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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 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.
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And knowing is half the battle.
And the other half is violence
With Ubuntu for basic business use you won't need to upgrade at every release. Their LTS releases guarantees three years of support. Running an old version is usually not acceptable for a home power user, but it provides the stability a small business needs.
For a larger shop with at least one full time IT technician it would be possible to maintain your own repository with selected upgrades enabled. Then you can pick and choose the upgrades you need for new features in specific software. You would have the stability and security of an old release, and still get bleeding edge features where it matters with relatively little testing. This is how most major Windows shop does it for security patches and feature upgrades anyway.
Also the differences and testing needed between each version of the major distros is still far less than what's needed between each new edition of Windows. That's when you ignore the immense practical problem of global reinstallation of individual Windows boxes (yes, MS shills, fire away. It's possible on Windows as well. Call me when it's possible for my company to have absolutely all system and OS settings administrated centrally while ALL the user's personal customisations ("registry") and documents rest in his home directory on a file server, and when a motherboard fries, it'll take less than half an hour to physically replace the box and get the user back in business with all software and personalisations in place).
Are you a grammar Nazi? I'm trying to improve my English; please correct my errors!
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
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.
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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.
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.
Where's the "-1 Big fat paragraph" modifier? Because this is screaming for it.