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Just Say No to Microsoft
Ben Rothke writes "Load up a computer today with a basic set of applications software, and there will be a de facto Microsoft tax on that computer. Add roughly $100- for the Windows XP operating systems and $350- for Microsoft office, and you have a significant initial financial outlay. If one would use an open source operating system and set of office applications, the cost savings would be enormous. That is why the option of open source is so financially compelling to the both the consumer and organizations have thousands of computers. And open source is corresponding such a threat to companies such as Microsoft. The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario." Read on for Ben's review.
Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think
author
Tony Bove
pages
243
publisher
No Starch Press
rating
7
reviewer
Ben Rothke
ISBN
159327064X
summary
Open source alternatives to Microsoft operating systems and applications
With that, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think would seemingly be a most valuable book in helping consumers and corporations rid themselves of the Microsoft tax. Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
The books main charges are that Microsoft has been far too predatory and that Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be. Microsoft's questionable business tactics are not without ethical lapses, but it must noted that Microsoft is simply one in a long line of companies that have used their size and deep pockets to quash the competition. Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition.
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies. The innovations of Ford and GM for example have been mostly superficial, without any significant improvement into crucial issues such as gas mileage and more.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge.
Aside from the pervasive anti-Microsoft tone and style and the book, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think provides a good starting point for those that are looking for a cheaper and safer alternative to Microsoft products.
Chapter 1 start with an overview of the history of Microsoft and how it grew to be the largest software company in the world. In chapter 2, All You Need is a Mac, Bove feels that the quickest route to Microsoft freedom is by purchasing a Macintosh. While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. In addition, the concern of malware such as viruses and spyware are much less of an issue on a Mac.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux. Bove notes that large companies that deal with thousands of end-user desktops are discovering the advantage of migrating to Linux in a big way.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Microsoft Word and Excel. Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Excel has a similar power in being the de facto spreadsheet. Most people think that the only alternative to Word is WordPerfect and simply don't know about OpenOffice Writer and Calc or other open source alternatives. The two chapters show how it is possible to effectively collaborate on documents without having to use Word.
While the book does not get into every open source alternative to a Microsoft product, Bove's web site has a comprehensive list of open source alternatives to Windows products at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/home.html#windows
Chapter 4 concludes with a look at the technical and practical problems with PowerPoint. Bove notes that the corrupting power of PowerPoint is so strong that otherwise normally articulate speakers turn into zombies mumbling the bullet points that appear on the slides behind them. It is not clear though how Impress, the open source alternative to PowerPoint is necessarily better from a presentation perspective.
The next few chapters deal with Outlook, the application that has launched countless viruses and worms, and also detail other network-based problems with Microsoft protocols and applications. Issues such as the never enduing cycle of Microsoft patches are also discussed.
Chapter 10 provides a 10 step program (fashioned after the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program) to free the reader from their Microsoft addition. While the steps are brief and effective, it would have been better had there been more technical details on how to migrate out of a Microsoft environment. For the person with thousands of documents and files in various Microsoft formats, it is not as effortless as to simply copy your old files onto a USB drive and move it to the new open source based host.
The book contains four parts, and there are four cartoons at the begging of each part that Bove wrote. The cartoons are quite funny in their own right and Bove should also consider a career as a cartoonist.
Ned Ludd said that the machine was the enemy, and Tony Bove feels the same way about Microsoft. For evidence, check out his campaign to stop the spread of Word documents at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/stopdoc.html.
The only negative to the book is that there are far too many anti-negative stories of Microsoft's predatory practices. A few stories would be adequate, but there is no point in belaboring the issue in a book that is meant to be more technical and practical, as opposed to political.
For many people who don't know better, they expect that a blue screen of death and monthly patching is part of a standard computing environment. Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think is an interesting read that will open the eyes of those users to a cheaper, more secure and robust open source solution.
You can purchase Just Say No to Microsoft from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
With that, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think would seemingly be a most valuable book in helping consumers and corporations rid themselves of the Microsoft tax. Unfortunately, the book spends far too much time slurring Microsoft and Bill Gates.
