Microsoft Sells Linux To Wal-Mart

Several readers wrote in to let us know that Wal-Mart is planning to buy SUSE Linux vouchers from Microsoft in the course of building out its infrastructure. These are the support vouchers that Microsoft must distribute to hold up its end of the bargain with Novell. Wal-Mart has been a customer of Red Hat Linux. CBR Online notes that the deal is not entirely unexpected because Microsoft's COO, Kevin Turner, is the former CIO of Wal-Mart.

Comments

Maybe is this the reason

[inode_buddha]

Maybe is this the reason Novell and MS wanted that deal of theirs so much?

Re:Maybe is this the reason

[Hazclan13]

I wouldn't be a tall surprised you know what 'Big Business' is like.

Re:Maybe is this the reason

[ari wins]

I work for the devil, and must say I look forward to logging onto a new system to request time off, or look up truck sizes, etc. Currently, they use a unix based program that's 15+ years old. Notice what I said there, btw. Without getting into details, most of the back-end systems don't have windows installed now, anyways, so I'm not sure what's the big deal. They're just migrating from unix to linux.

Ooooh

[MattyCobb]

So they are saying Linux is the Walmart Windows are they? FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT FIGHT

Re:Ooooh

[Hazclan13]

What a statement........ If only they would say that........

Re:Ooooh

[SeaFox]

So they are saying Linux is the Walmart Windows are they?

At first I thought Microsoft was trying to pull a fast one on Wal-Mart.

Then I realized Wal-Mart would immediately recognize the OS they were running was not Windows when they stopped having crashes.

MS Support

[eviloverlordx]

The first thing that popped into my mind upon hearing this was "when they call MS Support, they'll get the Blue Automated Message of Death". Then I realized that the fastest way to get users to dump Linux would be to have them sent to MS' real tech support.

Re:MS Support

[gbobeck]

"when they call MS Support, they'll get the Blue Automated Message of Death"

That is still an improvement over Clippy!

Re:MS Support

[Joebert]

Just wait, the penguin will have Clippys job in due time.

Re:MS Support

[cp.tar]

Ooooh, but if we unleash Vigor on the unsuspecting Wal-Mart customers... evilgasm time...

and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[yagu]

And then, so Lucy says to Charlie Brown, "Come on Charlie Brown, I promise not to pull the ball back this time when you kick it!"

Does anyone imagine in any way or any context this Microsoft -- Wal-Mart relationship for Linux could be a good thing? I can thing of many reasons and many ways Microsoft can undermine and even try to bury Linux with this Novell Suse bargain (with the Devil?), but I only need think of one.

Suppose as Wal-Mart moves forward doing "stuff" with Linux things go terrible wrong, or get terribly hard. "No problem", says Microsoft... you need only switch to our SQL Server which of course needs to run on a Vista Server, etc. It's win-win for Microsoft.

Microsoft gets additional customer share from Linux, and has a diamond-crusted public whipping boy to prove once and for all Linux can't cut it in the big boys' world (business). We all know Linux can, but with big publicity coups I fear Microsoft gains more purchase in the PR war.

Maybe none of this will come to pass, but do you think for one minute a company that sold out its business partners with "Plays for Sure" (sorry, I know I keep using this as an example...), won't think twice about short-shrifting any value Linux brings to the table? Microsoft has shown itself a predator many times before, there's no reason to think this isn't just one more opportunity for them (and a big one at that).

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[xenocide2]

Fantasy land material. Wal-mart's data centers would eat MS products alive. Recall that every transaction is being logged there. About seven years ago, my university recieved a donation of one of their district processing mainframes: something like an 82 way pentium 2 setup. Fantastic sounding stuff, but it was a) too slow for their (regional) needs, and b) too damned hard to make fast (NUMA).

If Walmart was dissatisfied with Linux, somehow I think Windows would be their last pick. Which makes me wonder, what are they using now? Linux? Solaris?

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[pchoppin]

I don't think Novel is ready for a relationship with M$. I mean how corrupt can they be [Novel]? Personally, I think Novel better get ready to be chewed up and spit out, like so many other M$ victims.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[patches]

That very well could be the philosophy behind this, however the rest of the linux community need only point out that linux is very broad terms and that if this proves that Suse linux can't cut it, then there is a distro out there that could....

Patrick

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[coldsleep]

Having worked IT for a large retailer for a number of years, I can tell you that Linux is already in the door at Wal-Mart, and it's not going to be nearly that easy to remove. Note that the quoted portion of the article mentions that Wal-Mart was using RedHat previously. Virtually all of the large retailers did proof-of-concepts with Linux (up to 5) years ago. IT managers are thrilled at the lower TCO claimed by Linux (not that I don't believe it, but Linux isn't free if you're paying RH or Novell or whoever for support), and they've been trying to adopt it for a while now. What this more likely means is that Wal-Mart is planning on moving more critical apps to Linux, and they're trying to reduce their support costs by switching to one vendor. Or perhaps you hadn't heard that Wal-Mart likes to cut costs? (IME, switching to one vendor doesn't necessarily cut costs, but managers like the idea a lot.)

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[coldsleep]

Depends on what you're looking for.

Having worked for a competitor, I've heard that they use AIX, Solaris, and Linux for most of the day-to-day number crunching, with some mainframe on the side.

Windows (I know) & Macs (I suspect) are also in use, and there's probably a couple other wacky systems thrown in for fun.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[KutuluWare]

My company has done some minor contract work with Walmart. Most of it involved receiving data from their systems for post-processing, particularly print jobs. Based on how their lpr behaves I would guess they are running some form of SVR4-based UNIX, probably HP-UX... of course, I don't work *for* them so I've never logged in to check :)

--K

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[LaughingCoder]

do you think for one minute a company that sold out its business partners with "Plays for Sure" ... won't think twice about short-shrifting ...

Please explain how Microsoft sold out its partners with "Plays For Sure". Do they no longer support PFS in Vista? Did they revoke the licenses to their PFS DRM or codecs? [note: the answer is "no" to both of those questions] In my view, if they *had* made Zune a PFS-compatible player (Zune uses a different DRM scheme, as does Urge, their affiliated music store) they would have been short-shrifting their partners. But this is not the case. People who have bought or are buying PFS content can continue to do so, and can continue to play their PFS content, even on Vista. Companies/partners who licensed it can continue to do so. By making Zune non-PFS, their PFS partners don't have to worry about the 600lb gorilla who sources a significant portion of their technology competing directly with them. Consider the converse. If MS *had* made Zune PFS-compatible, would you then be saying they sold out their partners by directly competing with them (and giving themselves an unfair advantage)?

sorry, I know I keep using this as an example.

If you indeed do keep using this example, you need to pick a new one. I'm sure with a company as "evil" as Microsoft you can find one that is more apt.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[bensch128]

Maybe the GP is refering to the fact that M$ is trying to compete with google in building $500 million dollar data centers to run thier live service. And what OS is M$ going to use to power this monster data center? It could be Linux, it could be Solaris. I seriously doubt it'll be server2003.

Cheers
Ben

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[Saxophonist]

I used to work for Wal-Mart, and to log in (at the store level) to work on anything, it was a System V prompt (though with menus after login, not a shell or anything).

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[naChoZ]

Microsoft gets additional customer share from Linux, and has a diamond-crusted public whipping boy to prove once and for all Linux can't cut it in the big boys' world (business). We all know Linux can, but with big publicity coups I fear Microsoft gains more purchase in the PR war.

I wonder if you might be correct. I'm just coming off of a two week run of suse 10.2. I usually use freebsd as my desktop, but I thought I'd try 10.2 because it comes with xorg-7.2 and I wanted to try some of the gl mode desktop toys. From the get go, it was really slick. I installed it on an employer-provided Dell Inspiron 9300. Everything worked pretty easily, wireless wasn't too tough to get going, the touchpad scroll areas work which was a pleasant surprise, the front multimedia keys worked right away, and I really love how they've configured KDE.

