Yup -- NT's DOS support is intended to be good enough to run WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, but that's about it.
There's been some cry from the gaming community to add a Win95-style "DOS Mode" to the home version of Win2000. (This is where Windows 9x swaps the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT and then reboots without automatically executing WIN.EXE.) I've used this feature a number of times to get old crusty DOS business apps running. However, Microsoft is apparently dropping this feature from even Win98ME, so it's super unlikely that it will ever make it into the NT-based OS. --
Microsoft has the most to gain from IA64 because that's the only horse that they can ride into the datacenter on. MS desperately wants to be in the big leagues with Sun and IBM, but they need the hardware to get there. Since they dropped Alpha, IA64 is the only shot they've got.
First, Itanium won't offer the performance of its "traditional server vendor" rivals. So it's not going to grab much share from them, if any.
Are you kidding? Here's a clue -- "Cost of Ownership". People will dump expensive Sun/IBM boxes if they can get away with cheaper Intel models. The "convential wisdom" has been that NT has lower administration costs than Unix. True or not, some people will be able to run NT in situations where it wasn't feasible before. And they'll do it. (The same could be said for Linux.)
People running Linux on peecees aren't going to run out and buy M$ for IA64. The most M$-optimistic outcome is that current enntee users migrate en masse to IA64/enntee. In which case M$ holds its current market share, which, in this environment, isn't very high (37% or so last I saw).
Huh? This reads like you believe that Linux has a much higher marketshare among servers than Windows NT. It doesn't -- not by a long shot. The idea is that Microsoft holds their small server market share, and eats some of the midrange pie too.
Of course, the midrange market is very Unix friendly, so Linux has a great opportunity on IA64. But, I still can't see how the IA32 to IA64 transition puts Microsoft behind the eightball in any way whatsoever other than wishful thinking. --
Could you provide an explanation of the TNG project?
My understanding is that it intends to provide a fairly complete emulation of the RPC mechanisms in WinNT and 2000, so that Samba can properly emulate domain controllers. Of course, I could be all wrong here.
Would such a project assist in decoding and emulating the 'wire' protocols of MS applications such as MS Exchange or DCOM? Does it provide any services to native unix applications that don't already exist, or is the goal only to co-exist with Windows networks? --
I do not see the poor x86 performance as a serious issue.... Linux is ready to go.
Great, if you are running only Open Source Linux software. For the rest of the market, software availbility and slow x86 emulation is a problem. Microsoft, for example, is only porting SQL Server to IA64 -- not Exchange, not Excel, not anything else. That's considerably less software than MS produced for even the Alpha chip (where people continually bitched about software availability) -- and this is from the vendor that has the most to gain from IA64.
If it's priced the same as Intel's 32-bit chips It won't be. You know it, I know it, AMD knows it.
Yeah, that's kinda my point. If it's not an affordable Quake upgrade, there's no market for this thing. I sorta wonder if the whole "Sledgehammer" hype is just FUD smoke that AMD is blowing at IA-64.
I think you're right -- if they try to position this thing against the Sparcs and Alphas and Itaniums of this world, it's doomed. For one, there won't be any software support. On the other hand, if this is priced and marketed like a "PeeCee" chip, AMD has a real window of opportunity here.
Intel is going to be backing away from the x86 market to push IA-64 - an unknown, expensive quantity with very little software running on it and poor x86 performance. They might have to slow down Pentium performance advances just to keep IA-64 from looking too embarassed.
Meanwhile, the desktop market is going to stay x86 for a long time. Add a little "64-bit" gloss to Windows 98, and AMD might gain some serious market share here.
So whom are you targeting? Hardcore Quake addicts?
Why not? What else are people running with their 1Ghz PC machines? (Not MS Excel!) How else do all of these $250 video cards get sold into a very price sensitive market? Why does every "Biff's Hardware" site on the 'net hold Quake benchmarks to be the ultimate test of any piece of hardware? If it's priced the same as Intel's 32-bit chips, and runs certain hybrid 64-bit applications-errr-games faster, it could sell tons. (Just think of MMX and SSE -- Intel pushed those into every desktop PC, when in fact they really only appeal to gamers.)