The books main charges are that Microsoft has been far too predatory and that Bill Gates is not the technical genius that he is made out to be. Microsoft's questionable business tactics are not without ethical lapses, but it must noted that Microsoft is simply one in a long line of companies that have used their size and deep pockets to quash the competition. Microsoft is not alone and joins companies such as American Airlines, Ford and General Motors, Wal-Mart and more that have engaged in practices that while good for their stockholders, have not been good for the competition.
Bove is correct that Microsoft's practices over the years have discouraged innovation and stunted competition. But then again, that is true of Ford, GM and other such companies. The innovations of Ford and GM for example have been mostly superficial, without any significant improvement into crucial issues such as gas mileage and more.
Two of the companies that Microsoft has been accused of destroying are Novell and WordPerfect. Yet much of the blame for the demise of these two companies goes to their management that did not know how to properly market their products nor deal with a competitor such as Microsoft. This is not meant to imply that Microsoft is blameless, rather that Novell and WordPerfect had plenty of opportunities to fend off Microsoft, yet did not rise to the challenge.
Aside from the pervasive anti-Microsoft tone and style and the book, Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think provides a good starting point for those that are looking for a cheaper and safer alternative to Microsoft products.
Chapter 1 start with an overview of the history of Microsoft and how it grew to be the largest software company in the world. In chapter 2, All You Need is a Mac, Bove feels that the quickest route to Microsoft freedom is by purchasing a Macintosh. While a Mac is not necessarily cheaper than a Wintel system, the Mac OS X is considerably more resilient against attacks. In addition, the concern of malware such as viruses and spyware are much less of an issue on a Mac.
Chapter 3 deals with what worries Microsoft the most - Linux. Bove notes that large companies that deal with thousands of end-user desktops are discovering the advantage of migrating to Linux in a big way.
Chapters 4 and 5 deal with Microsoft Word and Excel. Word documents have become the de facto standard for document exchange and are what has locked many people into staying with Microsoft Word. Excel has a similar power in being the de facto spreadsheet. Most people think that the only alternative to Word is WordPerfect and simply don't know about OpenOffice Writer and Calc or other open source alternatives. The two chapters show how it is possible to effectively collaborate on documents without having to use Word.
While the book does not get into every open source alternative to a Microsoft product, Bove's web site has a comprehensive list of open source alternatives to Windows products at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/home.html#windows
Chapter 4 concludes with a look at the technical and practical problems with PowerPoint. Bove notes that the corrupting power of PowerPoint is so strong that otherwise normally articulate speakers turn into zombies mumbling the bullet points that appear on the slides behind them. It is not clear though how Impress, the open source alternative to PowerPoint is necessarily better from a presentation perspective.
The next few chapters deal with Outlook, the application that has launched countless viruses and worms, and also detail other network-based problems with Microsoft protocols and applications. Issues such as the never enduing cycle of Microsoft patches are also discussed.
Chapter 10 provides a 10 step program (fashioned after the Alcoholics Anonymous 12 step program) to free the reader from their Microsoft addition. While the steps are brief and effective, it would have been better had there been more technical details on how to migrate out of a Microsoft environment. For the person with thousands of documents and files in various Microsoft formats, it is not as effortless as to simply copy your old files onto a USB drive and move it to the new open source based host.
The book contains four parts, and there are four cartoons at the begging of each part that Bove wrote. The cartoons are quite funny in their own right and Bove should also consider a career as a cartoonist.
Ned Ludd said that the machine was the enemy, and Tony Bove feels the same way about Microsoft. For evidence, check out his campaign to stop the spread of Word documents at www.tonybove.com/getoffmicrosoft/stopdoc.html.
The only negative to the book is that there are far too many anti-negative stories of Microsoft's predatory practices. A few stories would be adequate, but there is no point in belaboring the issue in a book that is meant to be more technical and practical, as opposed to political.