Unfortunately, it went downhill after that. Just to mention a couple, Yast literally became unusable after a week. If I went into the network configuration and tried to edit an interface the whole gui would completely hang, although the same function would work fine in text mode. Eventually other yast control panels started following suit and just hanging. The other trouble I had was with the zen package management system. After I plugged in a handful of repositories it seemed like it was going to do a great job of keeping my system updated. Then I noticed what a *PIG* it was. I'd catch it during the day in the middle of doing a routine check for updates and it would be consuming two *HUNDRED* megabytes of ram. Using zen for even a simple package install, such as if I were installing something by clicking on an rpm link through firefox, would literally takes several minutes, even when I knew all the dependencies were satisfied. I could have probably lived with the slowness and excessive resource consumption if it would simply just work. Then all the repositories entries I had configured suddenly started vanishing...

Oh, and of course libxine is broken by default. Oh wait, that's actually a feature. DRM...

So today I installed a different distro to try out.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[Anonymous Coward]

Walmart has the world's second largest relational database that runs on Solaris 8 and Oracle 9i. The first largest database in the world also runs Solaris 8 and Oracle 9i and is located at Stanford (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BaBar_experiment).

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[Penguinisto]

"Which makes me wonder, what are they using now? Linux? Solaris?"

As a former Arkansan (Fayetteville, ab't 15 minutes south of Bentonville/Wal-Mart HQ) I remember a buddy of mine who worked there, and IIRC he mentioned AS/400's... a whole farm of them.

Mind you, this was 1998/1999, but it makes sense that they would use 'em for that time frame. No idea what they're using now, though.

/P

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[chris macura]

As of now, it is win2003:
http://www.live.com/asdad

Cheers.

Honestly, I don't see them using anything else.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[Anonymous Coward]

It's no secret that "System V" is NCR MP-RAS, and WalMart runs on Teradata. Thought you should know.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[naoursla]

Microsoft has a product called Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[j_sp_r]

dumbass, that's why he linked it in the first place

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[krakrjak]

Well like all large environments they have a bit of everything. At the stores it's a handful of servers, one of IBM/NCR/HP Unix boxes and a couple windows servers (usually dells).

Back in Bentonville, AR it's about the same. A large variety of proprietary UNIX systems (mostly IBM/HP/NCR), a ton of windows servers, a few mainframes and a proprietary Data Warehousing solution.

Wal-Mart is very multi vendor to get competitive pricing, but to also avoid vendor lock-in. Of course like other companies they still allow Microsoft to lock them in and it seems like that is the only vendor allowed to do this. I think Microsoft banks on that. Microsoft's server business isn't going away anytime soon, mostly due to vendor lock-in solutions they provided to customers.

Wal-Mart is a very large company and many people have a say in their IT infrastructure so any half-baked idea that one vendor will come in and take all their server business is ludicrous. It's not in the Wal-Mart culture to allow that.

Re:and so, then Lucy says to Charlie Brown

[RalphP]

Last time I was in, swapping out the slaved Windows servers, they run AS/400s for their backbone - either Linux or zOS (or whatever they've decided to call it today). Most likely zOS.

We're gonna win ;)

[Prysorra]

I can see it now.....Winix 2010. Nothing like storming the castle at the top of the hill....

Dear God

[Anonymous Coward]

What is the world coming too?

The forces join...

[adambha]

Wal-mart + Microsoft = Linux?

I've seen fuzzy math before, but this takes the cake.

Re:The forces join...

[dkleinsc]

Don't worry, Wal-mart has historically been able to effectively combine the quality of Microsoft's products with the prices almost as low as those of Linux.

Re:The forces join...

[alanwj]

Wal-mart + Microsoft = Linux

Does that mean that Wal + Microsoft = Linux + mart?

Good news!

[Otter]

I've been waiting for a way to run Linux that managed to simultaneously involve Microsoft, Novell and Wal-Mart! Do you think they can get Lotus Notes into the mix as well?

Re:Good news!

[CheeseTroll]

:-)

The more I think of it in that light, the more I chuckle. Hello, reality check!

Maybe they think that 2 wrongs will make a right?

Re:Good news!

[andy314159pi]

It's like they can't decide whether to sue you for buying it or to sell it to you.

Re:Good news!

[dangitman]

Do you think they can get Lotus Notes into the mix as well?

Already done. It comes with Lotus Notes and a machine-gun.

Re:Good news!

[Penguinisto]

That'll happen the day after Wal-Mart Supercenters start selling S&M gear.

/P

Flying Pigs?

[Midnight Thunder]

Please don't tell me there is such a thing as a flying pig - there goes my reality check.

Wait for SCO to chime in

[andy314159pi]

We'll they'll have to deal with Daryl McBride and his SCO cohorts for selling their UNIX license without permission. Of course, he'll have to ask them to finance his lawsuit against themselves.

Re:Wait for SCO to chime in

[D0T-SL4SH-RUN]

Daryl McBrides future employment.. http://mbrooks.info/images/mcbrides.jpg

Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Linux

[Foofoobar]

If there were a time for Linux to be made into a tool of destruction to wipe out all mankind, to kick puppies, make children cry, steal candy from babies and import illegal aliens into our country to pay them pennies to work overtime, this would be it's opportunity.

But ...

[njchick]

... can we call it genuine Linux?

Re:But ...

[rrohbeck]

... can we call it genuine Linux? Linux Genuine Advantage?

The obvious question

[acidrain]

Ok I'll ask it. Is seeing Microsoft selling Linux to an insanely large customer a major victory or is this a SCO tax? Do we congratulate or mail-bomb Novell? And wow, eight years ago, running Slackware this was a slightly absurd scenario you would joke about while trying to fix your rc.d scripts after an update.

Re:The obvious question

[jimicus]

I'm going out on a wild limb here with speculation, but that's what /. is all about.

Assuming Microsoft's business plan of "achieve monopoly status in computer operating systems at all levels" hasn't changed, there are actually a couple of explanations for this that make sense.

Explanation 1:

The kind of data centre run by a company like WalMart probably doesn't have a great deal of Microsoft software running. Probably does have a fair bit of Unix, and I'm sure WalMart's IT folks have been idly wondering if they can run Linux in its place (if they're not already). But without someone big to back it up - the likes of IBM or Microsoft - it'll never get buy-in from the higher-ups who sign the cheques.

Now from Microsoft's perspective, they get a foot in the door. They roll up to WalMart, announce that they're "happy to support Linux" and at the same time they get some engineers in there to see what they need to do to Windows so it can compete in such a space. A few years later, requirements change and Microsoft announce that they're no longer able to support Linux - "but you could always migrate to something based on SQL server 2012, and we conveniently have all these tools to make migration dead easy". Sure, WalMart could then say "screw you" and go to someone like IBM, but by that time the Linux solution they're using will be so tightly integrated with and tailored to their business processes that the upheaval this would involve is rather more than just letting a bunch of contractors in to maintain the code.

Explanation 2:

Microsoft is growing up. Like IBM before them, they've realised that a 100% monopoly in all aspects of computing isn't going to happen, so instead they're looking to forward the business by offering paid service contracts. Sure, they may not get to write the OS and applications, but at least they're making some money out of these businesses with no interest in their server product, rather than just standing there saying "Use Windows. Please."

Re:MOD GP DOWN Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

Wow, way to karma whore with that first useless comment. Why do all the high UIDs feel the need to do this?

Because they hope to earn some karma by finishing their sentences with a question mark?

1 in 5

[Shadow Wrought]

At least now we know why 1 in 5 dosn't pass certification...

I know there's a joke here...

[Eric Damron]

But I'm having a brain fart!!!

WalMart Farming out Server Stuff

[BoRegardless]

I don't understand the internals, but it sounds like IBM like outsourcing.

WalMart is seeking guarantees of 100% uptime, no doubt, and leaving it to the support contractor to deliver, by my guess.

Bo

Classic FUD at work

[CheeseTroll]

The company now uses Linux in the data center of its current Web presence but had some trepidation with the idea of expanding it a much larger operation. "To think about using it pervasively, we were very concerned about it," she said. The larger Web operation would have "significantly higher legal exposure."

Fear? Check.
Uncertainty? Check.
Doubt? Check.
...
Profit for MS? Check.

Re:Classic FUD at work

[Nikker]

The interesting part is Linux owns the Linux TM. If MS does try to do something not kosher then can Linus stop MS from marketing the word Linux? Possibly he would have a say in the marketing aspect so they could not market the entire box as "Linux" but they must outline it is merely an implementation of Linux? I think this could be an interesting card to play if it gets held back until the name gets allot of buzz first then slip in other (cheaper?) implementations of the kernel. I don't think this puts backs to the wall at all, maybe MS sees it like that.