On the other hand, if it's more expensive than a 32-bit chip and doesn't offer any real advantage to the average user, what's the point? --
I can see the "Extended 64-bit features that make Quake faster" approach when they are trying to market Sledgehammer to the Windows 98 crowd.
But, with Linux, why not put out a 100% 64-bit port? The source is there, and if they can't/won't make a native 64-bit compiler (gcc is the obvious choice) for Sledgehammer, why even bother designing the architecture?
Linux on Sledgehammer sounds nice -- but let's not kid ourselves -- it's not a big enough market to support an entire processor line. Either they price this thing so that it's competitive with the desktop market of Pentiums and Athlons, or they need to be very risky and go all out and try to get a broad range of server OS support (MS, Sun, IBM), the way that Intel is doing with IA64. An expensive chip that only runs Linux is doomed to failure.
But it could be a helluvalot faster if the same amount of time and money spent to squeeze some more performance out of a geriatric architecture had been spent on developing a new one.
True, but in the big picture, the world has collectively invested a quadrillion dollars into a bazillion x86 closed-source applications. It's hard to fight the economics of that, no matter how cheap+fast another CPU might be.
(I think that the only time anyone recently went up against Intel for the desktop market was the PowerPC in the mid-1990s. It's been faster and cheaper, but never quite enough to convert the commodity market.) --
If Microsoft follows previous policies, AMD will need to pay them for a Sledgehammer port of Windows NT, or sign NDAs and do the work themselves. Compaq/DEC Alpha and Motorola/IBM PowerPC both went down this road, and found it to be economically infeasible to keep NT running on their CPUs.
Alpha/NT was a very established architecture, very fast, and had an entire MS BackOffice port running on it, and enough third party vendor support. Still, it didn't sell at all! I think it would be a horrible mistake for AMD to pour money down that hole -- the low-end server market seems more than happy with the performance range of x86.
So then the question is -- Who is going to buy this thing? I'd think the best bet would be to price Sledgehammer similarly to 32-bit chips like the Pentium IV. Perhaps they can get some game/video driver support and market it similar to the MMX/3DNow processor extensions. As long as it's seen as an extension of the traditional x86 market (price- and performance-wise), it will probably do OK. If it's marketed as a brand new architecture, it's DOA. --
Lessse -- Close button. Double-click on control menu. Control menu + Close. Alt+F4. Alt+Space then C. Right-click on taskbar + Close. Ctrl+W. Right-click on titlebar + Close. Task Manager.
That's nine ways to close a window in Windows, and there's probably one more. I have to admit that I've used all of them at one point or another. Which is not to say that we shouldn't have "simplicity", just that when it collides with "uniformity" or "elegance", or just "logical", one of the latter choices should probably win. --
My understanding is that the Alpha port still exists internally. They're using it to build 64-bit Windows.
The real problem is not that NT wasn't designed to be portable -- it's that NT was only designed to be portable to 32-bit archs. Microsoft had been promising a 64-bit port of NT4 for Alpha for years, and couldn't deliver.
I agree that with 2000 running on i386 only, there's probably a huge temptation for hack programmers to shove some non-portable code in there. Hopefully Microsoft will show a bit of discipline here. (I like Sun's policy of shipping Solaris on i386 even though it's a money-loser. It ensures that they stuff is portable, and will probably save them tons of time and money in the long run.) --
Well, that's partially Intel's fault. They dropped the 386 on the market, and didn't do any evangalism to make sure that software would ship for it. For example, OS/2 1.0 shipped after the first i386 PCs, but it was designed to run on the 286.
Intel didn't make the same mistake this time. They have been evangalizing the OS developers like crazy. "64-bit NT will ship the same day as Merced" has been a mantra from MS and Intel for *years*. And Intel is making sure that they're not riding Microsoft's back into the datacenter -- hence IBM/SCO Monterey and IA64 Linux. They also pushed hard for Solaris/IA64 and Tru64/IA64, but failed.