For many people who don't know better, they expect that a blue screen of death and monthly patching is part of a standard computing environment. Just Say No to Microsoft: How to Ditch Microsoft and Why It's Not as Hard as You Think is an interesting read that will open the eyes of those users to a cheaper, more secure and robust open source solution.
You can purchase Just Say No to Microsoft from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
The OEM cost for pre-loading XP on a new box is significantly less than $100, as is the cost to pre-load Office. Retail end-user costs in no way correlate with OEM costs.
Even more telling is the fact that many large OEMs charge the same or more for boxes without Windows, because those systems generally prove to cost them more in the end - more support calls, more returns because their distro doesn't support the particular DAC codec, whatever. Sometimes the whole is much more than the parts.
And the whole "never worry about blue screens" really put the icing on the Lamecake. The whole blue screen argument is so 2002, and if that's what the anti-M$ bots are still spouting, they need to update their playbook.
This is the "only" issue, is oss really that cost effective? service vs licenses. Yes its definatly worth a whole book.
"It's so convenient to have a system where everyone is a criminal" - A. Hitler
I don't love MS either. But when was the last time you got a BSOD on XP? I have crashes on XP about as often as I do on my debian server. The only BSODs I have had on XP have been when I ran VERY BAD software. Interestingly, the last one was two weeks ago when I was using a driver to read an ext2 volume mounted over USB. Yes, I have crashes on my debian box- the latest was somthing that rsync did that locked me out of both local and ssh connections. (Seriously. I have no idea what was happening and had to kill the machine) And no, I am not a linux guru. But if I have problems like these with my intermediate level of knowledge, then you'd better belive that joe blow will too.
...how the claim that other people have used tactics like those of Microsoft excuses Microsoft, as the reviewer seems to think.
just buy a new PC for $500 and move your old one on ebay for $150.
un burrito me trampeó.
Absolutely FUD, from the very people who claim to be its victims.
If you still see the BSOD then very likely your hardware is at fault. Although a 100% windows user and habitual upgrader/overclocker/gamer I have not seen once since last time I tried to use a Soundblaster in a VIA-based mainboard - 2001, or was it 2000?
Haven't seen any pattern of these since XP. There may have been one, due to a flaky driver, once. But, Windows CE/Me/NT is hard as a rock, and dumb as a brick.
Maybe Slashdot can atone by adding something to English: the WMD Argument Pattern. Noun. An argument so intellectually porous as to soak up the speaker's credibility.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
And open source is corresponding such a threat to companies such as Microsoft. The idea of saving money and never having to worry about a blue screen of death is the proverbial win/win scenario."
As long as the software manufacturers that write the software people want (productivity and games, especially games), open source software won't be doing much of anything. Sure, you can play SOME of your games with Cedega (and how much is THAT per license?) under Linux, but not all work, and a lot of games that do work, have some quirks.
As far as the blue screen of death - I haven't seen one of those in hmm...bout 2 years. Granted, sure, some folks get them and lockups due to spyware, adware, virii, etc. But well, asking the average Joe Blow user to do much tweaking in Linux doesn't lend itself to anything remotely easy.
When will open source advocates like the author of this expensive toilet paper realize that until Linux becomes as easy to use as Windows AND the software manufacturers write native software for it, that it won't be a big player in the home consumer market on the desktop?
I commend you for not posting as an AC, but, face it, if Microsoft made GOOD things, we wouldn't be complaining about IE vulnerabilities, or blue screens, XBOXes crashing, or the latest sober worm.
,Lotus-ABC or Eudora-mail viruses?
Have you forgotten that there were NO THINGS such as wordperfect
Yes, Microsoft has helped to establish somewhat a user community around computers and the internet. But that's about the ONLY good thing they've done.
Microsoft isn't inherently evil, they're a company.
Wrong. They're a MONOPOLY, and they've played dirty on EVERY CHANCE they've had. Perhaps you should read the "say no" book to realize how evil Microsoft is.
If by "Insightful" you mean "Hopeful", then the parent post moderation is correct.
