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IBM's Answer To Windows 7 Is Ubuntu Linux
An anonymous reader writes "It looks like IBM isn't much of a friend of Microsoft's anymore. Today IBM announced an extension of its Microsoft-Free PC effort together with Canonical Ubuntu Linux. This is the same thing that was announced a few weeks back for Africa (a program that began a year ago), and now it's available in the US. The big push is that IBM claims it will cost up to $2,000 for a business to move to Windows 7. They argue that moving to Linux is cheaper."
Microsoft responded by stating they are happy IBM has found someone new, that's just great, and hey by the way MS is engaged to Dell who is hotter than IBM anyway so there.
Hey, if Microsoft wants to take on IBM with its own tactics and give away a PC with every copy of Windows, that's fine with me.
-- Alastair
If you reduce the cost of software to zero and compete only on the hardware, you shut out some people from the market and trample others with your behemoth size.
Yeah, what a shame.
Ubuntu would be great solution for the enterprise. Basic email and office apps, what more do you need? The only problem with Ubuntu is that it needs more testing and validation before each release cycle. I've had basic functionality break between releases and this will not be acceptable for business use.
...for downloading Ubuntu Linux.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
Ubuntu works for me. Large community, fixed release schedule.
But whatever your choice, small to medium sized companies need to plan well ahead *before* they get locked in,
otherwise one day you'll be in your office and your MS exchange server will say "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that", then you're stuck with the thing forever.
If Microsoft introduces an incompatible change in Windows 8 (so that, for example a given version of IE can no longer be installed, or a driver for a widely deployed device stops working), it can force a company into unbounded costs of updating their software and hardware. On the other hand, once initial migration to Ubuntu is done, only an effort of a dozen developers would be needed to compile Firefox 1.0 with new libraries, update a driver to work with 2.6 kernel and so on. While for an individual it may be acceptable - and cheaper - to buy new peripherals and applications - IBM can trivially afford custom development costs to keep an operating system running exactly the same way they want it.
It doesn't make sense for any large business with non-trivial needs to run an operating system for which they can not control future direction.
That assumes that the value of the software is the same, value being usability, performance, etc. For netbooks, servers, and small dedicated devices I don't think Microsoft can compete at all.
I'm all for Linux, but it can't completely replace Microsoft just yet. I use it for almost everything. However, there is still some development that I find easier to do with a MS operating system. Granted it's stripped down high performance version of XP, but it ain't Ubuntu.
Now if nearly all of the programs being sold for the Microsoft platform worked equally well on a Linux platform then I believe that MS really could be shut out of the market with companies like IBM switching from Windows by default, to anything else.
Unfortunately, I find a lot of the open source offerings for Linux lacking compared to what it is available for Microsoft. I can deal with terrible user interface and poor documentation on some of the stuff, but I doubt I represent anything but a small portion of the market.
This is a real slap to Microsoft, but I hardly think this alone is really shutting them out of the market.
$2,000 US to upgrade per machine? I don't know what in the heck IBM is talking about. I've been running Windows 7 on a two year old $500 laptop without any issues since Beta. They are easily over exagerating that cost, in my opinion, and frankly it turns me off of Ubuntu to see them buddying up with IBM in this way.
*On an interesting side note, I wonder if they calculated all the man hours and reworking of customized code that most shops would have to put in to go from a Microsoft shop to all Linux - I seriously doubt it.
**Do we even want to get into the compatability issues with COTS that still plagues Linux?
Sorry bud but I don't understand your point. What's wrong with IBM recommending people switch to Linux? It was IBM who recommended Microsoft DOS originally..... now they are simply recommending a different product to run on the PC platform
I'm all for giving people choices.
"I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
Did you know that Germany is also called DoucheLand and their currency is the DoucheMark? Krauts are a bunch of douches. Now you know!
And knowing is half the battle.
I used to work for a company that locked things down so much, that if you wanted to increase the speed of your mouse, you had to call the IT department, LOL.
This is a bit obsessive, but it's their prerogative. Either its not that easy to prevent a user from accessing the mouse control screen in Gnome or KDE, or most administrators are "Windows Trained" and wouldn't know the steps to lock it down (most just run a 3rd party app that does it for them anyway).
> ...there's no low to mid range POS software that runs on *nix.
