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Microsoft Axes 'Get The Facts'
tom66 writes "Seems like a long time coming, as Microsoft today has axed it's Anti-Linux campaign 'Get the Facts', and Microsoft has replaced it with a new campaign, called 'compare'. This article touches up on why they may have done it, and the criticism surrounding Get the Facts."
hey now, every piece of software that they want to be able to interact with their software gets the full specs on how to do it. which is to say they have access to their own standards, and fuck everybody else.
thats right, I rarely use capitals. deal with it. but don't mistake my laziness for stupidity
I guess too many people actually were getting the facts, and the upshot has been erosion of MS's server market share.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Its nice to see some competition, that raises the level of the product
The guy at the Ford dealership told me that Fords are more reliable, safe, and powerful than Chevys. He showed me a bunch of charts he made, and that made me feel better. He also had a nice suit and really nice white teeth, and smiled alot. Nice guy. What reason did I have to check out the Chevy dealership?
Just disrupt the deflector shield with a tachyon burst.
I'm very glad Red Hat is standing up to Microsoft and their shit. I hope people can see through this campaign the same as they did with Get The Facts.
If you mod this up, your slashdot background will turn into a beautiful sunset!
Without having pored over every detail, it seems pretty reasonable to me. I'm not surprised their comparison was limited primarily to Red Hat. It doesn't make sense to compare Windows to "linux", which is essentially the kernel. One has to compare it to one or more distributions. Red Hat is probably their biggest competition in the corporate space. It and SuSE.
From a technology standpoint, the /compare site isn't that bad. It's clearly not intended for technical people, but for business executives. It tries to put Windows in the best possible light while scaring the beeswax out of you for even thinking of trying Red Hat. The usual Marketing stuff.
The section on interoperability is somewhat humorous, in a dark sort of way, given Microsoft's reputation as the baddest of the bad when it comes to following anyone's standards but their own.
"We receive as friendly that which agrees with, we resist with dislike that which opposes us" - Faraday
it actually makes sense - SuSE and others are already occupied territory. So why bother emphasizing an attack on them? RedHat said they will not partner with M$, so of course the attack is focused on them...
As for them using SuSE switchers as example - the selection of examples is pretty limited. They had to take whatever they could get.
Peter.
The nicest Loonix way:
ctrl-alt-esc, click
I really like that skull and cross-bones icon.
Excuse me, but please get off my Pennisetum Clandestinum, eh!
But I guess that's the problem... techies know the truth, but they have to battle against the ignorant manager who believes the shit MS writes.
Meh.
-1 Flamebait but seriously: the whole webpage is one big advertisement. Microsoft isn't even trying to hide it.
If you go into something like that, Microsoft or no Microsoft, expecting a fair comparison, you don't live on the planet Earth.
Windows: Pain in the ass activation system
Linux: Not
Windows: Media Player monitors what you are watching/listening to and logs it with Microsoft.
Linux: None
Windows: Intrusive DRM, Scarce Driver Support, Many incompatabilities, Huge Security Holes
Linux: None
Windows: Parent company breaks anti-trust laws, slap on wrist by Justice Department, continues to flaunt law without penalty
Linux: None
Windows: Threatens small competitors with a flood of patent lawsuits
Linux: None
Windows: Includes code to spy on China
Linux: None
Hey, Microsoft is right! Linux can't do anything!
Yeah...
*cough* OOXML,MS OFFICE,VISTA,NETWORKING,THERESTOFTHEIRPRODUCTS *cough*
You are partly right. Linux is free. Support is not. Now if you read it again like this:
Red Hat's business is based on annual subscriptions for OS support--you pay a subscription for every server, every year. And, if you want 24/7 support, you'll pay more.
You don't know what you don't know.
And now we have the truth. Any half decent pr0n filtering system will drop this discussion like a rock for having this comment in it. Think of it as a clever trick by M$ or backers to censor unfavorable discussion on the web about their products.
Or maybe this AC is just a tool.
A sig is placed here
To display how futile
English Haiku is
Why would anyone go to Microsoft for opinions on things like Windows Server 2003? Why? They can't possibly list any scenario with major disadvantages, because they sell the OS. Sure, it's not easy to find decent third party sources (you can obviously not ask on Linux-oriented sites either), but I'm pretty sure that the effort would be worth it.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
No offense, but that's bullshit. "it" is not a noun, therefore the quoted use of the apostrophe is not valid. "it's" is short for "it is", "its" is the correct possessive form.
http://www.cgl.uwaterloo.ca/~csk/its.html
"I love my job, but I hate talking to people like you" (Freddie Mercury)
Because, of course, a comparison between Windows and Linux written by you would be entirely unbiased and would take in the merits and demerits of each equally.