Re:Classic FUD at work

[dave420]

It's not FUD at all. It's one person's opinion. Nothing more, nothing less. Now, if it was a marketing campaign, you might have a point.

Re:Classic FUD at work

[renuk007]

Another check for MS? Check.

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[geekoid]

I'd totally install "Super Ultra Evil Linux"

Re:Interesting

[ronanbear]

Maybe this is a way for Microsoft to keep Red Hat away from Wal-Mart. Wal-Mart is strong and is likely very willing to play hard ball to get good Windows discounts.

I'm sure Microsoft execs were able to get Wal-Mart to use Suse by continuing to offer them great Windows discounts. This way they aren't really compromising the integrity (sic) of their volume licensing.

so the deal means...

[Grinin]

So the point of the deal was that Microsoft is going to start supporting SuSe as it does Windows??

Well if they do as good a job in Linux as they do for their Windows support, than my business should remain unaffected.

Doesn't this also mean that Microsoft has to actually understand the internal workings of a functional operating system before they can "support" it?

Re:so the deal means...

[ettlz]

Doesn't this also mean that Microsoft has to actually understand the internal workings of a functional operating system before they can "support" it?

And the fuckers can start with their own.

Re:so the deal means...

[Grinin]

touché!

Re:so the deal means...

[instantkamera]

I think the keyword here is "functional".

Novell thinks...

[d3m0nCr4t]

Novell thinks they made a great deal in cooperating with MS, i think they made a very big mistake. I'm very curious when we can start to pick up the pieces that will be left from Novell.

Re:Novell thinks...

[Grinin]

Agreed... they made a deal with the Devil, I just hope its not at the cost of Linux or the open source community.

Good deal for MS

[John Jamieson]

Well I don't see an upside for Linux. The article says

MS gets rid of vouchers without creating another Linux customer. MS wins
MS deprives Redhat of Revenue. MS wins
MS will get some Windows boxes installed at the same time. MS wins

Re:Good deal for MS

[JPriest]

MS gets rid of vouchers without creating another Linux customer. MS wins

Please explain.

Re:Good deal for MS

[Per Abrahamsen]

Apparently SUSE is replacing the existing Red Hat installations at Wal-Mart.

tags?

[Optikschmoptik]

Did the 'itsatrap' tag get banned or just go out of style?

Re:tags?

[reality-bytes]

Did the 'itsatrap' tag get banned or just go out of style?

itstooobvious?

Re:tags?

[Optikschmoptik]

Did the 'itsatrap' tag get banned or just go out of style?

itstooobvious?

That never seemed to be a problem before.

And add some FSF FUD for good measure

[mandelbr0t]

OMG Microsoft is only one company away from getting it's filthy hands on the Linux codebase! It's only months before pre-packaged Shaftnix (supported by Novell) hits the market followed by a storm of Novell-specific Linux trojans! This will make Linux people out of (shudder) LUSERS! Why should we taint our beautiful GNU/Linux with the wretched eye-candy that consumers demand?! Attacks on the GPL will continue unabated, and only prostrating yourself at the feet of the mighty RMS and installing Debian will save you from the apocalypse that will come to destroy this unholy union.

Re:And add some FSF FUD for good measure

[OnlineAlias]

I think everyone should have the Linux codebase...oh, wait...

Re:And add some FSF FUD for good measure

[mrchaotica]

It's only months before pre-packaged Shaftnix (supported by Novell)...

...not to be confused with the similarly-named Shatnix (which, is advertised, by a certain, fat and, old actor).

KHAAAAAAAAAN!!

Re:And add some FSF FUD for good measure

[MrCopilot]

Attacks on the GPL will continue unabated, and only prostrating yourself at the feet of the mighty RMS and installing Debian will save you from the apocalypse that will come to destroy this unholy union.

Whew, I was worried, but now I see I'm already safe.

GNODs be with you.

Wait...

[kitsunewarlock]

Your allowed to sell other companies you don't own to other companies now? M$oft: Hey Walmart, wanna buy Linux? WalMart: You own Linux? Linux: ...no he doesn't... M$oft: Don't listen to him and his crazy open source communist lies. WalMart: So how much? Linux: I'm not for sale! M$oft: How 'bout $20 and a pack of smokes? Linux: Seriously...I'm not for sale. WalMart: Wait a minute...why would we have to pay...they are open source, right? As in free "everything"... Linux: You can't just take our company... M$oft: Stop listening to his silly lies. Anyways, we claimed Linux first and we are going to put a price on it. $20 and a pack of smokes. Walmart: Fine fine... Linux: ...

Re:Wait...

[kitsunewarlock]

Actually I think "whenever I see Microsoft mentioned in this news site...I see it spelled in comments as 'Micro$oft'". I assumed that's how its spelled around here.

Oh, and for some reason I forgot to make my post "plain old text" instead of "HTML Formatted", which cluttered my post.

One in 5 linux is...

[u19925]

Now, we will see one in 5 Linux non-genuine.

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[Foofoobar]

active directories can crash if a script kiddie farts just right. This was found out when the infamous Captain Crunch demonstrated how to crash a Microsoft server using a whoopee cushion.

Tax, influence, support

[AHuxley]

In Capitalist West Microsoft profits from communism.
In Soviet Union kgb buy Microsoft to track you.

Mb they are trying some form of tax, shape, support.
If you use linux support MS gets a cut.
If you want standards, MS will always have a seat at the table. They can grind away or re direct any momentum.
If you want more support, MS will 'help' you all the way back to MS products.

One in five?

[Archangel Michael]

I wonder if Microsoft will find that one in five Linux installs on Walmart computers are not genuine?

Re:MOD GP DOWN Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

just because you suck at karma whoring doesn't mean you need to throw a hissy fit.

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[RuBLed]

But they should have a penguin logo to come with it. I can't wait to see it...

This is wonderful!

[rossz]

I already run Linux virtually on a Windows box. I get the ease of use of Linux with the incredible stability of Windows. Now I can add the unsurpassed support only Microsoft can offer.

Walmart is stupid

[mnmn]

Linux is free.

Re:Walmart is stupid

[coldsleep]

No IT manager wants to take the blame for having a critical server crash.

Especially when the only guy they can reach internally just switched from supporting Windows and the guru is on vacation.

And the data center is operating on generator because a tornado knocked out the power.

You get the drift. Non-free Linux == CYA for managers.

Re:Walmart is stupid

[mrchaotica]

Wal-Mart's IT infrastructure is so huge, though, that it ought to be handling it all in-house anyway. Wal-Mart's logistical prowess (of which the computer network is a large part) comprises the bulk of its competitive advantage, in exactly the same way that Google's computer network is the bulk of its competitive advantage.

Re:Walmart is stupid

[dan828]

You really aren't suggesting that a manager would cover his ass by buying an OS for a critical server at Walmart, are you?

Re:Walmart is stupid

[coldsleep]

Sure, they should be handling it in-house, and they probably are. The article is kind of unclear on whether or not this is a standard support contract or if they're outsourcing it to MS and Novell.

However, I read this:
"That's our direction. That's where we're going, but if we hit a roadblock and we can't go forward, it's up to Microsoft and Novell to figure out what to do about it," she said.

as Wal-Mart buying a standard support contract from MS, and not as outsourcing.

Re:Walmart is stupid

[FrankNputer]

And the data center is operating on generator because a tornado knocked out the power.

Right...because Windows runs much better on generator power than that free stuff...

Re:Walmart is stupid

[coldsleep]

Not sure what you mean.

I'm saying that every IT manager I've ever worked for (at a competing very large retailer) wanted to be able to cover his ass by having someone else to point to when his support staff didn't know the answer to a question.

Manager: "Why isn't this working?"

IT guy: "I'm not certain, it might be something to do with the low-level disk reservations or maybe it's something to do with the virtualization engine."

Manager: "Get $VENDOR on the phone, and get their support guys looking into it. And if it's their fault, they'll explain how to fix it so this never happens again."

I'm not saying that every IT manager thinks that paying for something makes it foolproof, or that by paying for something, he thinks he'll come out of a problem smelling like roses.

Re:Walmart is stupid

[Zoxed]

> Linux is free.

True, but the article is talking about vouchers for *support* for a particular Linux distro.