There's lots of idle speculation that Windows 2000/IA64 will be a 'hybrid' 64/32 bit beast. Microsoft says it won't be. We'll just have to wait and see, but with $Billons, I can't imagine that MS would be that stupid. Linux would just kick their ass in this market. I'd recommend waiting and seeing until the product ships. (Admittedly, the extremely poor i386 transition provides some historical justification for the speculation.)
Yeah, I was aware of the CE NCs. However, my understanding is that they weren't selling well because most orgs just recycled 586-class PC hardware for this purpose. --
Re:Killing Unix is like killing computers:
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The End of Unix?
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Yeah, maybe it's just my perception. For years, I've only seen maybe two or three AS/400s, and they were always rusting away in a corner. In the last year, I've worked on about 6 projects that involve the 400 in some way or another -- brand new machines, psyched users, new applications, etc, etc.
I'm in the SF Bay Area (read HP and Sun), so this is a little odd. A while ago, an IBM rep told me that there were more AS/400s in Salt Lake City than here, but it now seems like they are selling. Maybe the rising tide is just lifting all boats. --
One of the original ideas behind CE was to use it as a 'network computer' OS, and also as a settop box system (XBox? WebTV?). The big problem with it is that it's never really gotten used for these things, and instead has been misapplied as a handlheld OS.
The biggest problem with CE is that the rest of Microsoft isn't really behind it. New applications and services get rolled out for NT/98, and CE kinda gets left out in the cold. They haven't even provided CE a reasonable facimilie of Office, for example. Also, Windows 98 has been such a gold mine as a legacy system, they're in no hurry to replace it.
The bottom line is that whatever technical merits CE has are obscured by MS political considerations. Too bad, as the consumer world would probably be better served by CE than the mess that is Win98. --
Re:Killing Unix is like killing computers:
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The End of Unix?
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You're right that the AS/400 is primarily a nitch product. However, IBM is trying to change that, and AS/400s running more 'normal' tasks like web servers and Lotus Domino are appearing more and more. It's market is expanding.
Still, most shops get into the AS/400 because of some line of business application that only runs there, or they're a true blue IBM customer. The other tasks are largely an afterthought. I don't think even IBM would consider the 400 a head-to-head competitor to Sun and DECpaq -- that's why they have the RS/6000s. --
Re:Why GNU is Unix (though of course it's not...)
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The End of Unix?
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Well, the classic problem with a new OS is "Where are the Applications?!?".
RMS, GNU, Linux, Alan Cox are all smart guys. They could have concocted some new thing. But nothing would run on it, and nobody would be that interested in using it. By cloning Unix, they opened the door to 20 years of existing applications. (And thanks to Unix's hardware independance, lots of existing source code.) Unix might not have been the best choice, but it's one that lots of people like. --
Microsoft Exchange already can do replication and directory syncronization over SMTP e-mail instead of normal network RPC calls. You could follow MS's lead and design pretty much any protocol over SMTP, I imagine.
This stuff reminds me of SOAP or XML-RPC or whatever it's called. It would just seem easier to change the firewalls rather than try to run everything over HTTP and SMTP. --
Re:Killing Unix is like killing computers:
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The End of Unix?
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CP/M, DOS, OS/2, and to some extent Windows NT were all designed around the philosophy that 'little' PCs could never do the work of minicomputers or engineering workstations. To a certain degree, Linux (and, again, WinNT to a certain extent) is the logical conclusion of PC hardware development -- your 'personal' computer ended up having much more in common with your 'enterprise server' than people expected ten years ago, and it only makes sense that they run similar OSes.
Notice that virtually all of the proprietary minicomputer OSes are dead or at least lifeless zombies
I dunno -- IBM boasts that their AS/400 division is larger and more profitable than Sun Microsystems. True or not, they still move a lot of units. I would also suspect that Compaq makes more money on VMS than they'd maybe like to admit. Unix hasn't won the midrange wars yet. --
Basically, Microsoft sees the industry trending away from client-based solutions (where their revenue stream is), and is scrambling to try to develop more and more client services to stay relevant. AKA, Netscape was right, Windows will eventually be obsolete.
Of course, we may not like the alternative where client control is superceeded by the wishes of content providers (JavaScript, ActiveX, and cookies are already steps in that direction). --
I think you make a good point -- there probably should be two levels of certification. The first should be focused on setup and troubleshooting and knowing when to reboot.
