Slashdot Mirror
$100 Million Marketing Push For Vista
GecKo213 writes "Microsoft is touting a $100 million marketing campaign promoting Windows Vista and encouraging software developers to build new programs. With the longest gap ever between major releases of Windows operating systems -- the current version, Windows XP, was launched in late 2001 -- Microsoft is facing pressure from its partners and developers to deliver technology that will convince users to upgrade. If $100 Million dollars won't make you want to switch to Vista, what will?"
Ease of use? Give me a break. If all you ever do is browse the web and type letters, then maybe. Otherwise, forget it. I work in a Windows house and can't get a Unix/Linux desktop so I bring a Linux laptop from HOME to do my work because even though I CAN cook up my own scripts and applications when absolutely necessary, it's absolutely NOT worth the time it takes when I can just plug my linux laptop into the network and do all of the same stuff using a single command and existing tools.
Need to generate and name twenty thousand files using record numbers from a database as the filename and inserting the content from each record into its respective file as plain text, with visually friendly formatting? In Windows, you get to go to the database team and ask them to write you a TOOL to do it, and they spend the next two days coding it up and adding it to a cluttered menu somewhere, or they get lazy and have the company BUY a tool to do it, and it takes 2 hours to run once you HAVE the tool, prone to crash out the entire time. In Linux, one command line, hit enter, never worry, and 45-50 seconds later, boom, 20,000 pristine files, just like that, correct names, correct content, no complaints, no crap.
Need to do a complex mail merge from said database that looks up the name and email address of each of six hundred people in said database based on a spreadsheet sent to you in email, and that then composes one of ten message bodies for each contact depending on the type of the contact, then queries the database for a collection of files related to that contact, goes out on the network and fetches and attaches each individual file to each email, then sends them all, building a log in the process that's then sent to the network printer? In Windows, guess what, once again you get to go to the development team and ask them to code you a tool, and after spending hours trying to detail exactly what you need it to do you get an estimate in WEEKS for when the tool will be written. Once again, in Unix/Linux... one command line, smash enter, wait ten minutes, done.
Or of course if you don't want to have someone code you up a tool or spend six or seven hours yourself using VBA and sixty kludges, you can do these by hand, one record at a time, one file at a time, one email at a time, and spend the next two months in man hours.
In the Unix world, just about any task is one command away. Yes, you have to master the system before you can compose such commands, but it's much easier than sitting around coding all week, then having to document the tool and how it works and what it does so that you can pass it through IT, or trying to get someone else to sit around and code for you all week, or searching around for the closest existing product (which you never quite find, but you shell out $$$ for the nearest thing and kludge it into working for you).
If you have to do REAL WORK, Unix/Linux is so many light years ahead of Windows, it's laughable, but the paradigm is so completely different that it's tough to explain to any Windows-only person how it's possible that I can make a claim like: "If you would just give me a Unix workstation, I could accomplish any task you lay in front of me, be it network, database, file management, text processing, email, whatever, in one command line, and I'd never need to have the company write, or buy, another piece of software ever again."
But it's the truth. Ask any Unix-head computing professional how many "aftermarket" software items post-OS-install he/she has on his/her desktop, apart from the GNU tools (if they're running an non-Open-Source Unix that comes without them). The answer will be: 1-2, maaaayyyyyyybe 3-4. And any other Unix-head can sit down and use their system like a pro, INSTANTLY. Then ask any Windows computing professional how many aftermarket tools they have on THEIR desktop, and the answer will be 10, 20, 30... the sky's the limit... and some of them costing $$$ (or else all of them unpaid shareware/crippleware), half of them only working h
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
You want to see the proof dick? I'll show you their earnings reports. Or would you rather apologize now and save face/