P.S. no disrespect intended to the author, but how the hell did the comment get modded to +5 Insightful ?

Sound business decision imo.

[Chaymus]

With Vista being incomplete and a high profile customer Microsoft is better off with this decision. Let's say they don't do it, they lose money. Wal-Mart already uses Linux, smoother transition that is easier to negotiate. MS can "upgrade" the support beyond red-hat ...pauses for laughs... With Vista being THE OS microsoft wants to get everyone on board for I feel they just weren't ready and it was either this or lose the deal to someone else. It's not like they're going to gain a whole lot of support from the informed community, but this does set precedence for international sales on those who don't want Windows and want Linux for government applications. Now you're not voilating policy but paying for something you already have, plus a little garuntee of the moon (ie support + uptime). Everyone would love a Vista deal before it's ready, but MS Corp. isn't as stupid as some of their applications. Flexibility is required to stay on top.

Talk about embrace and extend!

[gillbates]

This takes the cake. Microsoft Linux is next. I predict within 5 years, Vista will become a legacy product, and all new computers will be shipped with Microsoft's Windows API hosted on a Linux kernel.

For those that don't know, Billy G. made his first big sale of DOS to IBM before he even owned it - or so the rumors go. He bought the rights to what would become MS-DOS from a third party, and then sold it to IBM.

And it shouldn't surprise anyone that Microsoft is selling what doesn't belong to them. I wonder how the Windows developers feel. Imagine if your job could be eliminated by Linux. Microsoft doesn't care, they're going to sell whatever makes them money.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense for Microsoft to sell their desktop, rather than the OS:

• Kernel development is an overhead cost - it isn't seen by the users, and it doesn't sell the OS.
• Why bother with HW issues when Linux already does that for you - for free?
• Microsoft has actually been pretty good at making office software - considerably better than OS.
• Linux has the security Microsoft wishes Windows had.
• Linux doesn't have the spyware problem Windows does.

So if Microsoft can hide the complexities of Linux under a familiar interface, they could produce a very compelling product.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

I know you think MS is evil and all, but being evil doesn't erase technical issues. Porting full Vista functionality to Linux would probably take a decade at least and if it worked at all, it would probably be much worse than the real thing.

You buy into the myth that MS isn't capable of writing a an OS as secure and stable as Linux. The truth is they can't write an OS as secure and stable as Linux and still be backward compatible with Windows. Neither can anyone else (not that they want to).

If the day comes when the financial benefits of compatibilty are outweighed by the costs, we'll find out what kind of OS MS is capable of writing when released from the compatiblity chains that currently bind them.

Until then, it will continue to be an Apples to Oranges comparison of OS design skills between MS and Linux.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[Anonymous Coward]

Apple seemed to do it quite well, with an OS that was in some respects worse than windows.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

Do what? Produce a new OS that isn't compatible with old applications? I'm not an Apple user, but don't they have a reputation for not being very concerned with backward compatibility?

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[Mr. Roadkill]

Okay, that's a good prediction, but here's another in support of yours.

In two years, Microsoft will buy CodeWeavers. Each MS application will ship with the then-current version of CrossOver, for Linux and MacOS. Some time after that, Microsoft will do a premium distro that includes five years worth of service packs and CrossOver updates and their own desktop, so there's still scope for MS to do OEM and retail deals and continue to own the OEM space. Those who want to run MS apps under their favourite distro or even a roll-your-own installation can do so with a compatibility layer sanctioned and produced by Microsoft, said layer being paid for by the increased market share Microsoft gain and MS's reduced costs from being able to leverage outside community development. Okay, I kind of gagged on that last bit too, but I can see MS putting effort into fixing various kernel and system software issues and doing performance tweaking so their software works better, and under the GPL they'd need to give that stuff back. Their desktop they could licence commercially, of course, but it'd be in their interests to make sure anything that made their software work better on Linux got distributed as widely as possible. If MS got behind allowing their apps to run on Linux, that could only be a good thing for Linux in general.

So, where's my crack-pipe?

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[oatworm]

Actually, the Apple model would be about right.

"Classic Mode": A Windows sandbox for legacy apps (definitely Win9x apps, probably NT/2000/XP and some Vista).
"Carbon": Apps based on shared Windows/Linux APIs - think Mono & WINE, only with M$ putting some real programming heft into the WINE project. Seeing as Novell is already a big supporter of Mono, this might not be far off. Microsoft would have a heck of a time getting Vista's APIs ported, but they do have the advantage of having all of the source code and insanely deep pockets. It also wouldn't need to support EVERY Vista API - many of them are for backwards compatibility. Just port enough for most important Vista applications (think DirectX 10 and the DRM schemes, for example) to work and whatever calls more obscure APIs can just run in "Classic Mode".
"Cocoa": Apps strictly for Windows X or whatever they call it. This would be the set of APIs and the runtime environment that, in theory, would 'add value' to a Linux-based Windows, so that people don't just take WINE and SuSE and make their own Windows X.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

I think from a customer's point of view, that's not a very attractive approach. Also keep in mind that Microsoft needs a business case to do this. Just because you have "insanely deep pockets" doesn't mean you want to empty them without a good reason.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[bensch128]

I predict within 5 years, Vista will become a legacy product, and all new computers will be shipped with Microsoft's Windows API hosted on a Linux kernel.

I think my head exploded when you said that! Do you realize how completely different the windows and posix APIs are. M$ has developed completely different standards for filetree (C:,D:,E:,... vs mounts into a single file tree), using "\" instead of "/", allowing spaces in names, different threading model, different scheduler model, a very vertical integration of components (vs. linux's relatively broad layering of functionality) and other hopelessness. Add to the fact that M$ would have to pretty much rewrite ALL of their applications to run on a posix platform and I think the likely hood of this happening is ZERO.

However, there are several companies trying to make Linux more user friendly. Just look at Gnome and KDE.

Cheers
Ben

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[arifirefox]

they don't need to turn linux into vista. All they need to do is kill redhat with their own OS. The way to do it is to fork all of linux, x, gnome, etc and call it Microsoft Linux. Unify everything. Of course it would still be gpl. But Microsoft would be the one stop shop for all your enterprise linux needs - they'd be in complete control of the direction and the companies would go for it. Then they'd port closed source apps such as IIS to only work with their version of linux. Maybe their compiler too so that MS Linux would be faster and even MS linux code with gcc wouldn't match it.

Regular linux would still be around but it won't make any money for anyone. if redhat can make money from another OS, well there's no way microsoft will allow that.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

I wasn't aware that Wine could run applications using Vista-specific features. That's fast development!

But seriously, have these emulators really been tested for more than a few well-known apps and does the performance match a native application?

Jeremy White the CEO of Codeweavers (the leading corporate backer of Wine) has stated:
"We're still...the problem is that's really hard to answer, because the honest answer is that Wine is never going to be 100 percent, identical to Windows, you're not going to be able run every single Windows application on Wine, it's never going to happen."

So what I said would be hard to do isn't being done by Wine and isn't even planned to be done in Wine.

If you dropped the religious position and just thought about what it would actually take to fully emulate a complex OS like Windows, you wouldn't be at all surprised that Wine doesn't fully work.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[phantomfive]

Apple has a reputation for not being backwards compatible, but I have no idea why. I have some old games from 1992 that still run on my OSX box. Although they have switched platforms, they use emulators and compatibility layers that have made their systems amazingly backwards compatible.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[zlogic]

The truth is they can't write an OS as secure and stable as Linux and still be backward compatible with Windows. I think that's why they're promoting the whole .NET thing. .NET was designed to be architecture-independent, and yet it was created in the time when nearly every desktop and server was x86-compatible (with the possible exception of Itanium). But .NET, just like Java only needs the VM and not the whole OS. If every application is written in .NET (and I'm seeing more and more .NET apps), making a backwards-compatible OS is as easy as porting the framework.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

"If every application is written in .NET (and I'm seeing more and more .NET apps), making a backwards-compatible OS is as easy as porting the framework."

It would have to be "if every application ever written for Windows was written in .NET" ...