The second, harder one should be focused on architecture and planning (AD, WINS, so on). Since the current NT5 program is designed so that people only understand a little of both, there's no way to prove if someone actually understands the NT beast. --
I freely admit that I know jackshit about real networking (Cisco stuff, etc). My point was that the MS networking test only requires you to memorize some quite simple information that is of arguable relevance to the modern corporate network. I know what a bridging router, a bridge, and a switch is. However the people I hire only need to know how to handle 10/100 TP switches and a pure TCP/IP network. That's a 'networking essential' here, and I'd guess that's pretty common.
The MS test in itself is not helpful at all -- so why does it exist? To weed out the Newbies? And as I said, almost everyone here could pass if they put a couple hours into studying for it. If you can deal with a Linux HOWTO, you can deal with MS's NT4 program.
The NOS questions I mentioned are examples of important knowledge that's not in the MSCE test program as a whole. Instead, they focus on trivalities, marketing propaganda, and new feature lists. That's why a MCSE does not necessarily have any skills what-so-ever in setting up an NT network or troubleshooting a broken NT machine. --
I think you have the breakdown just about correct. One important thing to note is that the MS tests are primarily a test of your test-taking skills, not your knowledge
Quite often a simple concept (such as NetBIOS Name Resolution doesn't work with Unix and Mac clients) is clothed in a confusing double negative question, or a "Choose the best answer" scenario where multiple answers are technically correct, or in an even more confusion Required/Optional Requirements matrix.
The other trick is getting into the brain of the MS Marketeers. For example, multi-link PPP and dial-back authentication was a new feature in NT4. Thus lots of questions on these features, and very few questions on the RAS Server itself.
Basically, if you can do well on a test like the SAT or a college-level multiple choice midterm exam, you can pass the MS tests with a little 'prep' and no experience. The sad thing is that the NT5 tests are being pushed out the door so quickly that people are going to have follow the same model (test first, experience later). --
(The ThickNet and Brouter stuff is not a joke -- that's actually what they ask! BTW, nowhere on Networking test is word "Switch" mentioned. The test is seriously stuck in 1993. Now, the Novell Networking test - I hear that's actually hard.) --
It's not really that these people don't want to support Microsoft, they do - they're committed to their products.
Their concerns are primarily logistical: 1) Microsoft is decertifying NT4 people before most corporations will have rolled out NT5. 2) This was a suprise change in policy that came too quick to be accounted for in corporate training budgets. 3) Making certification harder means they can't rely on MCSE Bootcamps as a source for cheap entry-level help.
Microsoft is doing the right thing, however. It wasn't that long ago that there were less than 5,000 MCSEs in the entire country. (I used to work with a guy who was MCSE #300-something on LanMan.) Before anyone was paying attention there were a million people in the program and corporations were using it as a hiring checklist. I know a few people that went and passed 7 tests without even a trivial desktop support job as experience. They have to kick a lot of the deadwood out of the system -- it's totally clogged right now.
Ironically, there's lots of potential for this to backfire. Novell found themselves in a similar situation when they introduced the significantly more complex NetWare 4 and NDS, and simultanously decertified much of their CNE support base. The net result was that quite a few people started working on NT and just never bothered to understand NW4/NDS. MS is now in a similar situation with NT5 and ActiveDirectory -- a good portion of the MCSE base might find it better to learn Linux than try to dive into that complexity and stay certified. (My Disclaimer: MCSEI-NT4, haven't decided whether to bother staying certified or not.) --
Let's see... 1) Can you commit to memory the maximum cable length of Thicknet Ethernet? 2) Could you guess how to correctly terminate a 10Base-2 Network? 3) Given a hypothetical device called a "Brouter", could you guess what it does in a NetBEUI network?
Yup -- Most Slashdotters could pass "Networking Essentials".
Now, try these: 1) How do you set up SMB network browsing in a multi-domain environment? 2) What is the proper way to design WINS replication? 3) How do you restore the MS DHCP database in a recovery situation?
