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Microsoft's 'Hands-On' Linux Lab
aneroid writes "eWeek has a story on Microsoft allowing a third party to present a 'hands-on lab' that allowed attendees to play with a range of Linux desktop software at its annual worldwide partner show in Minnesota this weekend. It was run by Don Johnson (not the actor), who explained in true MS style how the things that are considered wrong with Windows are planned or an advantage. Whether it's for the desktop or server, wasn't clear. People did get to 'see the Apache Web server in action' and a KDE desktop.Is this more of a preemptive strike where the Linux experience is so bad (slow machines, old software) they wouldn't bother to check it out in the future, thus securing an existing partner/client? Or are they that confident people won't stray if they're invited to sample the competition? According to the Register, 'Microsoft is unlikely to stop developers moving to Linux and open source so its best hope lies in articulating a strategy of co-existence to limit the 'damage' to its business.'"
Wouldn't be interesting to see them show a fully configured Win98, 2000 and XP systems along with Linux to show what compelling reasons to move to the newest and best MS has to offer.
Linux is only a small part of their competition. Their own installed base is much bigger
Talk about redundant 101.
Microsoft are giving customers a chance to look at linux running in an environment of their choosing because they damn well know if they don't there's a good chance this sampling will take place in an environment not of their choice, by people with a passion for the alternative.
Talk about business 101.
The Mothership
I once read that the best way to get someone to swallow a lie is to mix a little truth into it. They showed the people Linux, then showed them the propaganda, disinformation, and blatant lies of their "Get The Facts" campaign.
and bullshit..
"Linux runs on just about anything, whereas Windows has a targeted platform focus," he said, adding that one of the main reasons people started looking at Linux was to avoid vendor lock-in.
No. Try again.. People quit M$ because they are sick and tired of dishing out bucketloads of money everytime they want to do anything, because they are sick of rebooting 400 times a day, because they are sick of BSODs.. And on and on and on...
An entire OS on a single CDROM that does NOTHING out of the box except get you on the internet and get infected before you can patch it..
I didn't want to spend hundreds and hundreds or even thousands of dollars on a word processor, a paint program, virus protection, firewall, etc...
For the cost of a blank DVD and an hour or so to download an ISO, I can have everything I want and more.
And the absolute best part is is that I no longer have the big pain in my wallet and my ass called M$..
Oh yeah, and I have ZERO pirated stuff.. ZERO...
No warez, no serialz, no gamez, nothing...
Microsoft isn't willing to open up its source but by flying the flag of interoperability it's suggesting FOSS people can "seamlessly" move data across platforms.
Recently I've been doing alot of reading about The Xen virtual machine monitor and The Xen virtual machine monitor, interestinly MS is/was involved in both projects. There's never any doubt in my mind that the wet dream of every large corporation is to own everyone from the cradle to the grave. I've no doubt MS will never give up the idea of owning the web, and, further that interoperability is just another way to say "come into my web said the spider to the fly."
Behind it all, I suspect, is a gameplan that has MS software as a utility piped into thin clients in each and every household and business.
"Academicians are more likely to share each other's toothbrush than each other's nomenclature."
Cohen
microsoft is evil if it includes a web browser?
Microsoft is a monopoly on the Operating System market. This has been proven in court.
Microsoft have a relatively featureless, uninnovative browser compared to the competetion. Why is it so popular? It is because Microsoft are using their desktop OS monopoly to force people to use Internet Explorer (see Windows Update for example). Browsers like Firefox and Opera are put at a huge disadvantage.
If you were the boss of a browser company, I am sure you be complaining too.
Why is it ok for linux to include everything but the kitchen sink
Including multiple options is OK. I think there would be less complaints if Windows said 'Would you like to install Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera?'. It's not going to happen though, unless forced by the courts.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
The whole reason that $50/h Linux admins (and therefore Linux itself) makes sense is that it doesn't require as many hours to admin.
The other thing you're overlooking is the consequences of "you get what you pay for". A $12/hour Windows admin just isn't going to be able to provide the same quality of work as a $50/hour Linux admin (otherwise, why wouldn't they charge more than $12/hour ? If they're good, they should be able to at least charge something like $30/hour ?), which again will increase the number of hours that you'll have to pay the $12/hour Windows admin. The quality of the functionaly equivalent jobs won't be the same with such as disparity between the per hourly rates.
Comparing the platforms based purely on a per hour admin rate, irrespective of the actual time and effort involved, is a way too simplistic comparison to be useful.
The Internet's nature is peer to peer - 20050301_cs_profs.pdf
You know, you should go to work for NASA. After all, the solution to the shuttle crashes is to make a shuttle that can't crash. No, wait, you should go to work for aviation industries instead, and tell them that the solution to planes being hijacked is to make a plane that can't be hijacked. While you're at it, design a ship that can't sink and a building that can't collapse - japanese would pay a lot for that.
Most people couldn't care less about what mushrooms are poisonous and what edible either, they just want to eat everything that looks good. Most will learn the difference anyway after being stomach pumped a few times.
There is a very limited amount of possible inputs a processor can take. It is quite possible to predict all possible situations a processor can encounter. It is impossible to predict all possible situations an operating system can encounter. Therefore, it is possible to ensure that processor works correctly in all circumstances, but it is impossible to ensure that an operating system will correctly handle all possible circumstances.
Does your palm pilots need to deal with thousands of (often buggy on hardware level) peripheral devices that can be plugged in in almost any combination ? Or multiple processors that differ from each other a bit ? Or a hundred different memory maker with their different timings ? Or overheating components, since the user added a new graphics card that generates more heat than your average fireplace ? Or a trillion programs the user might want to install, some of them actively malicious ? Or a power supply made inadequate by the new graphics card, causing random resets in components ? Or being unable to read a system library because the hard disk generated a bad sector where it was stored ? Or a user program locking an important file against concurrent modifications and then entering infinite loop ? Or different keyboard layouts ? Or high-speed Internet connection being bombarded by a constant stream of malformed packets ? Or swapping ? Or trying to deal with all this and maintain an interactive feel to the user while not sacrificing much throughtput ?
Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.