Company says things about competitor to sell product; news at 11.
By summer it was all gone...now shesmovedon. --
The State of Illinois case study is bullshit. I worked as a contractor for the Department of Human Services in Springfield for a year just a few years back. My wife's stepdad worked for Department of Public Aid as a contractor for years. He's now DPA staff because the AFSCME union strongarmed the state into getting rid of knowledgeable contractors and giving the work to state employees. They couldn't do it with state employees, so he became one to continue doing his old job for additional pay plus benefits. There's a budget solution for you...
The company I worked for also had contracts with Corrections, Courts, State Police, Public Aid, and some other state agencies, so I sometimes went to locations for those as well.
Anyway, Novell wasn't the source of the "desktop productivity solution" when I did desktop support for them. They ran Groupwise (which does email and calendars) at DHS. They also ran Office and in some cases also WordPerfect Suite. They ran Crystal Reports when needed. There is, or was anyway, an entire subdepartment of DHS that handles creating, modifying, warehousing, and distributing paper forms. Those people had additional software for that. There were mainframes in the Harris building (the main DHS office center on South Main St. East) and many users had terminal emulation packages to access that. In no way did they switch everything from Novell to Microsoft on the desktop.
The servers were NT 4, Novell 4 and 5, some NT 3.5, some commercial Unix on Alpha (although that was mostly being replaced with Win2k), and the IBM mainframe stuff. There were contractors running the actual servers in every case. Most of them worked for the same company I did.
CMS is an agency that's supposed to consolidate resources across the state for the other agencies to improve security, decrease waste, and "improve" accountability (although that has never seemed an appropriate goal for the convicted Republican George Ryan nor the current governor Democrat Rod Blagojevich either one). We had to have our badges for DHS buildings issued through CMS, for example. When there was a network outage, DHS had to bother CMS to bother the phone companies. Real efficient and cost effective, that.
The State Police had Avid equipment and such for reconstructing accidents. I'm sure Microsoft Windows Movie Maker hasn't entirely displaced that. They might have replaced some of the serial dumb terminals in the maximum security prisons with Windows PCs, but I'm not sure you'd want something with lots of little voids and such in with the inmates. The schools for the visually impaired and for the deaf already ran Windows PCs for students and teachers, as did the developmental and mental health centers (all part of DHS). The department of the courts had Windows PCs. The local Office of Rehabilitative Services (part of DHS) offices had Windows and OS/2 PCs, and sometimes were not even on the statewide Novell networks for DHS. DCFS (part of DHS) had Windows PCs.
Other than replacing Groupwise server and client with Exchange and Outlook and upgrading the desktops to newer versions of Windows (which was always being done anyway, as any PC more than 3 or 4 years old goes to CMS auction to the public), I'm not sure what they've really done for DHS. They've traded Novell's superior print server, client management (ZenWorks/snapshots anyone?), firewall (Bordermanager worked well), years of employee training, and working with certified consultants familiar with the old network all for Windows printer sharing, Windows remote client management (if they're doing that at all), probably going to Cisco's firewall solutions as Microsoft's suck, having to retrain their workforce, and having to find new contractors (or hire more unionized employees away from consulting companies).
All this is from a state that can't pay Medicaid on time and has run pharmacies out of business. It's a state that uses taxpayer money to pay government employees to campaign for their elected bosses. The federal government is very concer
> ...sometimes the guys working on Office don't even have all the information
> on the secret APIs the OS folks come up with.
Having spent a little time (very little, fortunately) doing Windows app coding, I'd be incredibly surprised if they had all the information on the public APIs. Or the time to find anything.
I think much of the bloat in Office is because it's faster for the Office developers to re-invent the wheel than to search the Windows API's for things to reuse.
c.
Log in or piss off.
Red Hat Enterprise Linux (the product) is free. That is why CentOS exists. The only cost to using CentOS is having employees who can set it up and keep it running.
but afaict redhat tries to hide the fact this option exists. Afaict they make the projects rebuild from source and strip out all the identity of the OS. They also make them replace the update mechanism but that is a fairly minor point.
RedHat(TM) is a trademarked name. That is the reason that the CentOS folks must remove the RedHat trademark from the SRPMS before redistributing them. Everything that RedHat has released is GPL or LGPL-licensed - if they were concerned about hiding the source code, that would be a particularly bizarre choice! RedHat can not continue to use the RedHat trademark if they do not protect its use, such being the requirements of trademark law.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.