Whoops! Microsoft never asks those questions. Sorry.
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Yup -- NT's DOS support is intended to be good enough to run WordPerfect and Lotus 1-2-3, but that's about it.
There's been some cry from the gaming community to add a Win95-style "DOS Mode" to the home version of Win2000. (This is where Windows 9x swaps the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT and then reboots without automatically executing WIN.EXE.) I've used this feature a number of times to get old crusty DOS business apps running. However, Microsoft is apparently dropping this feature from even Win98ME, so it's super unlikely that it will ever make it into the NT-based OS.
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Microsoft has the most to gain from IA64 because that's the only horse that they can ride into the datacenter on. MS desperately wants to be in the big leagues with Sun and IBM, but they need the hardware to get there. Since they dropped Alpha, IA64 is the only shot they've got.
First, Itanium won't offer the performance of its "traditional server vendor" rivals. So it's not going to grab much share from them, if any.
Are you kidding? Here's a clue -- "Cost of Ownership". People will dump expensive Sun/IBM boxes if they can get away with cheaper Intel models. The "convential wisdom" has been that NT has lower administration costs than Unix. True or not, some people will be able to run NT in situations where it wasn't feasible before. And they'll do it. (The same could be said for Linux.)
People running Linux on peecees aren't going to run out and buy M$ for IA64. The most M$-optimistic outcome is that current enntee users migrate en masse to IA64/enntee. In which case M$ holds its current market share, which, in this environment, isn't very high (37% or so last I saw).
Huh? This reads like you believe that Linux has a much higher marketshare among servers than Windows NT. It doesn't -- not by a long shot. The idea is that Microsoft holds their small server market share, and eats some of the midrange pie too.
Of course, the midrange market is very Unix friendly, so Linux has a great opportunity on IA64. But, I still can't see how the IA32 to IA64 transition puts Microsoft behind the eightball in any way whatsoever other than wishful thinking.
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Could you provide an explanation of the TNG project?
My understanding is that it intends to provide a fairly complete emulation of the RPC mechanisms in WinNT and 2000, so that Samba can properly emulate domain controllers. Of course, I could be all wrong here.
Would such a project assist in decoding and emulating the 'wire' protocols of MS applications such as MS Exchange or DCOM? Does it provide any services to native unix applications that don't already exist, or is the goal only to co-exist with Windows networks?
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I do not see the poor x86 performance as a serious issue. ... Linux is ready to go.
Great, if you are running only Open Source Linux software. For the rest of the market, software availbility and slow x86 emulation is a problem. Microsoft, for example, is only porting SQL Server to IA64 -- not Exchange, not Excel, not anything else. That's considerably less software than MS produced for even the Alpha chip (where people continually bitched about software availability) -- and this is from the vendor that has the most to gain from IA64.
If it's priced the same as Intel's 32-bit chips
It won't be. You know it, I know it, AMD knows it.
Yeah, that's kinda my point. If it's not an affordable Quake upgrade, there's no market for this thing. I sorta wonder if the whole "Sledgehammer" hype is just FUD smoke that AMD is blowing at IA-64.
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I think you're right -- if they try to position this thing against the Sparcs and Alphas and Itaniums of this world, it's doomed. For one, there won't be any software support. On the other hand, if this is priced and marketed like a "PeeCee" chip, AMD has a real window of opportunity here.
Intel is going to be backing away from the x86 market to push IA-64 - an unknown, expensive quantity with very little software running on it and poor x86 performance. They might have to slow down Pentium performance advances just to keep IA-64 from looking too embarassed.
Meanwhile, the desktop market is going to stay x86 for a long time. Add a little "64-bit" gloss to Windows 98, and AMD might gain some serious market share here.
So whom are you targeting? Hardcore Quake addicts?
Why not? What else are people running with their 1Ghz PC machines? (Not MS Excel!) How else do all of these $250 video cards get sold into a very price sensitive market? Why does every "Biff's Hardware" site on the 'net hold Quake benchmarks to be the ultimate test of any piece of hardware? If it's priced the same as Intel's 32-bit chips, and runs certain hybrid 64-bit applications-errr-games faster, it could sell tons. (Just think of MMX and SSE -- Intel pushed those into every desktop PC, when in fact they really only appeal to gamers.)