Since that isn't the case, .NET isn't a solution to the backwards-compatible problem.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[Ash-Fox]

On a Macintel? I don't believe you.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[zlogic]

You won't be needing IE 4.0 or Office 97 or Photoshop 3 or CorelDraw 6 in 2016, you'll probably be using the fairly recent .NET (or Java) port. And abandonware as well as old games will probably run on Wine anyway. I'm seeing a lot of apps being ported to .NET, even including drivers and games. And scientific apps like Matlab, Maple were ported to Java recently.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

I don't doubt that a lot of apps are being written for .Net, but backwards-compatibility is all about running apps that other people might think you don't need to run.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[phantomfive]

Read my post again. I didn't say it runs on a macintel. In fact, I said exactly the opposite: the switch to Intel was the first time they broke backwards compatibility, and that was only with mac classic stuff, so anything 6 years old already. Saying apple doesn't care about backwards compatibility is just silly.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[evilviper]

The truth is they can't write an OS as secure and stable as Linux and still be backward compatible with Windows. Neither can anyone else (not that they want to).

That's pure nonsense.

First off, apps like Wine run userland on Linux, meaning they're just as "secure and stable as Linux" while running many legacy Windows apps. And that's without access to the codebase, without significant funding, without significant numbers of developers, etc.

In addition, virtualization makes it trivially easy to have a stable OS underlying an unstable but compatible ABI.

But more importantly than any of that... Even being buggy and unstable, Windows isn't backwards compatible with Windows apps. With every release, a huge number of old Windows apps cease to function. All the system drivers need to be rewritten for each successive version. etc.

Plus, with the switch to 64-bit, that decade of legacy Windows apps goes out the window. They could make the 64-bit API/ABI extremely robust, and only allow 32-bit apps to be run in a seperate space, where it would have it's compatibility layer, without polluting the base system.

Not that Microsoft should worry about speed of 32-bit apps. It's so slow to begin with, that people would hardly notice. And with the upgrade from one version to the next, people have come to expect significant slowdown anyhow.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

I would guess that a compatibility layer could theoretically fully simulate Windows, but I think it's going to remain theoretical long after Windows is a distant memory. Certainly Wine isn't an appropriate poster-boy for full compatibility.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[ClosedSource]

Amazing how something so "trivial" that has the potential to tilt the balance from Windows to Linux hasn't been fully implemented already. Perhaps because your assumptions are incorrect.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[evilviper]

First, I was talking about Microsoft doing this, since they have access to the source already. It's much harder for a 3rd party to reverse engineer everything.

And who said it would tilt the balance? Being able to run Windows apps on Linux won't necessarily help Linux at all.

Not to mention the significant expenses involved in development. No problem for Microsoft, but not something Novell is likely to do.

Re:Talk about embrace and extend!

[stinerman]

You bring up an interesting point, but MSFT would have to be sly to get around GPL restrictions on the kernel. For instance, they'd have problems with non-GPL kernel modules unless they moved to the nVidia method of using a GPL'd shim and then running the binary in userspace. This, of course, is a borderline GPL violation in itself.

If you mean that MSFT will just start giving away a Linux distro and then making Office, etc. paid addons, I must strongly disagree. They'd be losing a lot of money on Windows licences. If they want people to pay for it, they'll have to make most of the operating system closed source. They'll have to do something like port the non-kernel portions of Windows to Linux. So we'd end up having GNU/Linux and Windows/Linux.

Later on you equivocate by saying that "Linux doesn't have the spyware problem Windows does.". The kernel has nothing to do with spyware problems, it is rather that Windows runs as root by default. I can guarantee you that if Linux-based systems had any real market share and if we all ran as root, those systems would have the same spyware problems.

Let's Call It...

[ackthpt]

Let's call it Wal-Lix

Re:Let's Call It...

[sheehaje]

I would rather call it Bollocks

Re:Let's Call It...

[just_another_sean]

Yeah, Limart just doesn't roll off the tongue does it?

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[Joebert]

Dude how'd you get in ?!
I dunno, I shit my pants when trying to squeeze out a fart & when I came back this was on the screen !

time to get out

[netsfr]

MS to know how to support Linux for Wal-Mart???

Now I know its time to get out of this industry and do something else...

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[maxwell demon]

I'd totally install "Super Ultra Evil Linux"

I guess that gets abbreviated as "SUE Linux"?

One headline I never expected to see...

[redF1sh]

* Hides behind the word "open" in front of "SuSE". *

Long time coming

[Anonymous Coward]

I used to work for wal-mart 5 years ago when Kevin was the CIO. There are many linux fans at wal-mart but they have been reluctant to start large implementation because of the ongoing IBM vs SCO lawsuit. Walmart didnt want to get involved. And they have never done business with Red Hat. Walmart will not implement a product without support, period. Since they currently have so much leverage with Microsoft as it is, and no leverage with Novell, this pretty much comes at no surprise.

Re:Interesting

[Sillygates]

The new Lindows: SuSE + WGA

Is MS doing to Linux what they did to Netscape?

[icecow]

Is MS doing to Linux what they did to Netscape?

Pulling an Apple

[bazald]

It is almost like putting a shiny interface on FreeBSD. Good thing they would have an excellent example to follow on how to sell a free product hidden behind a proprietary GUI.

MS-Novell I.P. can be difficult for Linux

[viking80]

the big concern here is Microsofts relationship with Novell. Now that MSs strategy to support SCO has failed, MS has set their eyes on Novell. Novell, probably rightly, claim ownership of Unix.

MS might not have a clear plan, but a close ralationship with Novell can be a way to keep close control over Linux as well.

Imagine a patent/copyright/licencing/enforcement mutual agreement. Now MS sits on the right to enforce any Unix IP rights violation that might occur. MS might also have rights to Linux code released by Novell. Noticing that MS has a lot of money and Novell almost nothing, this or more like a merger, may be inevitable.

If not a direct threat to Linux, this may make it more difficult for Linux developers in may ways.

Should Novell donate the Unix I.P. rights to the FSF or the Linux community before it is too late?

Hmmm...Linux at Walmart...

[swalters1]

Okay have to make the joke. Did you hear? Walmart now uses Suse for an OS! It'a saving them tons of money, so you can now get 13 pairs of socks for $9.99 instead of 12! It's an interesting change for Walmart, but not suprising. I bet you'll see more companies change to SuSE that are already *nix based.

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[cyberwiz01]

So what would that make Super Ultra Super Evil Linux?

Don't you remember Microsoft Xeonix?

[mkaylor]

Microsoft has already dabbled in the Linux/Unix world before with Xeonix. Maybe their planning on bringing it back and this is just the stepping stone. (Taking another Toke) HAHAHAHA

Re:Don't you remember Microsoft Xeonix?

[RalphP]

XENIX - not Xeonix. And there's still folks running SCO/Xenix (huh? Who else remembers when SCO was Microsoft's Santa Cruz Operation, writing multi-user OSes for people?) out there. And yes, we're working hard around here to get them onto a recent Linux implementation ... But a XENIX/286 box that's been running for 15 years is ... hard to beat when it keeps on running and running and running and basically makes the Energizer Bunny look like a wimp and a loser.

Re:Don't you remember Microsoft Xeonix?

[multipartmixed]

> Who else remembers when SCO was Microsoft's Santa Cruz Operation,
> writing multi-user OSes for people?

Me! Me!

Of course, I never actually *used* XENIX until .. oh Christ, '92 or so. By then it was running 386s, and had TCP/IP. I remember this clearly, because my first task was to figure out how to upgrade the machine 16MB of RAM. It used 30-pin SIPs; we couldn't find any locally, so I had to solder some pins onto some SIMMs....

Re:This is official...

[Fordiman]

I dunno.

For some reason, I'm seeing Sergeant Debian marching right up to Private Novell, saying "You're no longer fit to wear this Penguin, boy", and angrily ripping the Tux symbols off Novell's epaulets.

Re:Interesting

[PopeRatzo]

I've been to Walmart near my country home in Missouri (we don't let them open stores here in Chicago, thank god). I've seen people buying pickles, underpants, shotguns, fishing line and dog food. Batteries, music CDs, printer paper, toothpaste (but not condoms), napkins (both kinds), and cereal. Glasses (both kinds). Bread. Hunting Knives.

But do people really buy computers from Wal-Mart? I'm trying to think of a place so remote that it has a Wal-Mart but no other place to buy a PC. Shit, Tiger Direct ships to every goddam place.

Why? I'm asking you for god's sake. Maybe if Wal-Mart and MIcrosoft bump heads, it'll create a black hole and the world will end.. I hope they do it before the State of the Union speech tonight. I'm tired. Lord. I'm so tired.

