
Soon when environment laws are toughened further (in the EU they're becoming so) it will cost a lot of money to dispose of computer hardware and so the TCO of Windows will have to include the cost of hardware upgrades and disposal of old hardware.
If you're doing this twice as often as Linux then you're paying twice as much simply based on the hardware, never mind the upgrade process (installation of new hardware and software) and training (due to software interface changes).
All this and I've not even mentioned licenses.
So, the question is: why should anybody give Microsoft many hours of free consulting just so that Microsoft can turn around and use that to further monopolize the market? Why should anybody donate time and effort to Microsoft just to have the company turn around and charge them for everybody's voluntary contributions to their software?
Microsoft's dirty little secret is that most of the value of their software isn't created by them, it's created by their customers. They are just capturing that value and making a bundle on it. And they are charging their customers for the same effort over and over again, just because they can.
Even if Linux were no better than Windows, with Linux, people can be sure that they are not getting charged for their own and other people's free contributions to the effort.
Rich is nice, but the part I'm really looking forward to in not being held accountable for my fuck-ups!
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Ballmer says Linux is not viable. The UK government says it is. I have no idea who out of the two I trust least... :(
"All of the major Linux vendors and distributors (including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell [SUSE and Ximian] and Red Hat) have begun charging hefty premiums for must-have items such as technical service and support, product warranties and licensing indemnification."
...more expensive (5% to 20%) than...
...took 5% to 25% longer...
...three to four times more expensive...
So Microsoft provides these extras for free?
I've read the warranty from Microsoft's products. They don't warrant shit. Nor do I expect to see a pro bono Microsoft lawyer pop out of thin air if someone makes a copyright claim regarding their products.
And customer support?
Give me a break.
Yankee's study concluded that, in large enterprises, a significant Linux deployment or total switch from Windows to Linux would be three to four times more expensive - and take three times as long to deploy - as an upgrade from one version of Windows to a newer release.
You could have fooled our IT department. Because of the shifting sands beneath the code in various Microsoft Office versions, we (a national laboratory) have had to recode all of our Word macros and all of our Access apps everytime there is a "new" release of Office.
And nine out of 10 enterprise customers said that such a change wouldn't provide any tangible business gains.
Not because of superior technology, but because of integration hooks and low-ball initial pricing. When you swallow the Microsoft hook, you take the line and sinker with it. Regurgitating all of that 'infrastructure' will inevitably take more money to change. That would be true shifting from a pure *NIX environment to a Windows-centric environment.
Shifting from specifics to global ranges indicates they have no idea what the cost structures are. They are cherry picking their report figures and glossing over their own problems.
Hardly surprising for a marketing letter.
But keep in mind everyone: Windows is Free!.
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
Spoken like a man who has never used linux.
"don't want to fuss around with kernels, deciding between a distribution, and all that jazz. "
Futzing with kernels? Who does that anymore? How many times do you decide between distributions? I'll give you a hint, once.
"Sure, I could use apt and the others, but it just takes too much time, and you have to worry about various dependencies and what not."
Who the hell modded you up after saying something this collosally ignorant. Apt takes too much time? You have to worry about dependencies with apt? What the fuck? The parent does not know what they are talking about or is lying mod them down people.
"I'd like nothing better than to run a Unix variant, but until you bring me a monolithic distribution that just works,"
What you mean like debian or suse or something?
"I'll have to stay Microsoft for now."
Yes you do that. Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about.
evil is as evil does
While [the open source development process] has some validity, it is not necessarily the best way to develop secure software. We believe in the effectiveness of a structured software engineering process that includes a deep focus on quality, technology advances, and vigorous testing to make software more secure.
But not for the last twenty one years, apparently:
About three years ago, we made software security a top priority,..
So they think that the open source approach to development has some validity, but that their approach - THAT THEY ADMIT THEY HAVEN'T BEEN USING FOR 20+ YEARS - is better.
Hmmmm....
They found that Microsoft addressed all of the 128 publicly disclosed security flaws in Windows over the 12-month period studied, and that its security updates predated major outbreaks by an average of 305 days.