True. "Piece Of Shit" software is a Microsoft specialty.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
And the other half is violence
The past 6 months for several clients I have been running Proof of Concepts of moving from Desktop infrastructure to VDI(Virtual Desktop Infrastructure)
Microsoft have made licensing for running Windows desktops in a virtual environment so insane and added ridiculous costs just for the privilege of running Windows XP, Vista or 7 in a data centre that when you look at the ROI you don't see a massive benefit of shedding hardware.
A couple of those clients are actually now investigating migrations from Windows desktop to Ubuntu/SUSE Linux and running legacy Windows applications from Sun SGD/Windows Termial Server.
VDI offers huge opportunities for companies to shed the upkeep and maintenance of desktops and Microsoft are putting in as many hurdles as humanly possible to keep companies purchasing desktops every 3-4 years so they can still get their Microsoft tax from OEM's. I'm advising anyone these days to assess their dependence on windows if they are looking at VDI solutions and investigate deployments in Linux.
I think everyone here is missing the point. This is less about how accurate IBM's claims are, and more about the fact a company as large as IBM with a name that established was actually willing to publicly say it. That by itself is a major benifit for Linux.
This is all about momentum, marketing, and market share. I mean seriously, we act as if Microsoft has never made erroneous or speculative claims in the spirit of customer coercion. This is how business works.
Modern IBM has more of a "Services vendor mind" than a hardware-oriented one. Traditionally, this means they prefer software products which are highly flexible and featureful, but difficult to "self-manage". And perhaps they're right, and Linux is a better fit for the outsourced IT model.
Plus, if you RTFA and decode the marketingisms about "Smart Work", this has less to do with Linux vs. Windows and more to do with IBM selling Lotus Notes to people.
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
I find it interesting that these stories never seem to talk about the cost of retraining in that switch from Windows to Linux in the work place. The authors must be those same people that keep writing about how software companies should replace boxed product with downloading because bandwidth is free.
I'm not saying that many companies wouldn't benefit financially from the switch. Many would. But there are a lot that wouldn't. Anyone who thinks the Microsoft license and the cost of the hardware are the only expenses has no business being a decision-maker in their company's IT.
I want a new quote. One that won't spill. One that don't cost too much. Or come in a pill.
Too bad your users don't have the same freedoms you enjoy. You're right—software freedom is the way to go. Sharing and improving, truly controlling one's own computer and the social solidarity that gives rise to is the single most important reason why nobody should use proprietary software. Including yours.
Digital Citizen
Go Joe
The cost of software is never zero; the cost of admins installing new software and of retraining every user to use a new release of the software far exceeds the licensing costs of the software in most cases. I believe Microsoft's own estimates for the total cost of upgrading from Windows 98 to Windows XP were over $2000 per seat; I wouldn't be surprised if it was higher now. Microsoft continually shoots itself in the foot by completely changing the user interface with each new release of software, resulting in massive productivity losses as everyone has to relearn how to do their job. Eventually, people will realize the huge impact this has on TCO. Not having to throw out your OS and apps, replace them all, and retrain everyone every few years on Microsoft's schedule is one of the real, tangible economic benefits of using open source.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
I recently made the big jump for our IT department from windows to ubuntu. We havent looked back and it has been a great learning experience for many. We now have a department that is a viral resistant island in our windows heavy environment. The only things I missed was Visio for network diagrams and IE for sharepoint access, which we provide via a simple XP vbox. Everything critical however is done via ubuntu. We have lost nothing and gained much. I think in many cases the decision to NOT switch is based on ignorance of the platform and fear of interoperability, rather than on solid factual information. In a business environment its a no brainer.
Insert something insightful here, or I'll insert something painful there.
For a modern desktop, then yes, you're not going to fit all the drivers and subsystems on a floppy.
But for a specific embedded system with very few subsystems, and basically no drivers, then yo u might get on a floppy.
The point remains that Linux scales up extremely well, and scales down extremely well. That is why supercomputers run Linux and small embedded devices run Linux.
Microsoft is terrified of reinventing its core products. Microsoft does push some innovation, and they do some core things right. But their biggest change was grafting their current broken OS on top of NT rather than reinvent properly. And despite the fact that they foresaw the internet being the core experience of your desktop very early on, they didn't forsee internet security issues. Even as they implemented terminal services, they still worked around a broken multi-user model. And even when they saw their kernel was behind the curve on performance, they instead decided to bloat it even more.
