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Microsoft Goes Head-to-Head With IBM
conq writes "BusinessWeek has a piece on Microsoft's latest announcements that it is going after large-business computing, a realm that IBM currently has a stronghold on." From the article: "In both cases, the company has fashioned 'enterprise' versions of the products with additional security and collaboration-enabling features for sale to large businesses. Microsoft has spent $20 billion over the past three years on these upgrades, and Ballmer says it will spend $500 million over the next year marketing them to corporations. 'We're unlocking the next wave of growth for Microsoft,' Ballmer predicted during a press conference after his speech." We've previously discussed Microsoft's plans for IBM.
...I say, bring it on, Billy Boy!
What, Windows doesn't run on mainframes? So sorry, let's talk again when you have at least one heavy-duty operating sytem (like z/OS or Linux). Not to mention the applications to run on it.
From personal experience working with a large data warehousing company, the anti-M$ 'attitude' is the norm. As my boss once put it:
If it's development, we run Solaris, if it's serving, we run Linux, if it's graphics, we run Mac, and if its the sales guy's laptop, we run Windows."
These old-school guys love their unix. I cant see this happening any time soon.
Please let Unisys know:
r dware/index.htm
http://www.unisys.com/products/es7000__servers/ha
http://www.intellipool.se/ - Intellipool Network Monitor
I watched as all the various plays were taken by the various players through the years. I'm biased because I know how Microsoft buys media and politicians to protect its anticompetitive monopoly. You're the one in fantasyland, who thinks the competitors just didn't compete well enough in the market.
Novell's NetWare was the #1 and #3 "PC Network OS", in two different versions, when Microsoft's late-1990s NT onslaught targeted it. IT media routinely compared the marketshare of either one or the other Novell versions to the combined marketshare of all Microsoft OS products, including DOS. Just one example of how IT buyers were sold lies to make the monopoly look like the only choice. While NetWare was a superior product, even more interoperable among MS OS products than the MS products were with each other.
Earlier, IBM's OS/2 suffered even more serious dirty tricks, bound by their "partnership" with MS in OS/2. No one serious believed that Windows was superior technology to OS/2.
Netscape was defeated by Microsoft's monopoly abuse, just as proven in the monopoly case against Microsoft. A travesty of a defense that should have seen Gates and his lying execs do jailtime for perjury, evidence tampering, and contempt of court. But despite being declared an abusive monopoly, in violation of their bundling consent agreement with the court, Microsoft has continued to bundle products with its monopoly package anticompetitively. They still get in some trouble, even today, for such practices. But once Bush took over the White House and Justice Department from Clinton, his Republican government let go of the solution to that problem. A clear case of political favoritism. No wonder, because the Republican Party is the Monopoly Party.
All of these facts are clear history. It is you who is denying them with your false revisions and fantasy world. And it is you, a consumer in the market, who is hurt by them. Unless you're a Microsoft employee or shareholder, in which case you're shortsighted in addition to amnesiac.
--
make install -not war
It's easy to bash Lotus for their client. I agree that older versions (before R5) were behind Outlook as far as features and usability go, but the current versions of Lotus Notes are much better in many ways when compared to Outlook. Also, the Domino server is leaps and bounds ahead of Exchange...when was the last time you ran an Exchange server in Linux? Domino currently runs very reliably on Linux servers.
From http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0168122/quotes:
Steve Jobs: We're better than you are! We have better stuff.
Bill Gates: You don't get it, Steve. That doesn't matter!
Clusters of servers... processing and disk space still cost money, though. And MS software is completely unable to be stripped down to only necessary services and still function correctly. They won't get much penetration into markets where the customers actually know what a price to performance ratio is, and demand a good one.
My blog. Good stuff (when I remember to update it). Read it.
All of those examples were done in due by arrogant managers who thought they couldn't lose.
Novell failed because they sold [just] a file and print server. It was a very good file and print server. You could convince it to do other things with NLMs, but without preemptive multitasking or memory protection it was no better suited to those things than DOS. Windows NT did file and print sharing out of the box almost as well as NetWare, but it was actually good for email, database, and other kinds of services.
OS/2 died for the same reasons that MCA (microchannel architecture) died. It was poorly marketed, was not fully supported even by IBM's own management, had very few supporting apps, and IBM did little to encourage development. OS/2 was a great OS, but what was it great at? It was great at running OS/2 apps (of which there were few), and 16-bit Windows apps (whose time was limited). Meanwhile MS had everybody and their mother writing 32-bit Windows apps, which eventually was the key to its success.
Netscape failed because they tried to create a market where there was none to be created. Throughout the early 90's web browsers (mostly Mosaic) were all free. Microsoft quite naturally made theirs a free download, too. Netscape thought that they could sell web browsers when everybody was used to getting them for free. Of course Opera can sell browsers, but that's because they're good -- Netscape Navigator was bloated and buggy, a victim of their intense rush to beat Mosaic.
There was no "bundling" because MS changed the definition of an OS to include a web browser, the same way that it includes a command shell, a text editor, and a TCP/IP stack. Can you name a desktop OS that does NOT include a web browser? If Windows didn't include a web browser, how would you get one?
dom
Now, maybe one day MS will be a solutions supplier, but right now all they do is a bit of software. Someone else does the hardware, someone else does the integration, someone else does the process. Let me repeat that. MS only does on small compenent of the software development, and has little to no experience in anything else. Therfore MS can force Dell to sell only MS OS on the servers, and can provide vouchers to consumers for MSCE support, but, AFAI, cannot roll in with a complete solutions. Furthermore, they can't roll in with a solution supported by company with decades of experiences supported complete solution. All they can say is that provide a bit of software that everyone uses. Significant, but i would not trust my firm to the guy who packs the computers.
To be clear, I am not saying that what IBM does is always right, or what MS is always wrong. MS caught a lucky break by being the OS that poeple chose after Compaq broke the IBM ROM. If I wanted a complete solution, I would more likely go to dell, and then tell them I wanted a combination between MS and *nix, simply because it would be a waste of money to buy licenses that served no purpose. Of course, IBM can already provide this, though I myself have never been a fan of anyting IBM except for the typewriters.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black