There are only 360 days in the study period. That means their average is nearly the timeframe covered by the study.
I get suspicious when I see this kind of conclusion. Have they only been in business a year?
After careful analysis, farmaCity concluded that Windows would reduce network administration by 30 percent compared with Linux, and would also simplify identity and desktop management..
And this is proof of security... how?
What was the analytical methodology? Why is network administration such a large burden? I don't even see the update activities on my Linux machine, but I have been warned by our IT group not to deploy XP SP2 due to breakage problems.
Hmmmm....
"Rocky Rococo, at your cervix!"
The "indemnification" point is serious FUD based on way overblown fears of end user patent liability.
In fact, the most likely "patent" scenario is the one we have today: i.e., patent "hold-ups" in which 2-bit "inventors" demand "royalties" from software users, based on patents they probably never should never have been granted. These patent owners want to bleed a lot of companies for relatively small bucks each. They do not in fact want to actually shut anyone down; they just want to collect a small "tax" from a big population. These are nuisances to big companies (the usual targets of such claims), and certainly potential expense items, but NOT the sort of thing that should make a strategic difference in one's technology direction.
All that being said, offering uncapped indemnification to customers against potential software patent claims is a valid selling point. Of course, Microsoft software is no less vulnerable to these claims than anyone else's, and the email was a little unclear whether the "uncapped" amount was for the costs of legal defense (attorneys' fees) or that plus the actual liability to the patent owner.
Microsoft's offer of indemnification is credible if for no other reason than Microsoft's huge financial liquidity. In the open source world, there are also a few companies, such as IBM, that have good financial credit and can credibly make a comparable offer. But there are quite a few providers who are not in a position to do this.
Perhaps the answer for the others would be to offer reasonably priced group insurance from a financially sound insurer . . . IF the market considers that a response like that is even necessary.
Ballmer's missive landed in my mailbox last night (somehow it escaped my spam filter), and I wrote this response. I know no one there will read it, but it was still fun to write.
Being a former technical software salesman myself, I've experienced and used the TCO defense as the last resort before I lost a sale. That is what Ballmer is doing here. Features and benefits aren't enough to sway the buyer into purchasing Microsoft software, so you have to resort to a different value proposition.
Features and benefits are valued more than anything else by the customer. It is the reason to even consider a purchase. This being the issue, it simply means that Ballmer realized that Linux has better and more value to the customer than Microsoft Winblows. Hence, the last justification is the TCO stand. And like political races, truth is meaningless, it's only what the voter will believe.
Analogy mode on:
If you need to move a refrigerator, then you need a good size pickup truck. A used car salesman will try to sell you a hatchback Honda and give you advice on how to turn the 'frig on it's side and shove it into the hatchback. The Honda may get great mileage and be cheaper, but it doesn't do the job. What good is it?
Analogy mode off:
In this case the TCO figures are an out and out lie.
The "independent" sources of TCO and general IT practices analysis live by the motto: "Never piss off the 800lb gorilla in your house" (Microsoft).
Linux and all Open Source groups have no fear of the 800lb gorilla.
<rant>
I'm sorry, but comments like these only make you appear incredibly ignorant; when did you use Linux last? In 1994?
Linux Myth #1: Kernels must always, ALWAYS be compiled by hand. It is utterly impossible for distributions to provide a packaged kernel.
Linux Reality #1: Welcome to the world of package management! With just every distribution, kernel upgrades are trivial, and are identical to upgrading every other piece of software on your computer.
apt-get update && apt-get dist-upgradeWhat's that? New kernel installed? Gee, that sure was tough!
Linux Myth #2: Distributions are confusing, and the process of selecting which one to use is a time-consuming process. Once you've selected one, you must review the decision over and over.
Linux Reality #2: Distributions are largely the same, and the selection of them pretty much boils down to personal preference. Some distributions provide benefits that some others don't, but the difference in most cases is marginal, and not worth hours of deliberation.