Ten years ago, I downloaded Slackware for the first time, made a towering stack of 3.5" floppies out of the downloaded files, and installed it. I couldn't believe it -- not only did I get the OS, but I got compilers, utilities, games, all for just the cost of Internet access and time spent siphoning bits down the phone line.
Since then, the price of Windows has just gone up. When, exactly (or even generally!), is Microsoft supposed to buckle under the pressure?
Fun with Anagarams! LADS HOST, SHALT DOS. HAS DOLTS. AD SLOTHS, HATS SOLD. ASS HO, LTD.
"Never having to worry about a blue screen of death" is a very stupid presumption to base a book on. I haven't seen a blue screen of death since moving to WinXP so long ago. There's a lot to be said for buying quality parts. Alternately, we buy cheapo hardware at work and our Linux farm suffers freezes on about a third of the systems once every week or two. In my world the sky truly is purple compared to the author's blue sky descriptions. How I wish they would pony up a little more to make these Linux boxes just as stable and increase productivity, but when you're dealing with a hundred boxes on a server farm no one notices a few boxes missing since they never go down at the same time.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
YOU can build your own system. YOU can buy from someone else. Personally, I don't have the time or skills to put a computer together myself, and I haven't seen major PC distributors selling clean boxes. I'd say I am slightly above average in terms of tech-savviness. The average user sees computers as Apple, Gateway, Dell, HP, and whichever ones didn't spring to mind there. If they don't sell it at Wal-mart, Best Buy, Cost Co or maybe Office Depot, it doesn't exist to the average customer. The "MS tax" is partially dependent on people not being able to invest weeks in understanding and utilizing the computer-building resources available.
Haven't seen any pattern of these since XP.
I've seen significantly fewer since XP, but not zero. In fact, I can make my laptop BSoD on demand. Install EAC (Exact Audio Copy) and ask it to do anything that touches the net (get data from FreeDB; report info on the CD/DVD drive, etc) -- boom, dead. Why? No damn clue. This is a pretty plain jane Centrino laptop using the built-in 802.11g adapter and standard drivers for everything. But I could consistantly BSoD the system w/ EAC.
Works just fine on my desktop system (rather different -- wired w/ no firewall).
It's probably a driver issue, but I'd love to know what EAC is doing so weirdly to cause a BSoD on network access -- that really shouldn't be possible.
Outside of that, I'm hard pressed to remember the last BSoD that I had. They are extremely rare nowadays unless you have bad hardware. Nor do I have long term instability issues -- I can leave my XP boxes up w/o rebooting and they're just fine, just like my Linux boxes. IMO you need to choose the right OS for the right job -- Linux excels in a server role, while Windows is better for gamers (duh) and laptops. For a corporate desktop it depends on what you're doing, but I'd say that most could do fine on Linux -- it mostly depends on what apps you need to run.
I recently bought a new PC for $350. Adding up the prices of the components I know about (100GB hd, 3000+ AMD proc, mobo, modem, case, CD burner, 256mb ram, mouse, keyboard, etc) comes to around $200-250. I'm sure they make some profit (lets say $50) and I'm sure Best Buy wanted their cut too (maybe another $50?). I'm now struggling to see where the supposed $100 for XP Home comes from, never mind MS Works which was also included.
The prices you quote are retail, and yes, they are accurate. But large OEMs get this stuff for virtually nothing. Dell, Gateway, etc do NOT pay $100+ per windows license or anywhere close to that. So the "Microsoft Tax" included in the price of the new PC is much lower than some people would have you believe. I'd be amazed if selling the machine I bought without Windows would cost any less whatsoever - mainly because of all the trial versions of stuff which came preinstalled (their manufacturers paid for that service) which wouldn't be possible without Windows. So overall, I think MS saved me money. Which is nice seeing as I got it home and nuked it to install Knoppix.
---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"
Actually, it most certainly is near $50. Again, the big OEMs get HUGE discounts on software. That 30-pack you mention is NOTHING compared to the volume of millions upon millions of WinXP installations moved by the likes of DELL.