The headless Server 2008 was a step in the right direction. There were some claims that after Vista, they'd throw out their current API and start Windows anew, using an emulation layer (akin to Wine) to intercept old API calls. Vista's failure made 7 a necessity.
7 really isn't the savior press make it out to be. Most of the Vista UI regressions remain. With IBM and Google giving big-name credence to Linux on the HOME and BUSINESS DESKTOP, Microsoft should start quaking in their boots. IBM and Google have all the pieces to put together to deliver a really killer experience.
I overheard someone once say they want an OS that they can use in their car, in their phone, and on their desktop. They want it to be consistent, minimal, easy to use, and provide them seamless access to their data wherever they go. I suggested Google online services mixed with Chrome OS, and Android may deliver that to them within a year.
They paused, and then shocked, realized the future may be upon us very quick. And Microsoft is left with a prettied-up-Vista to show off.
Microsoft better wake up real quick with a real, next-generation operating system of the future. It needs to be secure, flexible, low-latency, scalable, modular and customizable. It needs to be their Unix. Only, Steve Jobs beat them to the punch with OS X.
Slowly, but surely, people will realize the Emperor is wearing no clothes. All the time, people see how sexy my KDE 4 desktop is. They ask me how they can get their computer to look like that. Then they hear it is free, legal, has no viruses, and easier to use than Windows.
Then Ballmer starts throwing chairs.
http://blindscribblings.com - Tasty pop-culture in conceptual fashion.
Successful exploitation requires that a threaded Multi-Processing Module is used and that the mod_proxy_ftp module is enabled. (...) An error in the included APR-util library can be exploited to trigger hangs in the prefork and event MPMs on Solaris.
And the second (first in order on the site) unpatched vulnerability deals strictly with a mod_ftp input validation issue. Again, I rarely even see mod_ftp even used as opposed to an entirely seperate FTP server daemon but disabling the faulty module is simple enough in environments requiring absolute security.
And input validation issues are usually patched fairly quickly anyways, I mean come on, this is 2009 and there are too many developers for the project that wouldn't let this sort of thing continue for this amount of time. Not to mention the fact that these unpatched vulnerabilities are nothing compared to the olde IIS Webdav exploit of a few years ago - too bad there wasn't a community aware of it sooner other than the underground black hats already using it to their advantage by the time it was brought to the attention of MS.
If you control the machines what is the issue?
Just change the permissions, or remove the stuff or make it not even executable.
The only reason apps exist for windows to do this stuff is because of the incompetence of the average windows sysadmin.
Right, and don't forget to sync up your passwd fiels across 30,000 desktops in your enterprise. I mean, it's just copying a file, right?
Obviously there are better ways to do it than that, even on *nix today (ldap, nis, etc) but hey - maybe those only exist for linux due to the incompetence of the average unix admin? Or those other tools that make things easier, like config files. Who needs config files? You can just configure each daemon when you start it up manually, with command line params! At least, you can if you're competent.
Now get off my lawn.
This is a valid, but unlikely Premium Microsoft eXperience (PMX) endgame scenario. 2014: Microsoft is suffering diminishing sales and shares, beaten on one side by an Apple grown to a media/technology giant five times their size and on the other side by hardware partners also grown much larger than them desperately trying to compete but weighed down by a pathetic Windows 8 demanding near zero pricing for OS software both on the server and the client. Unable to drive the hard bargains they historically had, Microsoft finally admits they want to own everything. They launch an own-branded mobile thin client solution with Mesh MiWi, three day battery life, serving the desktop experience with their full software suite through their own-branded cellular data plan at $100.00. Naturally this blows up in their face as a blizzard of court filings bury them in paperwork first from their partners and then for their customers. The product is their most popular ever - right up until they get 10% market penetration and their network goes down at the same time their storage service consumes everyone's data. Ultimately the whole thing implodes. As the Sheriff is escorting him out of the building, Steve Ballmer has a stroke leaving him as aware as ever, but unable to move or speak.