In any case, if that is too much work for you, here's a handy list:
Red Hat Enterprise Got lots of cash? Need a hefty support contract for mission-critical servers? Right now, this is pretty much the only game in town. Debian Linux Don't need a support contract (or can't afford one) but still need enterprise-level stability and the best package management available for Linux? Debian is for you! Fedora Core Need something solid and well-supported, but don't care about extreme uptimes? Looking for the absolute latest versions of several server applications? This is the distro of choice.Of course, there are other distributions you can use that I haven't mentioned, but it's all about choice. Like I said before, the difference between distributions is relatively small and widely overblown.
Give me a linux that does all this in an easy to use manner, and I'll switch.
Linux Myth #3: People would use it, if only it weren't so damn tough.
Linux Reality #3: People don't use it because they are comfortable with their misconceptions, and have few current motivations to reconsider them. If you were serious about the above statement, you already would have switched. Linux is not difficult; it is your being wedged in the Windows paradigm that has you stuck there. The same is true in reverse; it's just as difficult for a Linux administrator with zero Windows experience to migrate over to Windows.
You don't have to compile kernels. Hell, with packaging, you don't even have to compile any software whatsoever. Upgrades are simple. When shit does hit the fan, you have plenty more options available to you to discover the source of the problem. Many distributions' installation processes are almost entirely automated, requiring the user to make less than 5 choices the entire process.
Is Linux perfect? Of course not. Is it better than Windows? It really depends on the situation: the intended use, the overall cost, and the skill of the administrator. But using age-old excuses like "compiling kernels is hard" and "there are too many distributions" to justify you staying put with Windows is either a cop out or simply being severely uninformed. And even if it wasn't, a good system administrator should be exploring new territory, and trying things that open up possibilities even if they are difficult at first.
</rant>
No comment.
Don't read what Ballmer wrote since (IMHO) the focus is NOT on lower TCO...instead read in to what Ballmer meant. This is a public salvo thrown out that clearly signals their intention: they're coming after Linux and open source hard.
Read in to what Ballmer meant when he said, "Given the growing concern among customers about intellectual property indemnification, what's the best way to minimize risk?" Read this and then think about it.
So basically you're lazy and incompetant, unwilling to investigate solutions and make a decision.
I can download Fedora Core for free. Or Debian, Mandrake, Gentoo, ... the list goes on.
Oh, but wait, you can't make a decision.
More laziness and incompetance. You don't pay attention to advisories? Make sure your setup is tuned for your installation?
So you just want a system that lets you be a lazy, incompetant administrator, because you don't want to have to do anything other than click a button now and again?
Linux actually is easy to administer. A bit of setup and one or two people can maintain a thousand or more Linux boxes. Without that much headache. Sure, they'll have to know Linux, how to use the tools, and maybe even be good. But paying 2 people $80k a year is cheaper than paying 20 people $30k a year.
Ignorance. Anyone who is familiar with these tools knows that dependency maintenance is part of what they do.
Please do. We don't need lazy, incompetant idiots running our critical boxes.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I can't believe how businesses have been hoodwinked into believing that "TOTAL Cost" has a horizon of 1-3 years (whatever the frequency of windows updates is these days). If they intend to be around for decades more, than they should have some vision of those decades to come. Of course switching is expensive! But upgrades to Windows are generally more expensive than upgrades to even commercially-supported versions of Linux.
This gap could potentially change if MS suddenly moved to a subscription model--presumably they'd see that by keeping subscription costs low "enough" people would stay locked in. But it is also easier to justify the insignificant monthly or anual costs of a subscription than large expenditutres every few years for upgrades.
The Community needs a study of annually amortized UPGRADE costs for different platforms. Then businesses could make a more informed decision--Is the switch worth it if it pays for itself in 3 years?
I'm sorry, but nothing I've ever seen on Netcraft or anywhere supports your statement, in fact it directly contradicts it.
And, I would like an example of "integrate better with their internal MS databases and webservers"
Do you actually use any M$ based/proprietary connections/communications/protocols over the open Internet? Are you high? I'm sure *some* idiot companies are doing netbios rpc to *some* idiot web hoster, or MSSQL over the Internet, I mean I guess you're actually right, becuase all those Code Red/Nimda attacks that I get in my logs have to be coming from somewhere...