On the other hand, if it's more expensive than a 32-bit chip and doesn't offer any real advantage to the average user, what's the point?
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I can see the "Extended 64-bit features that make Quake faster" approach when they are trying to market Sledgehammer to the Windows 98 crowd.
But, with Linux, why not put out a 100% 64-bit port? The source is there, and if they can't/won't make a native 64-bit compiler (gcc is the obvious choice) for Sledgehammer, why even bother designing the architecture?
Linux on Sledgehammer sounds nice -- but let's not kid ourselves -- it's not a big enough market to support an entire processor line. Either they price this thing so that it's competitive with the desktop market of Pentiums and Athlons, or they need to be very risky and go all out and try to get a broad range of server OS support (MS, Sun, IBM), the way that Intel is doing with IA64. An expensive chip that only runs Linux is doomed to failure.
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But it could be a helluvalot faster if the same amount of time and money spent to squeeze some more performance out of a geriatric architecture had been spent on developing a new one.
True, but in the big picture, the world has collectively invested a quadrillion dollars into a bazillion x86 closed-source applications. It's hard to fight the economics of that, no matter how cheap+fast another CPU might be.
(I think that the only time anyone recently went up against Intel for the desktop market was the PowerPC in the mid-1990s. It's been faster and cheaper, but never quite enough to convert the commodity market.)
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If Microsoft follows previous policies, AMD will need to pay them for a Sledgehammer port of Windows NT, or sign NDAs and do the work themselves. Compaq/DEC Alpha and Motorola/IBM PowerPC both went down this road, and found it to be economically infeasible to keep NT running on their CPUs.
Alpha/NT was a very established architecture, very fast, and had an entire MS BackOffice port running on it, and enough third party vendor support. Still, it didn't sell at all! I think it would be a horrible mistake for AMD to pour money down that hole -- the low-end server market seems more than happy with the performance range of x86.
So then the question is -- Who is going to buy this thing? I'd think the best bet would be to price Sledgehammer similarly to 32-bit chips like the Pentium IV. Perhaps they can get some game/video driver support and market it similar to the MMX/3DNow processor extensions. As long as it's seen as an extension of the traditional x86 market (price- and performance-wise), it will probably do OK. If it's marketed as a brand new architecture, it's DOA.
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Lessse -- Close button. Double-click on control menu. Control menu + Close. Alt+F4. Alt+Space then C. Right-click on taskbar + Close. Ctrl+W. Right-click on titlebar + Close. Task Manager.
That's nine ways to close a window in Windows, and there's probably one more. I have to admit that I've used all of them at one point or another. Which is not to say that we shouldn't have "simplicity", just that when it collides with "uniformity" or "elegance", or just "logical", one of the latter choices should probably win.
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My understanding is that the Alpha port still exists internally. They're using it to build 64-bit Windows.
The real problem is not that NT wasn't designed to be portable -- it's that NT was only designed to be portable to 32-bit archs. Microsoft had been promising a 64-bit port of NT4 for Alpha for years, and couldn't deliver.
I agree that with 2000 running on i386 only, there's probably a huge temptation for hack programmers to shove some non-portable code in there. Hopefully Microsoft will show a bit of discipline here. (I like Sun's policy of shipping Solaris on i386 even though it's a money-loser. It ensures that they stuff is portable, and will probably save them tons of time and money in the long run.)
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Well, that's partially Intel's fault. They dropped the 386 on the market, and didn't do any evangalism to make sure that software would ship for it. For example, OS/2 1.0 shipped after the first i386 PCs, but it was designed to run on the 286.
Intel didn't make the same mistake this time. They have been evangalizing the OS developers like crazy. "64-bit NT will ship the same day as Merced" has been a mantra from MS and Intel for *years*. And Intel is making sure that they're not riding Microsoft's back into the datacenter -- hence IBM/SCO Monterey and IA64 Linux. They also pushed hard for Solaris/IA64 and Tru64/IA64, but failed.
