Unilever Ditches Global IT Linux Migration

GP writes "One to stir the open source debate. The CIO of global consumer goods giant Unilever says in this interview with silicon.com that the company has ditched plans to migrate its enterprise IT platform to Linux running on Itanium. He reckons hidden support costs and security issues have emerged over the past two years with open source and that proprietary vendors have also raised their game in response to the 'threat'."

Comments

Could it have anything to do with..

[Anonymous Coward]

this?

Now would that be considered child abuse?

Reckons...

[sH4RD]

He reckons

Well gee, I sure hope he did more research than that!

Raised their game?

[Kiaser Zohsay]

"Raised their game" = "massive discounts", the standard MS tactic in this situation.

Translation into Microsoft/Gates "Speak"

[Anonymous Coward]

Below are the superficial facts.

He reckons hidden support costs and security issues have emerged over the past two years with open source and that proprietary vendors have also raised their game in response to the 'threat'."

Below is the translation of the above superficial facts.

William Gates spoke with the CIO of Unilever and gave him sufficient bribes to ditch Linux. Under a nondisclosure agreement, Microsoft will offer free operating-system upgrades for the next 10 years to Unilever. Gates figures that losing a bit of revenue from Unilever more than compensates for the growth of revenue obtained by blunting the encroachment of Linux.

Alas, we have the standard Microsoft operating procedure: "Resistance is futile. You will be assimilated. You sniveling worm."

Re:The FUD Train Rolls On...

[Uber Banker]

Linux
Apache
MySQL
PHP

Serious? PHP is a damn ugly, slow and bug-attracting language - Python has a nice web interface and IMHO is a language sustainable for the longer term. MySQL is OKish but for 'BIG Enterprise' features it gets whopped by PosgreSQL, or even Oracle, unless the use of it is simplistic enough.

I hope MS goes broke undercutting OS deals

[gelfling]

Because that's what's going on. Big company threatens to jettison MS. MS steps in and offers a deep discount. Company goes out and tells all his friends. They all do the same thing. Pretty soon the corner drug dealer has to cut prices.

I hope that MS has to cut its prices 50% in the near future. BTW I am an MS stockholder.

Should've Used FreeBSD

[TeachingMachines]

Linux is a pain in the ass, plain and simple. I used Debian for years before I said FORGET IT. Updates to packages would turn something off in what seemed a totally random way (i.e., networking) and without developer docs readily accessible, there was no recourse.
FreeBSD has it's own handbook, a calm development group, and an escape from "37337" developers without engineering standards.