I apologize, you could be right... which would be scary to me if it meant anything more than a slightly annoying increase in traffic..
emerge codegreen...
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD
I was supprised to find that it wasn't spoofed. (headers, ip address, etc.)
And then maddend by that fact that I've been spammed yet again, but this time by M$.
How many of you got BallmerGram'd
Where is the opt-out?
Just once, I'd like to see one of these "uncommissioned" TCO reports separate OS users into software producers and software consumers. If you produce software you have a vested interest in sticking with MS - they change their OS every few years and that means their customers, and yours, will be back again and again. Let's face it, software is not a consumable - it doesn't wear out or get used up. There has to be something other than new faces driving sales or you're dead as a producer.
Software consumers don't like to keep buying new versions of software, and if they're home users they don't necessarily care about MS support, or lack thereof, for an obsolete OS. They're going to keep playing those games on Windows 98 as long as they work. Commercial users pretty much need to use supported software - if they can't go to someone when they have a problem it's useless to them. That's the primary allure of MS over open software. Though with Big Blue and others getting into the service end of open software there is a whole lot less reason for saying open software is not supported, particularly if you've got a service contract with a large outfit.
My company writes a lot of custom software for internal use, only. Expensive software. We need a supported OS. A lot of stuff we have that worked in NT doesn't work in XP, so it's been a major headache making the switch (we're still not half way there). As one of the better MS customers we are actually one of the reasons MS provided support for NT long after it was supposed to expire.
I don't know when the guys running this outfit are going to see, if they ever do, that sticking with MS means we are going to have to go through this over and over and over again. That's because every MS OS is obsolete and without MS support, right out of the box. It just hasn't happened for the newer ones, yet. That's something that's not given a lot of weight in these TCO analyses, and nobody tells you up front.
But I'm curious how Linux distro's compete with Active Directory and the slew of enterprise configuration utilities available on Windows 2003 Server?
I'm a full time Linux user, but as a workstation doesn't require these types of tools I've never actually come across them before.
To be honest, in my Windows server classes I've been pretty impressed with some of their enterprise solutions. Considering, for the forseeable future, we'll be developing networking around mainly Windows clients whats Linux got to compete or outdo Windows on the controller end?
I'd guess Suse is going to have the best chance, if Novell really tosses everything they had going in Netware into making Suse Enterprise a competative product. I'd be curious to hear what Linux admins are doing in the real world.
Does Linux have a serious enterprise grade alternative?
Quack, quack.
But as the Yankee Group commented in an independent, non-sponsored global study of 1,000 IT administrators and executives, Linux, UNIX and Windows TCO Comparison, things aren't always as they seem: "All of the major Linux vendors and distributors (including Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Novell [SUSE and Ximian] and Red Hat) have begun charging hefty premiums for must-have items such as technical service and support, product warranties and licensing indemnification."
Obviously they are talking about SCO's false claims there. Fucking opportunistic bastards! Regardless of whether or not the conspiracy theory is true, that MS prompted SCO's frivolous lawsuit to discredit Linux, the fact of the matter is that they are trying to make use of it in their PR. Whether it was planned from the start or not, either way that is now part of their strategy now, the deceptive bastards.
Call this a troll if you will, but I don't apologise for being honest.
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
Ballmer - And as Yankee Group noted in its Linux, UNIX and Windows TCO Comparison study, "Linux-specific worms and viruses are every bit as pernicious as their UNIX and Windows counterparts - and in many cases they are much more stealthy."
Spin, Spin, Spin! Just more proof that you can take anything out of context... or just outright lie.
Almost all of the annoying spyware/adware software out there will only infect a Microsoft platform. You've immediately just reduced your maintenance headaches in typical organizations by over 50%.
Let's look at some information actually based on analysis of CERT data...
Windows v Linux security: the real factsp ort_windows_vs_linux/
http://www.theregister.co.uk/security/security_re
If you prefer, http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/10/22/security_r eport_windows_vs_linux.pdf
- Have you ever noticed that the more you learn about technology, the more stupid you sound trying to explain it?