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

How does microsoft beat linux?

[inflamed]

Microsoft will beat linux the same way they beat any competitor: by purchasing a rival (or in this partnering with Novell) and offering the same product with ten times the marketing force.

Re:How does microsoft beat linux?

[Anonymous Coward]

The GPL only applies to the Linux kernel. Microsoft could very well partner with a company like Novell and offer binary only packaged versions of their server software without having to publish a single line of code. If Microsoft really needed to hook into the Linux kernel they'd do what nVidia does which publish a gpl-licensed shim that loads a big proprietary binary blob into the kernel.

Embracing standards and deviating from them

[Reality Master 201]

If you're deliberately not complying with the standards, that's not really embracing them, is it?

Though it's nice that they'll now start being up front about how they're introducing incompatibilities, as opposed to the quiet evil way they used to do it. Baby steps, I guess.

Re:Embracing standards and deviating from them

[hey!]

We have to be careful about the dishonesty here.

There's nothing wrong with having things over and above, or alongside what a standard calls for. Almost everybody does this.

What is wrong is selling people a product that supposedly uses a standard but does not interoperate with that standard. That isn't just deceiving the customer it's freeloading on the know-how and goodwill that went into the standard.

Deviations? We don't need no steeking deviations!

[HangingChad]

If we have deviations, we'll be transparent about the deviations

And if we're threatening IP litigation through surrogates, we'll be transparent about setting up pipe funding to finance IP litigation through surrogates.

If you tell a lie long enough

[Billly Gates]

Eventually it will believed to be true. I think even the liar will start believing it.

Sadly many IT professionals believe Windows saves money because its an integrated platform. But ignore the reboots and being forced to buy alot more servers as Windows is not friendly with using one or 2 more apps on a single server compared to Unix.

Oh and lets not forget about the blanket licensing fees. What is the average? $12,000 per year for licensing and support per desktop? Uh yeah thats true TCO.

If it were not for Microsoft already setting the standards for Office the corporate world would have abandonded them years ago. Linux is alot cheaper and has 1/10th of the issues if only it could the VB apps and Office.

Re:If you tell a lie long enough

[wolrahnaes]

If Linux were even half as much better as people like you thought it was, business would be falling over themselves trying to save money using it.

I think you underestimate the PHB effect. My boss is practically falling over himself to get us "upgraded" to Windows Server 2008 from our current Debian setup simply because it has a familiar GUI so he can think he'll actually be able to administer the damn thing.

I've managed to hold him off for 6 months, we'll see how long I can keep it up.

Idiot bosses who fancy themselves skilled at IT plus wannabe admins with MCSEs probably account for the majority of Windows Server installs in my mind.

Re:If you tell a lie long enough

[SanityInAnarchy]

Some businesses are.

I don't think Linux is the answer to absolutely everything. I do think that it's very relevant, and in many cases, even its price is worth considering.

A few off the top of my head -- the EEE PC and Amazon EC2. If Amazon had to pay a license for every copy of an OS they run, EC2 would be a lot more expensive -- and Asus didn't want to have half the price of the laptop be for the software.

Now, Windows has gotten better at most of the things on his list... but it is something to consider. What is Windows buying you? And what is it actually costing you?

It's often been said that, on the desktop, Linux has to beat Windows by a lot for it to be worth the switch, due to lack of application support and a (mostly gone) learning curve. The same is true of Windows on the server -- even if Windows is better than Linux, or any other Unix, is it better enough to justify the licensing fee?

(That's a long way of saying: I challenge Microsoft's TCO studies, and I think Linux does better. But it's not an absolute, by any means.)

Persuade me I need Windows Server

[Colin Smith]

Because, frankly, Debian is making my life easy.

Re:Persuade me I need Windows Server

[asuffield]

If you want to develop with Visual Studio, C#, and .net

You've responded to a question of the form "I already have something to do foo. Why should I switch to this other thing?" by saying something of the form "So that you can replace your thing to do bar with this other thing". This is both irrelevant and circular, since you can just go right back to the first question again.

(.net only looks impressive compared to the MS stuff that came before it. Compared to existing free software development systems, it's mediocre at best; there's nothing in there that the rest of us haven't been doing for five years or more)

Re:Persuade me I need Windows Server

[PitaBred]

So... you're saying that if you want to use Microsoft technology, you have to use... Microsoft technology? Any other insights you'd like to share? Is water wet? Is gravity still defining "down"?

If you want to use a proper, portable language that has open implementations, there's much to be said AGAINST Windows, and very little for it.

If Windows was any good...

[Joce640k]

They wouldn't need to mess around with protocols, etc.

But they already admitted that lock-in was necessary to stave off competition - in the famous "Halloween documents".

Bill Gates also said that open file formats and interoperability could be the death of Windows.

