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.'"

Comments

Maybe they should look at their past too

[jimmy page]

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

Re:Maybe they should look at their past too

[Coryoth]

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.

You could make a very unflattering comparison out of that. Just sit the different eras of Windows (95, 98, 2000, XP) alongside the version of Linux from that year.

Windows 98 would be sitting alongside say Redhat 5.2 - you know, back when AfterStep and FVWM95 were the default window managers. Windows 2000 would be sitting alongside Redhat 7.2, so we have the beginnings of a decent GNOME environment, but still a long ways to go on real ease of use. Windows XP would be, what, Redhat 9? I don't really recall the release dates. Then you could have the brand new Longhorn beta next to Fedora Core 4.

There is a very startling difference in the rate of improvement there, and Linux isn't showing any sign of slowing down. Cairo and Beagle (equivalent to Avalon and WinFS) will be standard in distros by the time Longhorn actually comes out, and there are plenty of other interesting developments going like SELinux, Xen, Redhat's Stateless Linux, and plenty of things that I'm sure I haven't heard of yet.

* Disclaimer: I have tended to use Redhat, so that's mostly what I know. I am not trying to short change other distros (some of which I've tried, and I agree are excellent), I simply don't know enough about them to speak with any confidence.

Jedidiah.

D'uh

[The Ancients]

Of course the guy is going to have a bias towards MS. Otherwise there would be no way in Hell he'd ever be there (or he's already there, considering how one looks at it).

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.

Mixing lies with truth

[Silkejr]

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.

the fog of war

[pair-a-noyd]

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...