Re:Interesting

[Ratbert42]

It's not just Wal-Mart that's switching from Red Hat to SUSE. IBM switching to SUSE was a big driver in the enterprise market. Three years ago we had a handful of customers playing with Linux, all Red Hat. Today we've got dozens playing with Linux and two or three with firm serious plans to roll it out. Almost every one of them is running SUSE.

There is no Windows, only SUEL?

[Chas]

Excuse me, gotta go wash this burnt-dog-smell off me now.

Re:Interesting

[rapidweather]

I suppose Walmart wants a stable 100% OS to run their system on, and Microsoft wants Walmart to only stock Windows boxes in the retail stores. They have some linux boxes on their website for sale, but probably don't want to try and sell those in a store. Somebody is likely to pick one up, buy it, then bring it back with a lot of questions before Walmart has to give them a refund. That says something about the customers, and linux also. So called Linux boxes as they exist today don't belong in a retail environment where buyers looking for a "computer" are going to put them in the shopping basket and head to checkout.
No secret that Microsoft knows that, and has to "dumb down" their operating system by keeping it "closed source" in order to successfully sell it to every Tom, Dick and Harry. It's dumb, in that getting "X" to run is no problem.
Imagine a help desk at Walmart "XF86Config Help, 10AM to 2PM". or "Sound Help, 4PM to 10PM"
Without Windows, that's what Walmart would face.

(The above discussion has totally ignored the Viruses and Trojans that beset Windows, but hey, Walmart ignores them too!)

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[plopez]

to pile on with cyberwiz01:

"Super Ultra Supreme Evil"
"Super Ultra Sinister Evil"

Re:Interesting

[DMadCat]

Or perhaps this is Microsoft's way of getting their hands on a fairly mature, well-known, linux distribution. MS is not known for what they invent, they're known for what they usurp and rebrand.

What better way to defeat the competition than to (legally) steal their product (support) right out from under them?

If they can't stop linux from spreading they may as well get their hands on a distro, offer it as a supported option, and offer deals if companies agree to purchase windows solutions as well. Make linux work and work well, make their version more interoperable with their windows platforms, and advertise advertise advertise until to Joe Public, Linux = Microsoft.

IT Directors, managers, and VPs like recognizable brand names and support contracts that allow them to shift blame when servers blow up.

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[Foofoobar]

LOL. Mod parent the hell up! Yeah!!!

Re:Interesting

[Anonymous Coward]

we don't let them open stores here in Chicago, thank god

Wal-Mart
5401 W 65th St
Chicago, IL 60638
(708) 924-1590

But do people really buy computers from Wal-Mart?

A) Yes.
B) This has nothing to do with the products sold in the store.

Re:Interesting

[smithbp]

Do a quick search for machines under $500 at Walmart.com. Surprisingly, there are systems that are offered with different linux installations such as LinSpire and Xandros. After looking at this yesterday, I was a bit surprised, as most people to whom the machines are to be sold would have no idea what linux was, being as they don't sell "linux applications" at WalMart.

Re:Interesting

[Miseph]

Okay, seriously mods, the first comment posted cannot, by definition, be "redundant".

I realize that the parent may not have been the most insightful post, but don't be stupid.

Re:Interesting

[CaptainTux]

I expect that to change soon. I read this story earlier today about how LinSpire is making the CNR software and warehouse available to other distros. Finally, Linux might have an easy to understand, easy to use software installer/uninstaller. This is going to go a long way to ease peoples fears about buying a Linux PC and might just help jumpstart the consumer market towards the OS. If that happens, and if more software makers distribute their software via CNR, you might just start to see Walmart sell Linux software.

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[ozone_sniffer]

I'd rather install pr0n Linux: #> pr0n-get install '*sylvia-saint*'

Wal-Mart has used UNIX since 1991

[AHumbleOpinion]

I suppose Walmart wants a stable 100% OS to run their system on ...

Wal-Mart installed UNIX-based systems in their stores in 1991. They use common systems and platforms in all their stores world wide. From an IT perspective Wal-Mart has been a pioneering and aggressive user of technology since 1969.

Re:Wal-Mart has used UNIX since 1991

[beckerist]

[joke]
ermmm, except that in 1968 Wal-Mart was a 2 year old company that existed only in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Any store that sold a 12 button calculator, working time piece and accepted "metaly money" was a technological giant. :-)
[/joke]

Re:Wal-Mart has used UNIX since 1991

[AHumbleOpinion]

[joke]
ermmm, except that in 1968 Wal-Mart was a 2 year old company that existed only in Arkansas, Missouri and Oklahoma. Any store that sold a 12 button calculator, working time piece and accepted "metaly money" was a technological giant. :-)
[/joke]

Yeah, I had to re-read the text when I ran across this:

"In 1969, Wal-Mart installed a computer to keep track of inventory in its Bentonville, Arkansas, distributon facility. This initial system evolved into a perpetual inventory-control system, and by the end of the 1970s, Wal-Mart had installed a computer terminal network throughout the United States to link its headquarters, stores, and distribution centers."
"Value Disciplines: 3 Case Examples", Haim Mendelson, Stanford, Graduate School or Business, June 2003, pp 1-30.

Re:Interesting

[MrDoh1]

"But do people really buy computers from Wal-Mart?"

I have... about a year ago. I needed a PC, any PC, at about 3am. (As much as I dislike Wal-Mart for a lot of things, 24hr a day is nice.) I walked in and picked up a cheap eMachine w/o monitor (I did say any PC... heh) and it's been running ever since. Heck, even if it had been during normal business hours, my only other choices in town would have been Office Depot or the local computer shop. I could not have found a better deal without waiting and having parts shipped or driving 30+ miles.
And believe it or not, the eMachine is actually a decent little (AMD Sempron 3400+(64bit), 512mb RAM, nVidia 6100, 160gb HDD) PC. Haven't had a moments trouble with it.


And just so I don't lose any cred, even if in my own mind, it's the only name brand PC here. Everything else was built, including the SuperMicro 1u server.

No Linux distro is well known among the public

[AHumbleOpinion]

Or perhaps this is Microsoft's way of getting their hands on a fairly mature, well-known, linux distribution. MS is not known for what they invent, they're known for what they usurp and rebrand.

No Linux distribution is well known among the public. You are lucky if you can find someone who has heard of Linux in general.

If Microsoft wanted a *NIX they could do the same thing that Sun, SGI, and more recently Apple had done. Just use BSD. Very few users will care if the underpinnings of a *NIX based OS is Linux or BSD. The user will care about the apps, and possibly compatibility with legacy apps. Now Microsoft has some inherent advantages in that regard, far outweighing anything Linux/BSD related, something that could possibly make them a dominant *NIX vendor.

Don't add, MULTIPLY!

[The Monster]

Wal-mart + Microsoft = Linux

Wrong operator. Instead of adding, you multiply. Since the prevailing opinion 'round here is that Wal-Mart and Microsoft are negatives, and the product of a negative is positive, the equation makes perfect sense.

the evolution of corepirate nazi FUDgePacking

[Anonymous Coward]

it's not a pretty sight.

1997: It's not a threat

When I was writing a feature about GNU/Linux for Wired magazine, I contacted Microsoft to find out their views on this new rival. At that time, they were so laid back about it, they were nearly falling over. In fact, GNU/Linux was such a negligible threat, they couldn't be bothered coming up with even a mild bit of FUD for me. They just said: "We have a very talented team of developers making sure NT is the most powerful, flexible, and easy-to-use operating system."

1999: It's not very powerful

By 1999, Microsoft's position that GNU/Linux wasn't a threat was no longer tenable. Articles started appearing in the technical press that not only dared to compare GNU/Linux with Microsoft's flagship Windows NT, but actually found it better. One, in a Ziff-Davis title called Sm@rt Reseller, for example, stated: "According the ZDLabs' results, each of the commercial Linux releases ate NT's lunch".

But help was at hand. In April 1999, a performance testing company called Mindcraft issued a press release headed "Mindcraft study shows Windows NT server outperforms Linux". It then emerged that Mindcraft had been commissioned by Microsoft to carry out the study - the first, but not the last time it would adopt this tactic. A fierce argument between Mindcraft and the open source community ensued about whether the tests had been fair, and how to make them fairer.