There's lots of idle speculation that Windows 2000/IA64 will be a 'hybrid' 64/32 bit beast. Microsoft says it won't be. We'll just have to wait and see, but with $Billons, I can't imagine that MS would be that stupid. Linux would just kick their ass in this market. I'd recommend waiting and seeing until the product ships. (Admittedly, the extremely poor i386 transition provides some historical justification for the speculation.)
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Yeah, I was aware of the CE NCs. However, my understanding is that they weren't selling well because most orgs just recycled 586-class PC hardware for this purpose.
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Yeah, maybe it's just my perception. For years, I've only seen maybe two or three AS/400s, and they were always rusting away in a corner. In the last year, I've worked on about 6 projects that involve the 400 in some way or another -- brand new machines, psyched users, new applications, etc, etc.
I'm in the SF Bay Area (read HP and Sun), so this is a little odd. A while ago, an IBM rep told me that there were more AS/400s in Salt Lake City than here, but it now seems like they are selling. Maybe the rising tide is just lifting all boats.
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One of the original ideas behind CE was to use it as a 'network computer' OS, and also as a settop box system (XBox? WebTV?). The big problem with it is that it's never really gotten used for these things, and instead has been misapplied as a handlheld OS.
The biggest problem with CE is that the rest of Microsoft isn't really behind it. New applications and services get rolled out for NT/98, and CE kinda gets left out in the cold. They haven't even provided CE a reasonable facimilie of Office, for example. Also, Windows 98 has been such a gold mine as a legacy system, they're in no hurry to replace it.
The bottom line is that whatever technical merits CE has are obscured by MS political considerations. Too bad, as the consumer world would probably be better served by CE than the mess that is Win98.
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You're right that the AS/400 is primarily a nitch product. However, IBM is trying to change that, and AS/400s running more 'normal' tasks like web servers and Lotus Domino are appearing more and more. It's market is expanding.
Still, most shops get into the AS/400 because of some line of business application that only runs there, or they're a true blue IBM customer. The other tasks are largely an afterthought. I don't think even IBM would consider the 400 a head-to-head competitor to Sun and DECpaq -- that's why they have the RS/6000s.
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Well, the classic problem with a new OS is "Where are the Applications?!?".
RMS, GNU, Linux, Alan Cox are all smart guys. They could have concocted some new thing. But nothing would run on it, and nobody would be that interested in using it. By cloning Unix, they opened the door to 20 years of existing applications. (And thanks to Unix's hardware independance, lots of existing source code.) Unix might not have been the best choice, but it's one that lots of people like.
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Microsoft Exchange already can do replication and directory syncronization over SMTP e-mail instead of normal network RPC calls. You could follow MS's lead and design pretty much any protocol over SMTP, I imagine.
This stuff reminds me of SOAP or XML-RPC or whatever it's called. It would just seem easier to change the firewalls rather than try to run everything over HTTP and SMTP.
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CP/M, DOS, OS/2, and to some extent Windows NT were all designed around the philosophy that 'little' PCs could never do the work of minicomputers or engineering workstations. To a certain degree, Linux (and, again, WinNT to a certain extent) is the logical conclusion of PC hardware development -- your 'personal' computer ended up having much more in common with your 'enterprise server' than people expected ten years ago, and it only makes sense that they run similar OSes.
Notice that virtually all of the proprietary minicomputer OSes are dead or at least lifeless zombies
I dunno -- IBM boasts that their AS/400 division is larger and more profitable than Sun Microsystems. True or not, they still move a lot of units. I would also suspect that Compaq makes more money on VMS than they'd maybe like to admit. Unix hasn't won the midrange wars yet.
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Right -- See Ballmer says Internet is backward, where Microsoft argues for more client control of web content.
Basically, Microsoft sees the industry trending away from client-based solutions (where their revenue stream is), and is scrambling to try to develop more and more client services to stay relevant. AKA, Netscape was right, Windows will eventually be obsolete.
Of course, we may not like the alternative where client control is superceeded by the wishes of content providers (JavaScript, ActiveX, and cookies are already steps in that direction).
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I think you make a good point -- there probably should be two levels of certification. The first should be focused on setup and troubleshooting and knowing when to reboot.
