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Unisys: We No Longer Have A Way Out
rbochan writes "Some of you may recall a couple of years back when Microsoft and Unisys decided that a multi-million dollar ad campaign against *nix was in order, dubbed 'We Have A Way Out.' The results weren't what they'd hoped. ZDNet is now reporting that Unisys has done an about face and is now touting Linux as 'a mature technology and the right cost-effective option for many companies.'"
Is it just me and all the articles I'm reading on slashdot, or is the market truly getting ready for a serious Microsoft ousting? All the things are lining up...google, new Firefoxes, OpenOffice...
The world follows the tech people, and the tech people say its time to ditch Microsoft. I see something happening.
It's nice to know Microsoft can trust companies with 'strong' convictions.
Don't they supply my cafeteria hardware? Forks and spoons an shit?
Without proper expertise how can you conquer unix guru's armed with tools like
su - root and cd / ; rm -rf *?
or buy their products. We must make these bas*ta*ds pay!
From the article:
The same ad depicts a scene in which a computer user has painted himself into a corner with purple paint. Sun's servers are manufactured in a shade of purple similar to that in the ad.
Sun responded to the campaign in a statement. "Sun still does not see Microsoft as a real threat in the datacenter market where reliability, availability, serviceability and security are key," the company said. "As for Unix being 'inflexible,' 'expensive,' and 'complex,' we feel those are terms much better suited to the closed and proprietary world of Windows."
Well, if the target was Sun as the article suggested, it seems to me things worked out just dandy from Microsoft's perspective. I would venture to say that Microsoft's market penetration in datacenters has grown quite a bit since 2002, while I'm equally certain Sun's has faded.
The more you regulate a company, the worse its products become.
I think that Unisys is awesome for embracing Linux. It would be pretty nice to have more backing behind development of open source projects. This is a very good thing.
... the site first went up. IIRC, it was hosted on Apache on Solaris (or some such *NIX). A day or so later, it was pulled and replaced with IIS on Windows [NT|2000]. After that, I never payed it no nevermind.
Research shows that 67% of those who use the term "research shows", are just making shit up.
This is why running a smear campaigain is a bad idea. Every now and then, it works, but it more often than not comes back to bite you in the ass. You're much better off to say nothing, or to say something that just casts yourself in a positive light.
Think about it -- you're interviewing two guys for an important job. One talks about all the good things he's done at his last job. The other talks about how screwed up things were and how he 'fixed' them. Who are you going to hire?
OT: People do this, too; there was an individual (name and gender withheld) at a previous place of employment with a resume filled with things like "Took a mis-managed department and brought it to productivity." Not only was this one of the worst employees we ever hired, but said employee got canned after six months because they did *nothing* but complain about how other departments were stopping them from doing their job.
The replacement had a more positive mindset, and caught up on the backlog within two months. Needless to say, he got promoted a couple of times.
--
I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
One issue is that the company does not have great visibility outside its core markets. "Customers say, 'We wish you were better known,' and we have to address that," he said.
That's an easy request: just patent more popular graphics fileformats with submarine patents and then start enforcing them a few years down the line. Instant Press!
Well, it's possible they meant it as in "suicide is a way out". It's true!
Way to narrow it down.
As much as many are devoted to Linux here, isn't this a case of Microsoft has not had a real OS refresh in years while, during that period, Linux has been constantly improving?
As much as it appears Unisys was in it for the money, it could just be they have reached some kind of tipping point where they believe that Linux now is a viable alternative to MS where they didn't previously. You know, opinions changing when the facts do . . .
Smear campaigns only work a) if you are M$ and that is all you are capable of (can you blame them? They can't seem to make any good software, so smearing the other guy is the only acceptable solution) or b) you are against SCO, in which case nothing is actually accomplished. Well, the only thing that is accomplished is lawyers have more job-security. Smear campaigns don't work when in business. It's not like an election, when the choice is made only every term. People choose to buy or not all the time. So if you say something like Satan uses Linux, and then a few years later you state that Linux is (of course) a very good OS, then people will take it and your own words will bite you in the ass. Businesses should spend more time training the troops rather than shouting from the bleachers. If they just made reliable goods or rendered useful service and used decent marketing to inform about each, we'd have a better market economy. But as long as monopolies like M$ are able to coerce, it is a lost cause...
By "Linux" do you mean the kernel, the GNU elements or what? I think the Linux Kernal makes up 3% of the code, and GNU about 23%? I am sure I read something ot that effect on some site. Anyway, methinks that If a small percentage of these small percentages of the code originates in the 1960s, it doesn't represent much in the grand scheme of things.
Ok, lets put the fall of Microsoft in line with world events.
Peeps returning to the moon - before.
The US pulling out of Iraq - after.
The Hitch-Hiker's guide is edited to read 'a species so primitive they still think iPods are a pretty neat idea' - before.
Wikipedia acquires the majority of human knowledge, only to be wholy corrupted by mass spamming (like our current web) - after.
The collapse/reformation of the record industry - around the same time, I reckon. Possibly related. It's a similar idea.
(Ok I have a screwed concept of world events. Real suggestions?)
Unisys who ?
For that you need something a bit more up-to-date than 1960 technology, and in the modern world, that means Microsoft.
You are absolutely right that Linux is largely 1960's and 1970's technology. Unfortunately, Microsoft is the same thing, only that their implementations are worse and they cost more.
As long as I have to use outdated technologies, at least I'm going to pick the ones that are cheap and open.
That was evident when they partnered with Microsoft.
No one ever gets out alive.
A disclaimer: I am a Unisys employee.
Unisys is definitely making a move towards widespread adoption of Linux (Red Hat and SuSE) as a development platform, and various other open source development tools (eg, Maven, Eclipse, various parts of Apache Commons, etc). Regardless of current marketing hype from Blackmore and McGrath (the CEO), this is very much a bottom-up driven initiative. Open source software is finding itself in an increasing number of Unisys solutions, to the occasional consternation of management. So what you're hearing from the Unisys management publicly now is "hooray, Open Source," but what you would have heard a few years ago was... well, nothing, unless you worked for Unisys, in which case you probably would heard "stay the hell away."
Note: when I say "finding my way into," I don't mean "being stolen." Unisys is being extremely careful as to what the various license requirements are for the things it's using, so developers and architects are cognizant of the implications of the GPL and other similar "sharealike" licenses where their efforts are concerned. My experience with the developers here has been that they are pretty agnostic about everything except efficacy - they just want the stuff to work, and they want to get it done right for as little money as they can spend. I find that to be a healthy attitude.
For a guy like me whose roots are pretty heavily in open software, there's more than a little irony here. You may recall Unisys' spat with the Free Software Foundation, or... well, really a whole bunch of people, including Accuweather, over software patent issues.
One last thing: Peter Blackmore has identified outsourcing as a major component of the Unisys strategy. He's not kidding. Tons of Unisys developers have been axed over the last few years, and much of the development activity has been given to Caritor employees, based either locally at Unisys offices, or in India. The ones I've worked with are good guys, but there's more than a little discomfort between the two groups. Many Unisys folks see his biggest impact on the company as having been the guy who sent Unisys jobs to India.
You may label this as a rant.....
I worked on Unisys Sperry Mainframe equipment for almost 7 years. I can tell you categorically that Unisys tried every possible way to kill products it's customer wanted. When IBM was bleeding money Unisys had the better Mainframe OS (OS2200). Since then IBM has done more to innovate the mainfame market (moved to CMOS, embrased UNIX/LINUX, enabled OS390 for the Internet world). Meanwhile Unisys tried to get in bed with Microsoft and changed their product line so that anything that was not MS centric was basically a "legacy" platform where they just wanted the old Sperry/Burroughs customer base to dump their investment in older technologies and move to WinNT/Win2k servers.
The history of Unisys is that they put their finger in the wind see which way it's going and join the crowd YEARS after the initial party is over.
The only GOOD thing I can say about Unisys is that my contract (I was a Lead computer operator/batch scheduler) ended as a result of them promising equipment to the customer at cut rates that they then dragged their feet delivering...and as a result I quit and found a better job, doing LINUX!....thank you UNISYS!
[Root@localhost ~]$
They think that Linux is STILL command line only, hell I just impressed the librarian at my school by booting up a LiveCD, asking her what OS she thought it was, and as soon as she said "Windows" I about burst a gut. Until sterotypes are removed, and Linux can be run by a novice it will not become mainstream.NO~, I read Slashdot because I think it's stupid.....