The actual price (which is certainly different) is a trade secret. If only because MS doesn't want everyone else paying what Dell does for windows.
Just for background, if you haven't read already this fellows battle with Toshiba refunding him the cost on his windows 95 license many many years ago is an entertaining read.
Platform advocacy is like choosing a favorite severely developmentally disabled child.
I believe in free enterprise. I would like to think that you do too but I think you just believe in MS$ all mighty dollar and power at any cost.
Funny. I bet I spend more time daily using Linux than you do.... considering I get paid to develop on Linux as our only target platform and I use Linux at home and have been since the 0.9x kernel days. The only difference between our two posts seems to be that I've simply not made a religion out of it.
Corporations are choosing to buy M$ for many other reason than price.
I would say they are using it at least 50% for other reason than price.
I have seen many start-ups, who adored Linux and other OpenSource software when they did not have too much capital. One of the first sign of growth is to start switching over to Microsoft.
Just to name a few reasons:
1) Senior managers, partners LOVE Microsoft, because it's an example corporation they would like to be. They are Microsoft fans as corporate citizens. They see Microsoft as an exclusive club: they think of Microsoft as one of the greatest corporations in history, with huge amount of cash, with near monopoly within an industry, with the CEO, who is one of the richest man on Earth. Senior managers LOVE the "membership" of this "elite club". Microsoft and Gates is everything they ever wanted to achieve: Microsoft and Gates are corporate idols.
2) Senior managers are horrified to think that they are not members of this elite club. The last thing they would like to hear that of of their client, business partner can't read their files because it's not Microsoft compatible. They don't want to be the uncool kid in the school, who does not have the same gadget what the cool kids have.
3) No IT manager was ever fired for deploying Windows.
Again: if one of the world's greatest corporations can't do it - then noone else can. If a Microsoft product fails - well, that's the best what the best can do at this moment.
If any other product fails - then it's a shitty company or a shitty product, "you should have gone with the pros.... (Microsoft)".
4) It's good to have large budget, it shows the importance of the department. It's good to spend lots of money on Microsoft: it makes senior management feel that we are cool.
When I buy a PC, any PC, I have Windows preinstalled.
Have you been living under a rock for the last five years? Dell, HP, and thousands of independant system builders are happy to sell you a PC without Windows. Even Fry's and Wal-Mart have PCs without Windows.
The fact that those products sell poorly indicates that people want Windows.
That's exactly "broken window fallacy" or the sort of Keynsian thinking that believes that the market should be twisted for things like job creation.
What people should do is buy the best product for their company. The death of Microsoft would be natural economics and the money would go elsewhere. Maybe I would give it direct to a charity, or buy myself some DVDs with the money saved. The point is that opportunity would be transferred from one place to another.
You are suffering a condition known as the alpha geek syndrome. If I can ask you to stop peeing on that tree for a second please let me explain.
The symptom you are exhibiting is that what you've said is the equivalent of "I'm not having this problem. If you're having this problem you must be stupid and it's your fault" presumably for buying bad hardware.
There are lots of people around the world that run different hardware than you. I've seen a USB network cable (you know 2 fake UBB network adapaters bound by a USB cable) reliably crash a fully updated XP SP2 machine. I can send you the crash dumps if you like. The shop owner I told about this refused a refund and only after much squabbling gave me a credit. Aparently it's not his fault if he sells dodgy hardware either.
It's not the only dodgy piece of hardware I've had the misfortune of buying in the last few years either. I run 3 USB drive bays (2 metal gear, and I'll never buy that again), 3 USB hubs, a camera card reader, a tablet, and 3 printers on my main machine at home. Getting them to work well together has been fun, but not something I'd recommend for a newbie. Also took a lot of trial and error with various drivers thanks to a VIA chipset on my motherboard.
So basically are you saying that anyone who doesn't buy a piece of hardware they haven't seen in action on their exact hardware is a moron? That's a big call (and a rather silly one).
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer