Steve Ballmer on MS Server, Linux, Yahoo & More

yorugua writes "Furniture trembled as Steve Ballmer was to be interviewed by InformationWeek. He then went on to talk about Linux: 'How does Microsoft beat Linux? The same way "you beat any other competitor: You offer good value, which in this case means good total cost of ownership," Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer says.', Embrace-Extend-Extinguish: 'We say when we embrace standards, we'll be transparent about how we're embracing standards. [...] If we have deviations, we'll be transparent about the deviations.'"

Comments

One page text only

[akuykenda]

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=206900810/

This way you don't have to see his ugly mug.

Re:One page text only

[Software]

Single page link without the trailing slash, so that it actually works.

1-page, no ads version

[renrutal]

The one page, no ads version:

http://www.informationweek.com/shared/printableArticle.jhtml?articleID=206900810

Re:How does microsoft beat linux?

[thewils]

And the FUD, don't forget the FUD.

TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista

[exabrial]

Aparently his version of TCO doesn't include buying completely new machines in order to run Vista. After all, Vista is only 1/2 as slow on the same hardware... I remember the day when your programs took more resources than the operating systems... those were the days.

Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista

[number6x]

You are absolutely correct.

I worked on the project to train employees to go from Windows 95 to Windows NT 4.0.

Then I managed a team that trained employees to go from Windows NT 4.0 to Windows XP.

Now we are budgeting the employee re-training program for the eventual move from Windows XP to Vista.

Each move has been much bigger and more costly.

If you choose to deploy Windows as a desktop OS you guarantee a high cost of re-training employees 2 to 3 times a decade. The argument that a switch to Linux would cost too much because you would have to re-train employees with the switch is a joke. With Windows you also incur the cost of re-training.

However the three top Linux GUIs (KDE, Gnome, and XFCE) are all highly customizable. Although they are upgraded and updated regularly it is easy for an IT department to deploy the upgraded interface in a way that minimizes the UI changes to staff.

One switch to Linux could probably pay for itself by avoiding the high cost incurred by choosing Windows and the forced upgrade/re-training cycle Microsoft imposes on its customers.

Re:TCO: Doesn't include the hardware to run Vista

[rtb61]

You now how really really stupid that is. You see in every business I have ever been involved in, the only thing that counts is applications. The OS shoudl be invisible and have absolutely no impact upon productivity at all. Open applications and copy files, that is it.

Now unreliability and instability cause far more problems for everybody, becuase if your cant retrain a staff member or lack the competence to adjust the desktop layout and file structure to match what they are used to, well than you are either lying or incompetent.

This is just typical of the continuation of M$=B$ marketing, whilst I can accept it in applications, in the OS, it is just a lie. The majority of staff, do not configure the system, do not update the system, do not update drivers, do not adjust network configurations and do not install and configure applications.

The cost of using any OS has been and always will be down to reliability, stability and security. How much work is lost when the system crashes, how much productive time is lost will the system is rebuilt, and how much productivity is lost due to stuff frustration as a result of system bugs,and of course how long does it take to patch the system and the cost of failed patches. Security of course is another big issue and by far the most important one.

I could just imagine your office, two identically coloured desktops, and two indentical icons located in exactly the same spot for the same application and you have spend thousands retraining your idiot staff because they get confused by the different boot screens.

"Embrace-Extend-Extinguish"

[VoxMagis]

Maybe I'm daft, but I'm not seeing this statement in this interview, although the original post seems to imply it's there.

Don't get me wrong, I don't LIKE Ballmer, and I'm no MS fan (as I type this from my Ubuntu desktop with Firefox, etc. etc. etc.) I just think they do their own damage, we don't need to add to it.

The real Microsoft? Read Comes-3096.pdf

[kbonin]

A very illuminating Microsoft Confidential presentation from the antitrust discovery process. If you're in a hurry start with the slides at page 9. This is what he should have been asked about...

Comes-3096.pdf

Re:If you tell a lie long enough

[Serapth]

That number is complete bullshit unless there are some SERIOUSLY major flaws at the company, or they have some pretty obscure needs ( military level security protocols, triple redundancy on everything they do, etc... ) that bloat the support costs.

At the last company I worked, we were @ 750 desktops. Under our EA agreement CALS for XP + Office Pro + Exchange + Messenger + Sharepoint were under 1000$ per user. Actual desktop support was handled by two techs making 50K/year each, so I guess for 750 desktops would be 100,000 / 750, or say 133$ per user on average.

Beyond desktop licensing, the only other costs I can think of are about 20 Win2K3 server licenses ( for various reasons ) at about 1000$ a shot, various 5 SQL server per proc licenses at 5K a piece and then Exchange server... not sure the cost there, but it was minimal as we were on CAL based licensing. So, from a server side of things, that adds another 20,000 + 25,000 == 45,000 in server licensing, meaning 45,000/750 = 60$ per user.

So, we were looking at 1000$ + 133$ + 60$ or 1193$ per user for all servers, desktop software licensing and physical support!. Finally we had ( at our peak ) 4 net techs averaging say 60K annually and 2 dev/sql guys again around 60K per year. So even factoring IT staff into the equation into the formula adds 360,000K to the number, or 480$ per user.

All thats really missing from this equation is connectivity charges, physical server costs, backup, utilities like hydro, etc... which you are going to have to pay regardless to technology you go with... otherwise thats a pretty accurate budget for running a 750 user IT shop using Windows tech.

No where close to 12,000$, not even by a long shot.

Re:Furniture trembled?

[ApostasyX]

Couldn't care less, the phrase is couldn't care less, else it makes no sense.

Re:Persuade me I need Windows Server

[SanityInAnarchy]

You're talking about desktop apps, I think. If that's the case, I can suggest KDevelop and Qt, but I have no idea how good they are, and there's always the licensing fee if you produce anything commercial.

Of what I have worked with:

• Eclipse rocks for Java development. It's probably decent for other things, too -- I haven't used it for much more than editing JavaScript (VERY different than Java) since college.
• Kate is decent. It has some very cool features, and some really horrible and twisted ones. It's at least lightweight enough for me to move (mostly) away from Vim, though.
• Perl has CPAN. It has a library that already does what you're trying to do. I say this without knowing what you're trying to do, because that's how freaking huge CPAN is. If you can think it, there's already a CPAN module that does it, to some extent.
• Believe the hype: Rails is damned good. And, because of Rails, there are a lot more rubygems out there. (Rubygems is like CPAN for Ruby, only there's not as much stuff.) And you can always find an HTML form designer, if you really need one.
• Firefox has Firebug, which makes Javascript a serious possibility. And Javascript is almost as powerful as Ruby, and has tons of classes. I mentioned Rails first because you'll still need a backend...
• Or maybe not? Adobe is porting AIR to Linux, and AIR includes Webkit. So you can develop a cross-platform, client-side Web application, have it talk to a SQLite database. I'm not sure what's available in the way of tools, though, especially on Linux.
• Java is now open source. Since C# was basically built to counter Java, you could always try that (see Eclipse). I hate it, though.

By the way, what do you mean "crashing Adept"? If you mean "you got an error", I don't know, but if you mean "Adept actually crashed, and I got a bomb symbol and everything", you can always open up a Konsole and type "sudo apt-get install lazarus".

But to be able to really recommend something specific, I'd have to know what you're developing.

mangled logic

[recharged95]

I thought linux offered good value (free) and a superior product (apt/yum/security) that is industry proven (based in UNIX). MS? right.