You can get certified Unix that is carrier telecom grade certified reliable (99.999%). Same for Linux and Linux embedded. No version of Microsoft operating system has been carrier telecom grade certified. Even though Microsoft in their old 1998 print advertising claim that their NT operating system was 99.999%. So far, Microsoft has never tried to get its current operating system certified for carrier telecom grade use, because it will fail.
Someone's always going to be one step in front, ticking that extra box. It's fine if you're happy with your business ticking over.
Deleted
I think both microsoft and the *nix family of OS will have their own place in the market. We all will have to agree to the fact that Linux is meant for "intelligent" users, as for Windows, it would still rule the market as OS for the masses.
The relative business expansion would highly depend on the business strategies of what good they propogate for themselves rather than how bad the other is. Both the tech as well as the business community knows the power of both in todays market.
I just like the expirience an Open Source OS like Linux has to offer, which makes a simple task of writing a min functional driver an njoyable task.....
How does M$ keep its website secure? With all the millions of Windows systems out there getting updated all the time, and generating traffic for other reasons, I wonder why M$'s website has never been taken down - never! How does M$ do it?
http://www.computerworld.com.au/index.php/id;75408 4996;fp;16;fpid;0
It's unofficial: Microsoft bets business on Linux
Rodney Gedda
04/11/2005 08:31:35
The next time Bill Gates sends an e-mail through Microsoft's shiny new Wireless LAN it will be passed through a behind-the-scenes Linux-based network appliance.
Earlier this year Microsoft and Aruba Networks jointly announced the two companies will work to replace Microsoft's existing Cisco wireless network with Aruba's centrally-managed infrastructure, which eliminates the need for individual changes on the access points.
Aruba Networks was selected to provide the networking equipment for what is considered to be one of the world's largest next-generation wireless LANs, serving more than 25,000 simultaneous users a day in some 60 countries. According to an Aruba press statement, Microsoft's new WLAN will be deployed in 277 buildings covering more than 17 million square feet using Aruba mobility controllers, mobility software and some 5000 wireless access points.
What the press statement didn't mention is that Aruba mobility controllers run the Linux operating system which Microsoft has aggressively targeted as being inferior to Windows as part of its "Get the Facts" marketing campaign.
Mark Robards, Aruba Network's Asia-Pacific vice president, said the company's mobility controller switches provide integrated security, including a firewall, VPN, and hardware encryption, and they are "all Linux-based".
Robards said the network rollout with Microsoft is going well and is likely to take two years to complete and will contain as many as 7000 access points. Indeed, Aruba is recruiting Linux developers to work on its mobility controller software. In an advertisement on the company's Web site, Aruba is seeking a senior Linux software engineer with "expert knowledge of Linux and extensive Linux kernel experience".
Sunjeev Pandey, senior director of Microsoft IT, said the company is "pleased to be partnering with Aruba in the upgrade of Microsoft's next-generation wireless LAN".
"This partnership will allow Microsoft to leverage a cutting-edge wireless and mobility platform that provides us the scalability, performance and security that our environment demands," Pandey said.
Pandey's appraisal of Aruba's technology is in stark contrast to Microsoft's "Get the Facts" rhetoric which places Windows as a more secure, and higher-performing choice over Linux.
I thought people had already forgotten this. What they did with the GIF format is plain evil and quite frankly unforgivable. Anyone who owns Unisys shares deliberately ie, not through a mutual fund) is owning a share with the devil. At least RSA did the right thing and released their patent into the public domain as a gesture just before the patent expired although quite frankly their patent should have been rescinded when it came to light that the idea was non unique because it had been invented previously by British Intelligence / NSA). Unisys however, acting bitter, did no such thing.
Need I say more?
-- Cheers!
Have gotten her to finally consider that maybe all she needs is a good chunk of network storage. I've shown her how she can put 400GB of mirrored storage onto the network with long warranties on the disc drives using a NetGear SC101 for $600. She's considering it right now.
While Unisys may aim towards the higher-end markets than this, a Linux solution with good multiprocessor support and zero cost can make a significant difference in this ever increasingly competative environment -- especially if you're flogging Intel iron against AMD Opterons.
Besides, some things really do run better on Linux. IIRC Oracle 9i is a prime example.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Gee, can we ditch Intel too? All I'm seeing these days is Intel being trounced by AMD in yet another benchmark.
