CNN on Microsoft and Linux

noise writes "Article that details Microsoft's continuing anti-Linux campaign up through Ed Muth's comments last week. There are some nice OS and web server usage statistics, as well as some information on the difficulties that MS will likely have with the 64-bit version of NT. "

Comments

Still has a long way to go

[Anonymous Coward]

"Ease of use" depends on who you ask. On the desktop, Microsoft likely still has the upper hand--but KDE and GNOME mean that said upper hand is slipping. Things look even bleaker for Microsoft if uptime is a part of ease of use. No system is easy to use when crashed or wedged.

Much of the article was looking at NT the server, though. When running a server (as opposed to running a client that happens to talk to the server), the base assumption is that the machine is run by a professional computer operator, such as a sysadmin. From the sysadmin's perspective, a Unix or Linux server tends to be _much_ friendlier than an NT server. Most of this comes from the fact that the GUI is not wed to the backend as it is on Windows.

For one thing, the server is friendly enough to talk to you at _your_ console, not _its_ console. If I'm running a dozen NT boxes and have to do something to all of them, I have to log into a dozen consoles. To do the same job on Unix, I use X to "beam" windows to my machine from all of them.

Another "ease of use" advantage in the server world is scriptability. Most anything you can do on a Unix machine, you can do by manipulating text, whether it's manipulating data streams or configuration files. Since text generation is a simple task, this means that you can build your own macros and UIs to do tasks specific to your installation. When talking to an NT application, you have to click the buttons in their preferred order.

At the low end of the scale, desktops for casual users, Microsoft holds the upper hand for ease of use. At the high end of the scale, servers, Unix beats NT. The turning point is probably close to where the power users sit, depending on one's definition of power user.

This article is damning....

[Electric Eye]

I think this is the first SOLID piece of evidence I've seen showing how much trouble M$ is in in the OS market. There's no M$ bashing. Just concrete facts, as far as I can see. The author deserves applause for writing such a brilliant piece. I would think, more so now than ever, the folks in Redmond are chasing their tails more and more, not knowing how to stem the tide of Linux. The simple fact is that Linux is going to roll right over them. The momentum is too strong to fight. Cheers to all you folks developing Linux apps!!

Still has a long way to go

[MrDarkguy]

Granted. Personally, I've been using Linux for a little over 6 months now and I would never go back. (Well, actually I do...but only when I need to edit complex Office 97 documents)

I agree with you that Linux is a ways away from being what I would put on my mother's computer either, but consider it's roots.

As we all know, Linux is a variant of UNIX, which was originally written by developers for other developers. Computers weren't household appliances. They didn't need to be "idiot friendly", they needed to be "professional friendly". And, due to hardware constraints, it had to be a lean and mean.

Windows on the other hand, traces it's lineage back to the inception of the PC, and QDOS. PCs, in contrast to workstations, had to be more "idiot friendly" than UNIX, because they were not targeted exclusively at the professional.

Now, if we bring this forward to the inception of NT, we find that Microsoft has seen the writting on the wall when it comes to the "PC" market. They can see that they have saturated the home market. In order to continue making the unbelievable amounts of revenue they have been sustaining, they need to A) Force the people who have bought their product in the past to upgrade to a new version, and/or B) Move into the server market, where the big bucks are. Microsoft decided to do both. (Hence NT, and eventually, the 9x line)

Meanwhile, the commercial UNIXes were happy as clams in a pond. They WERE the server market. There were many variants available, and the competition kept things fresh, but there was little reason to make UNIX "idiot friendly". NT (and more importantly, NT's marketing) caught them off guard. All of a sudden, NT was on it's road to becoming the big game in town, and the various UNIX vendors began loosing that ever so important market share.

Now, we bring this forward to present day. Many companies who standardized on NT have knowingly, or unknowingly been forced to bring back UNIX. Linux is rising in popularity and, for the first time, there IS a reason to make it "idiot friendly", if only to end Microsoft's stranglehold on the PC market.

The bad news is, Microsoft has been making "user-friendly" OSes complete with user candy for quite some time now. Arguably, they're pretty good at it.