In fact, the end results of the re-run was not completely favorable to GNU/Linux, but something rather interesting happened. The open source community took the failures and used them to improve GNU/Linux to the point where it was indeed more powerful than Windows. By finding and drawing attention to free software's weak spots, Microsoft actually made it stronger.

2001: It's not very nice

In the face of the Mindcraft fiasco, and the growing strength of GNU/Linux, Microsoft changed tack. Steve Ballmer was wheeled out to bad-mouth the opposition, as only he can. In 2000, he said: "Linux sort of springs organically from the earth. And it had, you know, the characteristics of communism that people love so very, very much about it." In 2001, talking to the Chicago Sun-Times, he expressed himself even more forcefully: "Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches."

Powerful stuff. Unfortunately for the FUDmeisters at Microsoft, this kind of name-calling didn't go down too well with its intended audience. Even Microsoft's own research showed this, as revealed in one of the entertaining Halloween memos leaked to Eric Raymond.

2002: It's not very cheap

Once again, a massive change of tactics was required. Having failed to convince people that free software was either broken or bad, Microsoft decided to "prove" that it actually cost more to use than Windows - the famous TCO, or Total Cost of Ownership, studies. To achieve this, it drew on the "facts" to be found in a number of white papers from various analysts, all of which, by an amazing coincidence, came up with the result that running GNU/Linux was indeed more expensive than using Windows.

But it didn't take long for this story to unravel like all the others. First, it was not always clear whether Microsoft had commissioned the white papers that it liked to cite, or whether they were truly independent. This naturally tended to cast doubts on even those that were produced without Microsoft's input. Just as seriously, the TCO methodologies were often completely valueless, involving estimates of costs several years into the future, or the results were presented in a skewed fashion. When this became clear, people felt that they were being duped by Microsoft, and tended to discount the whole exercise.

The final nail in the coffin of this ironically-named "Get The Facts" campaign from Microsoft is the recent appearance of yet another white paper, which provided cast-iron evidence that GNU/Linux's TCO was actually better than that of Windows (well, as c

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[phulegart]

Super Ultra SEXY Evil Linux.

It would have to be attractive on all fronts.

Re:Evil Empire + Evil empire = Super Ultra Evil Li

[Viceroy Potatohead]

Shouldn't that equation be:
Evil Empire + Evil Empire = Suse's Ultra Sinister Edition ???

Re:Interesting

[cmacb]

Within a 25 mile radius of me (half of which is the Atlantic Ocean) there are only two stores that carry computers. One is a Walmart that on any given day has maybe one, or at most two models to choose from. The other is a Staples which seems to have several laptops on display at any given time, but usually most of them are flagged "out of stock". I don't remember ever seeing a desktop PC at the Staples at all, but maybe they are just well hidden. Now there *is* a small computer shop walking distance from here that sells some sort of generic PC for about twice what it is worth, but I'd never consider buying one. I'd have no problems buying the Walmart model of the day if I was in a pinch. The price for whatever they have is always quite low and they are mostly HPs I think, although I might have seen an e-machine in there too. They are always just basic machines, not for gaming or fancy graphics. If I had to have more I'd order by mail or go to "the big city". On the other hand, since I've switched to Linux the older machines seem to be hanging in there a lot longer, so I may actually have more machines in use than Walmart has in stock. If one was to die, I'd hardly miss it.

Re:Interesting

[Technician]

I'm sure Microsoft execs were able to get Wal-Mart to use Suse by continuing to offer them great Windows discounts. This way they aren't really compromising the integrity (sic) of their volume licensing.

The title is misleading. Walmart is not buying Suse Support.. It's a package deal. They are packaging it together with MS server.

From the article..

"Microsoft offers coupons for Suse Enterprise Linux support services as well as legal indemnification for customers who use both Microsoft and Novell's Linux, which is open-source. "

This is a package deal. With MS server running, you can also run Suse Server.

There is nothing in the article about anything desktop. This is a back office deal only.

Legal indemnification is limited to those running both server softaware packages. This not Microsoft selling Suse support. It is about selling MS Windows Server with Suse Enterprise Server.

Re:Interesting

[tepples]

Okay, seriously mods, the first comment posted cannot, by definition, be "redundant".

I disagree. If an article covers a subject previously covered by the other article, such as a dupe or update story, and the first comment is a cut-and-paste from a comment in the previous article, then how is it not redundant? And what about comments that are just some variation on "First Pizzost!!!!11"?

Porn?

[caol.kailash]

So, does this mean we'll be able to get linux with gay porn pre-installed?

Re:Interesting

[greenjello4]

As a former and current Wal-Mart "Associate" I can say that they use HP-Unix to run the system that keeps track of all of the sales figures and inventory (read most important stuff). They also use Windows Server 2003 for Intranet based things and to connect thin clients to terminal servers as well as Web Outlook for email (read stuff that could go down for a couple hours and not be missed). They are slowly moving more and more data entry to web interfaces as it can be easier for home office to obtain and update that data. I wouldn't be surprised if they have moved everything to web stuff in the next ten years.

It's simply MSFT getting back at NOVELL

[Agram]

So, MSFT got caught doing something bad with Novell's IP and ended up being stuck with bunch of Linux licenses to sell. And after a couple legitimate high-profile license purchases they finally found a loophole in the contract. So now, instead of making lucrative sales on behalf of Novell to the high tech corporate businesses they opted for the most common denominator consumer market which by and large is the smallest piece of pie when it comes to computer/OS deployment. More so, this is the area most resistant to Linux adoption (think for how long were Linspire and Mandriva available on Walmart shelves and how much of a difference that made), and as such Microsoft's safest bet for preserving market dominance.

I suspect there will be some layoffs in the Novell legal department over this one...

error

[kbox]

"Your instalation of Linux is not genuine.. Pay Microsoft now!"

Re:This is official...

[Anne Thwacks]

... Hell has frozen over.

So has London.

Oh, Wait ...

Time to stop shopping at Wal-Mart!

[FractalZone]

Given the security-lax, bug-ridden nature of nearly all major Microsoft software products, it would be wise to avoid shopping at Wally-World if you want to avoid having your credit card triple or quadruple billed, don't want MS phoning home with your bank account information snagged from your PC, and do want to enjoy your privacy.

When Wal-Mart and Microsoft gang up on the consumer, one should be VERY AFRAID!

SPAM !

[DrYak]

Windows Compute Cluster Server 2003.

Oh... So, THAT's the infected/trojaned windows massive distributed botnets that are supposed to be behind the recent increase of SPAM !

Re:SPAM !

[naoursla]

Ugh... I've never even considered that... An entire server farm turned zombie...

Re:Ha Ha

[PopeRatzo]

The Wal-Mart on North and Cicero isn't what most people think of when you say "WalMart". It's a little bitty thing, about the size of a small grocery store. There's a big permanent flea market down the street from it and the Wal-Mart is just to give folks a place to boost stuff to be sold at the open-air market. The Wal-Mart has been there for years, but only so the company can say they have a place in Chicago.

I think the store on 65th is planned and not built yet, but I live on the near West. I don't make it down to 65th street all that often, since the cops closed the dope-spot there (in order to put up the Wal-Mart, probably).

So far, my paisans on the Chicago city council have successfully kept out those bastards. They're dying to build a superstore near the old railyard off Roosevelt between Clark and Clinton. I hate those fucks. I bought a pair of jeans once at the Super Huge Wal-Mart in Missouri and they lasted about 2 weeks. After that, I decided I wouldn't shop there for political reasons. I just cut out the middle man and send a twenty every so often directly to the child laborers in the third world. I'm looking into adopting a few like Brad and Angelina and letting them make my sneakers for me, but I'm not sure if my neighbors would go for that.

I bought a Walmart Linux PC...