Personally I'm happy to see this happening because I remember when Intel completely controlled product release cycles, and was in no hurry to bring out the next generation until they'd wrung the last dollar out of the previous one. AMD came on the scene with a 386DX-40 and things have never been the same since. Even IBM competed with Intel at that time, but dropped out soon afterwards. Competed with Microsoft for a bit (OS/2) before dropping what was really a better OS at the time.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
IMHO, the same forces that caused them to be such jerks about the GIF patent are the same one that caused them to miss the boat with Linux. What many businesses don't understand is that there is far more money out their to be made with IT related services than IT related licensing. To be successfull in the information age, you need to treat the free wheeling free copying nature of the internet like a benefit, not a competitive threat.
Unfortunately there are still all to many businesses who think that the way that they're supposed to make money is by selling information they create like a boxed product and choking off how it's used. Since their business model is incompatable with the Linux business model, there will likely be far more attcks on Linux, and especially freedom in software and information distribution, down the pike.
IMHO, copyrights can not survive the information age.
Good thing i read slashdot. I never saw that add campain. then again it it was online i likely ignored the add.
By using Linux, that's how.
Yeah, I'm a Linux fanboy. Sue me.
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
what does the first asterix hide?
Not a statement I'd be making casually about any employer these days. With the way the current laws are, companies have been able to mis-use the court system to get subpoenas issued forcing providers to reveal anonymous poster's real names with the alleged intent to pursue a court suit for illegal activities, only to drop said suit once they've identified the poster. Then they harass/fire the formerly anonymous poster.
One such case can be found here.
This should be a Slashdot article of its own since the person is now suing for this misuse of the court system -- and I hope he wins big!
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
The way is shut. It was made by those who are free, and the free keep it. The way is shut.
uh huh...
No idea about the stuff on the inside, but the front lines *seem* to be towing the corp line.
We don't need an "overrated" so much as we need a "you completely missed the parent's point, dumbass..."
I see that Unisys is now at the "we are going to be using Linux and open source in a big way" stage of failing companies. Just remember that Unisys was in trouble before they adopted Linux; you can't blame Linux for their almost inevitable failure.
Why did this remind me so much of Silicon Graphics?
Liberals call everyone Nazis yet they are the closest thing to it.
Mmmm. Smell that fanboi revisionist history. Ain't it grand?
AMD was a bubblegum and duct tape operation until about 1998, well after Intel had advanced the industry well past the 386DX-40. IBM was the primary motivating factor until then, and OS/2 was always a fraction of the functionality of even what DOS/Win16 provided.
I remember when they first came out with "WeHaveTheWayOut.com" campaign.
:)
I dutifully registered (expired last year) "TheyDoNotHaveTheWayOut.com"
and merrily pointed it to go to FuckMicrosoft.com
Now you know how I feel.
Their revenue is going to grow by 10 to 99%
Odd. The first Fast Fourier Transform function written in C was in the 1970s. It's still the best one to date for processing large-scale spectral analysis.
Besides which, non of the Linux kernel code could have originated before Mr. Torvalds sat down and started his hobby.
As for the GNU portion of the code... When's Grub 2 coming out?
110100 1101000 1101000 1100110 0 1101111 1101000 1100011 1
Way to try and take a snap shot, and show it as the big picture.
Scanning the main site with lots of un-cacheable dynamicly generated pages:
But try one of the image servers:
I mod down anyone who says "I will be modded down for this", regardless of the rest of their comment
The ad was targeting commercial Unix, and asserting that it's expensive and inflexible compared to Wintel. In fact, the ad was right.
Intel/AMD is advancing much faster than proprietary RISC. PC-based servers deliver much better value. Don't use Windows where you can use Linux/BSD (slashdotters cheer); don't use Sun where you can use Windows (slashdotters boo).
So there's not really an "about face" in Unisys's later support of Linux - its a continued drive away from expensive, proprietary and inflexible systems.
We have a way out ... of the Microsoft Upgrade Tax.
Hope these people have as much fun reclaiming their karma and public image as I'm about to. =P
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
Did no one notice that the original campaign was against Unix, then the current article was Unisys praising Open Source, and Cowboy Neal interpreted that as an original campaign against everything-nix and a current article pro-Linux? There is just no logical flow to all that.