The flip side of the coin is that UNIX/Linux has been doing networking for quite some time now. And I think we'll all agree, it's pretty damn good at it.

So what we have is two seperate systems, built for completely disparate environmnents encroaching on each other's living space. (Imagine a whale being forced to walk on land and an elephant being forced to swim.) And at this point, they either evolve, or you end up with a lot of beached whales and drowned elephants.

It comes down to a question of how well each can adapt to their new environment. Can NT become more reliable, scalable, and robust? Can UNIX become more user friendly, intuitive, and simple?

Linux, being open source has a distinct advantage. It can (and has) evolve very quickly. Look at where Linux was in terms of use-ability a year ago, compared to now. Then, look at NT in terms of stability, and performance a year ago, compared to now.

So, while Linux still has a long way to go, I'd much rather wait for it to become more user-friendly than I would for NT to become more scalable.

These are interesting times. Enjoy them.

Here is what Sunbelt actually said.

[VanL]

Several people have pointed out that this survey could have been slashdotted.
Well, it wasn't. Here is the intro to the survey results from Sunbelt:


Sunbelt March99 Survey Results
over 1999 NT users

And now, the answers to the survey questions! Before anything else,
thanks for your many thousands of survey answers. This is a hot
topic for sure!!

First though, some background data. This survey was meant to
get an idea how things are looked at BY the NT community, FOR
the NT community. Well, that was somewhat naive I have to admit
. The questions were created while looking at discussions
between NT system administrators and were definitely written
from that viewpoint. Some claim that they were biased. There may
be some truth in that if you look at it from the Linux POV.

Sunbelt does not claim any kind of scientific validity. This
survey is a snapshot and not a random sample at all. It is not
objective but that was not the idea in the first place.

BUT, I guess if you step into a war you should expect some bullets
flying around, and I did get some flak from people. Most of these
people are both running NT and Linux and know them well. Personally
I know NT but have not much experience with Linux. We have a few
'closet' Linux users in Sunbelt though, both in sales and Tech .

Anyway, what happened is that we sent the invitation to do the
survey, and very quickly got thousands of responses back. We
followed in real-time what the results were, every 500 responses
or so. Extremely surprising numbers to start with. But even more
strange after the first few hours. Numbers started suddenly to
change and become slanted toward more Linux than before. Very odd
from a statistical perspective I remember from my stats course
in college.

Now, it so happens that the software we use to do the survey
queries the browser that was used to fill out the survey. So
we know what O/S it is running on, and the IP address it comes
from. The Linux user community had gotten word about the survey
and was getting into gear to show that Linux had support.

So anyway, we took the first 2000 survey results and did our
analysis on those. These were from predominantly NT users with
some people answering from a Linux machine. That will give some
idea about the current state of Linux use and the results are
revealing.

/snip/

And here is my own favorite set of statistics, about the supposed
advantages/disadvantages of Linux:

How important are these perceived Linux Benefits?

Scale= Very Important / Important / Of Less Importance

Linux is free
775.00 / 523.00 / 542.00
Stability
1584.00 / 195.00 / 58.00
Not Microsoft
340.00 / 290.00 / 1178.00
Better performance
1356.00 / 381.00 / 89.00
Open Software
1148.00 / 459.00 / 225.00
Other
619.00 / 294.00 / 294.00

How important are these perceived Linux drawbacks?

(Same scale)

Lack of Applications
463.00 / 449.00 / 882.00
Not Mission Critical yet
314.00 / 333.00 / 1099.00
Lack of Third Party utilities
324.00 / 352.00 / 1084.00
Different distributions / GUI's
261.00 / 299.00 / 1197.00
Lack of standardization
386.00 / 315.00 / 1060.00
Open Software
257.00 / 281.00 / 1214.00
Lack of Tech Support
324.00 / 312.00 / 1119.00
Too 'Bleeding Edge'
129.00 / 256.00 / 1347.00
Steep Learning Curve
238.00 / 401.00 / 1116.00
Hardware incompatibilities
371.00 / 404.00 / 985.00
User unfriendly
270.00 / 385.00 / 1101.00