2016:Apple Studios announce the summer blockbuster of 2017 will be "The Road Behind", the epic story from the beginning to its conclusion. Ballmer will be played by Scott Thompson and lured back from retirement for the role many believe he was born to play, Mark Hamill will be Bill Gates. Release will be by the usual streaming hi-def to pocket theatres worldwide as pay-per-view over the Apple 5G network. 2017:Widely panned by critics as low comedy that doesn't quite rise to cult status, it's rereleased immediately to Pico-SD where it sees a modest but profitable run.
Help stamp out iliturcy.
Why isn't IBM jumping first, and take the lead to move the whole IBM to Linux desktop? You know, the do-what-you-are-preaching concept? Last week, 5 IBM people came to our office to pitch for a 3 million contract, and I saw every single person (technical and sales) is running Windows Vista, with the latest MS Office. The only thing I recognized as IBM-made is Lotus Notes, which we also use here.
About 8 years ago, it was the same thing with Sun. We had a bunch of Sun people came to our office (another company), and they kept bitching about MS Windows and MS Office, while at the same time preaching Linux and Star Office. And guess what they were running? Yeah, you got it. At one point, I had enough of their bitching, I told them with a straight face: "Why don't you guys install Linux and Star Office, and send me that fucking slide in open format?" They looked at me as if I was from Mars, then I turned on my laptop, and it was running Linux.
One suggestion to the big guys: don't preach, do it. Then everyone will follow, you have enough clout to take the lead.
I shoved my old PC out in the living room with Ubuntu preinstalled for the kids/parents, and they love it. Nobody has asked me how to do anything, and the technophobe parents (won't update an iphone, points at computer and asks what is wrong with the modem) more often than not use it as opposed to the one that is in their room on a desk right next to their bed.
I can see that one going down:
CFO: "Why can't I open this spreadsheet that accounting sent me?"
IT: "You're using Open Office...that spreadsheet was made in Excel and Open Office doesn't support X feature."
CFO: "Well how the hell can I open it then?"
IT: "We need to wait for enough other people to have the problem and for the developers to add the features."
CFO: "My god...how long will that take?"
IT: "Could be a few weeks, maybe months...or never."
CFO: "Fuck that. I don't have time to waste. You said Excel will open in? Get that installed on here NOW!"
Don't take life so seriously. No one makes it out alive.
Funny because about 30 years ago it was IBMs competition and lock in on its proprietary hardware (basically giving away their OS) that started this whole Microsoft thing. Competition on proprietary hardware and vendor lock-in isn't much different than competition on proprietary software with vendor or platform lock-in.
I'm fine with IBM competing however they want (legally), but I doubt I'll ever see them as much different from Microsoft. To me they're the same animal with a different skin.
Don't think of it as a flame, more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage.
Go and spend 24 hours or so on Ubuntu's forums before you try and tell me it is stable.
That's your argument against Ubuntu? Do you know just how many forums are dedicated to solving various Windows fuckups?
Che? Synaptic. 2 clicks.
Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis
...and even then they are as buggy as hell.
How would this be different to running them on Windows then?
Please don't ever use the Wine as an example of Linux being compatible with Windows software. Because a huge majority of programs simply don't work with it, and those that do have had special coding done in Wine to make them work, and even then they are as buggy as hell.
No, Wine has a strict policy of not letting app-specific hacks into the mainline tree, if that wasn't the case things would be a mess and nothing would run. Certainly not everything works 100%, but there are many apps that run very well. For example, I played Diablo 2 on and off for several years through Wine, and having originally played it on 'doze, I can tell you it plays identically through Wine.
Also, Wine has made an enormous amount of progress in the last 4 years. It helped a lot that the Win32 API pretty much stopped dead between XP and Vista, as it gave the Wine team a huge amount of time to catch up instead of having to chase a moving target. The huge Vista backlash also helps quite a bit, Wine has only really started on D3D10 support this year or late last year, but the fact that really nothing uses D3D10 (because it doesn't work on XP) makes the lack of support largely irrelevant. There's really no point in comparing Wine 4 years ago to Wine today, so much so that it's probably not unreasonable to say that more has changed in Wine's last 4 years than the previous 12 years before that.
Game! - Where the stick is mightier than the sword!
Where's the "-1 Big fat paragraph" modifier? Because this is screaming for it.