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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.
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.
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.
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I Hit the Karma Cap, and All I Got Was This Lousy
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 . . .
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?)
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.