Unix, *nix, Linux, and open source are all different subject, and if Unisys hates Unix but likes open source in general, that does not mean they now like Linux. I'm pro-open sourced software because it's good and cheap. That does not mean I love the obfuscated CLI of Unix.
--Colin Jensen
colinandbethany.com
"Computer, Arch"
AT&ROFLMAO
1995: Unisys does not require licensing, or fees to be paid, for non-commercial, non-profit GIF-based applications
1999: In all cases, a written license agreement or statement signed by an authorized Unisys representative is required from Unisys for all use, sale or distribution of any software (including so-called "freeware") and/or hardware providing LZW conversion capability.
2002: We Have the Way Out: UNIX sucks!
2005: Linux Rulez!
It's not an about face, years ago Linux sucked for Joe Average. Only now has it become a mature product.
There was an unknown error in the submission.
Don't remember whether IBM's has or not
It doesn't matter. For one thing, IBM has become much friendlier to free software, and for another, any claims in IBM's patent that cover LZW would be blocked by the prior art taught by Unisys's patent (US Patent 4,558,302 and foreign counterparts), which has already expired.
The most important right granted under copyright is the right to be recognised as the author of a piece of work.
The right of attribution is preserved under almost any Free license. There's a lot of space between "some rights reserved" and "all rights reserved", and most of the philosophical argument over copyright concerns the extent of what rights in a work should be reserved, beyond what (say) a Creative Commons Attribution License already reserves, in order "To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts".
About 2-3 percent Firefox users and the 10 times as many people they tell that the site does not work and not to bother going there.
Since Firefox users are normaly tech users and IE are normal users. The IE users do what the Firefox users tell them to.
If you site is not Firefox compad you could increase you sales buy up to 20 percent by fixing it. 20 percent it worth it most of the time.
"and OS/2 was always a fraction of the functionality of even what DOS/Win16 provided"
Thats wierd. I distinctly remember running windows 3.11 inside os/2. It could do whatever windows could. AND, it was stable as a rock, and didnt have random file corruption.
The system had the verbosity of HTML combined with all the readability of compiled assembly viewed as bitmap images
No, the campaign was not like that and not much has really changed as far as Unisys should be concerned.
Unisys did not directly compare M$ and Linux, they ran a foolish smear campain on Unix for M$. Everything they derided, from Sun purple on the floor to the "Mysteriousness" and cost, was aimed at closed source Unix. This was foolish because closed source Windoze suffers from all of the same problems to a worse degree and other more important problems like a lack of stability or network security. M$ stooges tried to paint free software with the same brush but that effort was even more foolish for reasons that are obvious. The only kinds of people who could fall for this would be windoze desktop users forced to make IT decisions they are not qualified to make and they were the target group of this emotion based smear attack.
Changes in the last two years don't have much to do with Unisys's about face either. Many of the improvements for Linux that have happened in the last two years have been on the desktop, something Unisys still does not want. Better device support make Linux easier than ever to deploy on the desktop. KDE and Gnome applications have vastly surpassed their Windoze counterparts and everything look better thanks to better X fonts. The server side has improved some, as all free software will, but all the things Unisys would do with a Linux server they could have done two or three years ago without a problem.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
No need to scare this poor guy for coming out as a unisys employee. If anything there needs to be more people speaking out internally instead of letting marketing do all the talking.
First, since when has Unisys had Joe Average for a customer? They've always sold to the data center. Second, since when was the "we have a way out" campaign about Linux? It was about UNIX. And 3 years ago, UNIX (Solaris, mostly) was the established data center OS, with MS and Linux contending to unseat it. Linux is winning the battle.
Unisys bet on the wrong horse, plain and simple.
Why can't people just let up on the "o" key?? You will never need to use the word "loose" on Slashdot, unless you are talking about your mother, wife, daughter, etc.
Perhaps you can explain what about the Windows kernel is so modern age? Never mind. You clearly don't have the foggiest idea what you're talking about.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The 2200/500 was a CMOS version of the 2200/900, and both ran OS2200. Their newer Clearpath boxes still run OS2200, and have a JVM as well as other interesting things (native CIFS support, etc.).
The newer Clearpaths also have x86 processors on the same box as the 2200 processors, and can run both OS2200 and Linux concurrently. Hopefully someone will find that architecture combination useful.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.