The second, harder one should be focused on architecture and planning (AD, WINS, so on). Since the current NT5 program is designed so that people only understand a little of both, there's no way to prove if someone actually understands the NT beast.
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I freely admit that I know jackshit about real networking (Cisco stuff, etc). My point was that the MS networking test only requires you to memorize some quite simple information that is of arguable relevance to the modern corporate network. I know what a bridging router, a bridge, and a switch is. However the people I hire only need to know how to handle 10/100 TP switches and a pure TCP/IP network. That's a 'networking essential' here, and I'd guess that's pretty common.
The MS test in itself is not helpful at all -- so why does it exist? To weed out the Newbies? And as I said, almost everyone here could pass if they put a couple hours into studying for it. If you can deal with a Linux HOWTO, you can deal with MS's NT4 program.
The NOS questions I mentioned are examples of important knowledge that's not in the MSCE test program as a whole. Instead, they focus on trivalities, marketing propaganda, and new feature lists. That's why a MCSE does not necessarily have any skills what-so-ever in setting up an NT network or troubleshooting a broken NT machine.
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I think you have the breakdown just about correct. One important thing to note is that the MS tests are primarily a test of your test-taking skills, not your knowledge
Quite often a simple concept (such as NetBIOS Name Resolution doesn't work with Unix and Mac clients) is clothed in a confusing double negative question, or a "Choose the best answer" scenario where multiple answers are technically correct, or in an even more confusion Required/Optional Requirements matrix.
The other trick is getting into the brain of the MS Marketeers. For example, multi-link PPP and dial-back authentication was a new feature in NT4. Thus lots of questions on these features, and very few questions on the RAS Server itself.
Basically, if you can do well on a test like the SAT or a college-level multiple choice midterm exam, you can pass the MS tests with a little 'prep' and no experience. The sad thing is that the NT5 tests are being pushed out the door so quickly that people are going to have follow the same model (test first, experience later).
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See post #99 - I have. Got 900-something.
(The ThickNet and Brouter stuff is not a joke -- that's actually what they ask! BTW, nowhere on Networking test is word "Switch" mentioned. The test is seriously stuck in 1993. Now, the Novell Networking test - I hear that's actually hard.)
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It's not really that these people don't want to support Microsoft, they do - they're committed to their products.
Their concerns are primarily logistical:
1) Microsoft is decertifying NT4 people before most corporations will have rolled out NT5.
2) This was a suprise change in policy that came too quick to be accounted for in corporate training budgets.
3) Making certification harder means they can't rely on MCSE Bootcamps as a source for cheap entry-level help.
Microsoft is doing the right thing, however. It wasn't that long ago that there were less than 5,000 MCSEs in the entire country. (I used to work with a guy who was MCSE #300-something on LanMan.) Before anyone was paying attention there were a million people in the program and corporations were using it as a hiring checklist. I know a few people that went and passed 7 tests without even a trivial desktop support job as experience. They have to kick a lot of the deadwood out of the system -- it's totally clogged right now.
Ironically, there's lots of potential for this to backfire. Novell found themselves in a similar situation when they introduced the significantly more complex NetWare 4 and NDS, and simultanously decertified much of their CNE support base. The net result was that quite a few people started working on NT and just never bothered to understand NW4/NDS. MS is now in a similar situation with NT5 and ActiveDirectory -- a good portion of the MCSE base might find it better to learn Linux than try to dive into that complexity and stay certified.
(My Disclaimer: MCSEI-NT4, haven't decided whether to bother staying certified or not.)
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Let's see...
1) Can you commit to memory the maximum cable length of Thicknet Ethernet?
2) Could you guess how to correctly terminate a 10Base-2 Network?
3) Given a hypothetical device called a "Brouter", could you guess what it does in a NetBEUI network?
Yup -- Most Slashdotters could pass "Networking Essentials".
Now, try these:
1) How do you set up SMB network browsing in a multi-domain environment?
2) What is the proper way to design WINS replication?
3) How do you restore the MS DHCP database in a recovery situation?
Whoops! Microsoft never asks those questions. Sorry.
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