[JetScootr]

A coupla years ago. The Linux distro on it was trashed - it had a Winmodem, no driver binary. There were Windows drivers sources on the CD, but uh..this is Linux, not Windows. Have no idea if the drivers matched the modem or not, or if they were complete. GCC was missing - no compiler at all on the CD. Also, the NIC card had no driver at all, even in source.
I called tech support 2 or 3 times. Always got the same guy in India or Pakistan. He spent 30 miuntes or so trying to explain to me how to use Windows Explorer to look at network properties before I could get thru to him that the PC wasn't Windows. He said he'd have to talk to his supervisor and would call back. He did, after a few hours, and tried to explain how to download the drivers from the internet - the windows drivers, again using IE. ...it went on for a few more calls, finally he said he'd found some rpm's for me. He emailed them, the files were broken when they arrived. After that, he didn't answer calls.
There is no way that PC configuration was tested before shipping. If WalMart is now partnering with MS (already a Linux enemy) to ship Linux, I'd be surprised if the box arrives with an actual computer inside.

things

[tirrarien]

There are two things how I think, The first, Microsoft wants to take whole market and kill *nixes on it. In example, customers will take a SuSe Linux instead of other solutions and when the time is coming - micro$oft will bought a Novell and closing the projects. And ... yep, all is ready. The second, Microsoft wants to port and get working their products on the linuxes, and for one or two years we will be looking for the microsoft products running on the linux boxes ones. Or .... it's just a stupid step for killing yet another commerical linux vendor. PS Sorry for my terrible english.

Re:MOD GP DOWN Re:Interesting

[Benaiah]

i think that the first post had a point. The point any 4yo would draw... But i thought that by stating the obvious he would promote a reasonable discussion about the direction of Linux now that Novell is M$'s bitch. Even if Suse was poop on a stick the fact that its in Walmart makes it easier to get for the masses who don't want to waste 5Gb++ of their monthly quota on downloading the OS.

Linux Genuine Advantage

[Spleen]

All Linux PC's sold at walmart need a sticker saying "Linux Genuine Advantage" much like the Intel Inside stickers that used to be required by intel.

Re:Interesting

[nascarguy27]

Off-topic, I know. My sister bought her computer from Wal-Mart. I'm sure my parents would as well. Maybe the /. crowd wouldn't buy computers from Wal-Mart, but the people who don't know computers definitely would.

The numbers game may suggest you're right

[john-da-luthrun]

Microsoft Linux is next. I predict within 5 years, Vista will become a legacy product, and all new computers will be shipped with Microsoft's Windows API hosted on a Linux kernel.

It may be relevant to note that a recent EU report estimated that the total value of the free/open-source software collected together in Debian is around EUR 12 bn ($15.5 bn), based on the cost of a proprietary software company recreating the free software codebase. Contrast this with the estimated development costs of Vista of $6 bn - taking into account that this is for a smaller set of components, it is still of the same order of magnitude.

However, the same report suggested that a conservative estimate of the value of the free software codebase by 2010 would be around EUR 100 bn ($130 bn). If that prediction proves correct, it is difficult to see how proprietary software companies can possibly keep pace with that level of development. "Microsoft Linux" would then seem to be a real possibility - something that looks like Windows from the POV of a user - a major advantage, whatever some of us may think of "the Windows experience" - but is built on a free software base.

Nothing

[Impy the Impiuos Imp]

The Borg queen is mating with the moties. Nothing to see here. Move along, move along...

MSFT sold UNIX in the past

[peter303]

MSFT used to sell the Xenix version of UNIX in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It performed poorly because UNIX was too bulky for x86 CPUs of that era. At that time MSFT was mainly a languages company and toying around with the OS biz. We all know where that went. They transferred PC-UNIX rights to SCO around 1983.

MS and Novell to figure it out

[mgiuca]

"That's our direction. That's where we're going, but if we hit a roadblock and we can't go forward, it's up to Microsoft and Novell to figure out what to do about it," she said.

Er... that sounds responsible. MS and Novell can't even agree on whether they think Linux infringes on MS patents.

So, it looks like Wal-Mart bought the MS "undisclosed balance liability" FUD, as they give their reasons for this move as, they were scared to expand Linux for fear of getting patent-sued by MS.

It really is sad that companies feel they have to buy another company's product or they'll sue them.

"Fear is the path to the dark side..."

Therefore....

[StressGuy]

WRONG + WRONG != RIGHT

but...

WRONG^2 = RIGHT

hmmmmmm

Look at it this way

[ClosedSource]

If you took all the amateur musicians, artists, actors etc in the world and assumed that they were all being paid for their work, surely the amount would greatly exceed the value of the world's professionals, but I don't think successful professionals have much to worry about.

Re:Look at it this way

[john-da-luthrun]

But how much of the development of free software can be described as "amateur"? The report in question states that around 50-60% of free software has been developed by individuals, the rest by a mix of academic institutions, businesses etc. So that's 40-50% that's not "amateur" to start with.

As for the 50-60% arising from individual effort, I'd imagine that the majority has been developed by people who earn their living through IT, even if not all of them get paid for their development of free software. As opposed to the "teenager in his mother's basement" stereotype.

This is even assuming you can - with a straight face - describe software such as Linux (i.e. the kernel), the various GNU programs, Firefox, Apache, OpenOffice.org, the leading GNU/Linux distros (Ubuntu, OpenSUSE, Red Hat, Debian etc) as nothing more than the software equivalent of amateur dramatics.

Re:Look at it this way

[ClosedSource]

I was talking about amateur in the sense of being unpaid, not in the sense of unskilled. The point is that the existance of value doesn't directly translate into a market share. I think the report's valuations illustrate that fact.

Re:MOD GP DOWN Re:Interesting

[yada21]

Because all the people with low ones get modded up automatically?

My head is spinning

[ClosedSource]

"I bet it could be made a million times more stable, secure, and compatible than any Windows products."

So an emulator for an OS can be a million times more compatible with the OS than the OS it emulates is with itself?

Zombies.

[DrYak]

An entire server farm turned zombie...

Yes, maybe those armies of zombies are the alleged "immortal computing" that Microsoft plans to create...
BBBRRrrrrraaaaaiiiinnnnnsssss......

Re:MS-Novell I.P. can be difficult for Linux

[petrus4]

Should Novell donate the Unix I.P. rights to the FSF or the Linux community before it is too late?

Microsoft can have whatever UNIX IP they want; source of old systems, even the trademark itself if they want to put up the money for it. It won't do them any good.

For starters, the UNIX trademark is owned by the Open Group, and they only allow anyone to use it after the system which is trying to claim the right to use it has passed POSIX/Single UNIX Specification standards tests. Linus might well have read those standards and tried to make the kernel conformant with them, but as anyone remotely familiar with POSIX likely knows, that standard anyway wasn't referring to purely the kernel...it specifies which userland apps (grep and so forth) need to be present for a system to call itself a UNIX as well.

For another thing, AFAIK nobody associated with Linux has tried to pass the tests, or even take them...the reason being is because either way they're more trouble than they're worth. Passing them would be an extremely arduous process for one thing, and for another, the only likely reward would be to give Microsoft a superficially legally sound excuse for persuing a lawsuit if they acquired the old sources from Novell.

Given that Linux is not certified POSIX or Single UNIX Specification compliant in a formal sense, there is currently no way that Microsoft can honestly legally claim that Linux is a direct descendant of the UNIX operating system, and no distribution should want to become formally POSIX compliant, because if they do, that will change. This is also why, even if the Open Group were willing to sell the UNIX trademark to Microsoft, (which is highly doubtful) Microsoft acquiring it and trying to sue anyone associated with Linux for anything even remotely related to the UNIX trademark wouldn't work, because they're entirely seperate trademarks that have nothing to do with each other. They can argue about assumptions of what Linus' informal *intent* was for as long as they want; that still won't prove anything, and it certainly doesn't mean that ANY original UNIX code is present within contemporary Linux. If they then want to talk about refactoring, that's fine...but that then becomes a patent issue, and Microsoft don't own all of the patents covering technology Linux uses, even if they own some.

Re:Interesting

[Miseph]

Cut-n-paste is lame, but if it's the first time for the particular story, it's still not redundant; perhaps someone who doesn't read every single comment in every single story hasn't seen it before, and it may be a good post aside from having been ripped off. Go AC and reply that it's a cut-n-paste, or mod as "overrated" (Yeah, I think this might be the only valid use for it...).

"First Post" is off topic, not redundant. It should be modded appropriately.

Wal-Mart, Microsoft, Novell Continued

[AlexGr]

There's another good article on this story on Linux Insider: http://www.linuxinsider.com/story/LRYJCeEv9bWdeY/I s-Wal-Marts-Support-for-Suse-Linux-a-Tipping-Point .xhtml. It could be that the customer is driving this.