So this is all just spin. What's really going to happen is delays, obfuscation, API churn... and as many other spanners in the works as possible while still "complying" with the letter of the law, if not the spirit.

From the man....

[MLCT]

... who called Linux a "cancer". Somehow I imagine what he has to say about Linux is neither going to be informed, balanced or interesting, just more deluded BS from the king of deluded BS.

Re:Marketing Speak

[RLiegh]

...apart from cmdr taco raking in cash (in the form of ad revenue) off of the slashbot hordes that are queing up to post the usual "M$ sux" comments (which will race to +5 insightful) and lame jokes about ballmer throwing chairs (which invariably get rated +5 funny)?

No point at all.

Balmer is a used car salesman

[roman_mir]

Take something like SharePoint alone. It's a big deal. - only if you don't care about actually using your documentation for anything useful. For useful development WIKIs are much better.

The quality of the databases, that's a big deal. - Agreed, that's why Oracle takes presedence. DB2, Postgress are later in line. SQL server of-course runs on Windows platform and who in their right mind want's that kind of a db server?

The availability of tools, of Visual Studio and .Net and the ability to build bespoke applications, those are all part of the value and the total cost. - those are wonderful proprietary tools I don't like using. Visual Studio was ok when I last used it (versions 4 and 5) and even .Net is quite powerful. I prefer open standards though, something that can't be locked down and something that I can extend myself. So I admit, I like Eclipse better, also it doesn't need Windows to run.

And I think we've done a good job. In the areas where we haven't done a good job, we'd have less share. We have a smaller percentage of the market, for example, in high-performance computing. That's about 40% of Linux business. We really didn't enter the market with what I would call an engineered, high innovation, high-value-add offering until last year. Now that we're in the game, we're gaining share in the high-performance computing work load. So in a sense, the old formula: Keep the prices low, keep the innovation high, keep the total cost of ownership low. - keep license fees coming.

Just once time I'd like to hear the plain truth

[erroneus]

Just let them state that they intend to continue with their undermining of standards, compatibility and other dirty tricks against 'partners' and other 'Microsoft Friends(tm).' Let them state that they are willing to take huge losses against just about every activity they are involved in and that these losses, which are propped up by their abusive monopoly, are designed to keep any competition down and prevent them from becoming a threat.

Oh, not TCO again.

[serviscope_minor]

I wonder why I had never heard of TCO until relatively recently (measured in years), and in terms of a comparison of Linux to Windows.

I now know: becuse TCO is a meaningless measure which is not used in the real world. The real world measure used is ROI (return on investment).

As a silly example, a windows box might have 50% of the TCO of a Linux box. If it does nothing useful then it has a vastly smaller ROI.

That said, it's a somewhat dubious claim that windows does have a lower TCO.

In Ghandi's own words.

[AftanGustur]

First they ignore us.

Then they laugh at us.

Then they fight us.

Then we win.

Unfortunately for Balmer, the world just continues laughing at him.

good luck

[nguy]

Well, Mr. Ballmer, if you think that adding even more crap to Windows is going to make Windows appeal to Linux users, go right ahead.

Re:Total Cost of Ownership?

[RedK]

You're missing the Total part of his equation. Basically, their premise is that Linux isn't free (as in beer) as you put it, it actually has a cost attached. TCO includes not only license costs, but support personnel costs, hardware cost, training costs, maintenance contract costs, actual maintenance costs, etc..

Their argument is basically that Windows has lower cost because there are more professionals out there that are trained to support/maintain Windows based system, and these professionals usually have lower wages/consulting fees than their equivalent Unix/Linux professionals. They also argue that Windows training in general is cheaper, that it is easier to maintain through their many support/update tools and include some highly dubious claims about Linux legal costs by up there because you don't have a single vendor backing you and that you will be liable for copyright/patent infringement and that the IP holders will go after you directly as a customer.

So that's basically why he thinks Windows is better TCO.

I love your point...

[symbolset]

Slashdot didn't evolve into a "Microsoft sux" since you joined. It always was one. You're still here after all these years.

It's self moderated and you're right -- posts that disparage Microsoft and discount Ballmer do fly to the top of the moderation. That's not because some corporate sponsor has a geek lab in Bangalore with 1,000 blogdrones astroturfing the moderation. It's because Slashdot attracts geeks and that's what the geeks really think. That's honest opinion survey for you. I think a lot of that is because the observation that "M$ sux" actually is insightful, and the Ballmer's futile thrashing of a chair in helpless frustration over Google really is funny.

When you add that slashdot is still one of the popular sites on the intertubes you have to ask: does Microsoft have a problem?

And remember, an answer to every Microsoft problem is available all over the web.

They have to be running scared now. Vista has been out for a year and a half and OEMs are still introducing new machines that not only don't run Vista -- but never will be able to, and people are buying them up like crazy.