In case you hadn't noticed, Windows 2000 hasn't been out for five years, nor has Linux been commercially visible for that long. IDC basically said the software cost is negligible, the cost is in staffing, and on that basis they project it's slightly cheaper going with Win2K over five years.
If you go from there and use my argument on how they probably cooked the numbers for admin costs, and factor in at least one OS upgrade in that five years and the numbers probably look a whole lot worse for Windows...
The article says that software costs are only a small percentage of total cost, which is true. They put most of the cost into staffing.
HERE'S WHERE THEY CAN COOK THE NUMBERS: if they say one-admin-per-10-machines, and MS admins are so much cheaper than Unix/Linux admins, then Windows wins. Of course, typically an admin can support many more boxes using *ix than Windows, so the higher cost of the *ix admin is spread out more, so *ix wins (or at least breaks even) vs. Windows.
And if you look towards the bottom of this Infoworld article, you notice that MS' next rev of Office is using "XSD", and they comment that "anything OASIS comes up with that's compatible with XSD will be fine in Office 11", i.e. make yourselves compatible with us or FOD.
RTR is responsible for the Frontpage extensions for Unix, so all the appropriate non-disclosures are already in place, no doubt.
Also means you can expect about the same quality, i.e. 110% whaledreck, and whatever version of *ix you're using is at least two revs ahead of what they'll support.
Re:Ximian? Linux on teh Corporate desktop?
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Inside Ximian
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The EXACT SAME troll showed up in The Register's letter column; didn't get enough response there, binky?
As a vinyl-era performer, is it a safe bet that you're getting more distribution from your touring than from anything the music companies are doing for you? And is your older music affected by the recent changes in the copyright laws extending terms, or is there actually some chance rights may revert in your lifetime?
for $380, you can go to GPS Clock and get a pollable GPS unit to get the time and PPS signal out of. Likely cheaper than most of these dedicated NTP server boxes.
Of course, if you only need per-second precision, and you really want to go cheap, get a handheld GPS off the pegboard at Wal-Mart and use one of the software packages mentioned elsewhere, but don't expect the same level of precision as the dedicated units mentioned.
Given the improved uptime, decreased exposure to virii, bundling in of things like terminal emulators and office suites, and reduced/removed licensing fees (yes I know any business will be buying a support contract, why do you THINK IBM's so big on Linux?), even factoring in retraining it's still likely you'll see a nice ROI.
This chain (mostly Southeastern US, some Midwest) looks like a Courtyard-type chain, but includes "high-speed Internet access" in the room rate. Probably a bulk deal with someone like STSN (mentioned above) and they just lump the $10/day into their rates...
"that much loved 'Active Directory' is nothing more than an LDAP server with a fancy schema and ranch dressing".
Unfortunately, it's a little more (but just a little) than that. The Empire took the public LDAP spec and glued in a tweaked version of the public Kerberos spec [for the actual 'password'] to create a bastard blend supported by no one outside of Redmond WA.
And of course they then turn around and trumpet how they really DO support open standards, see?
Having worked for NSCP during the time in question, the problem was that once Microsoft started giving away the browser, our corporate sales were fscked, which was leveraging the server line [i.e. long-term growth] development. Both our companies used to charge for the browser to corporate customers, remember? Of course, MS could afford to take the hit from bundling in IE [some of us do remember when it was a separate shrink-wrap item, Seth] since they were collecting royalties from all the OEMs for Windows. And those OEMs that thought about adding in Navigator got a visit threatening to revoke their OEM discounts; something about 'cutting off the air supply', I believe was the phrase?
As far as "not buying the products", you tell me where to buy a Windows-free PC and I'll run there; oh wait, you guys are harassing white-box shops that do that, and you certainly won't be able to get one from the major companies like Compaq, HP, Dell, etc.
The dissenters' proposal has MS auctioning off a license to Office with source so a Linux port could be done. My take on this is that this just extends the MS 'viral upgrade' model to Linux.
What would make much more sense to me is complete documentation of the formats used in Office, with a mandatory N-month lead time (they were convicted of monopoly, weren't they?) before implementing new, um, features [yeah, that's what they are, features...]. This would allow compatibility filters from the competing office suites, and remove the window of opportunity for new versions from MS while the others chase the changes.
Oh, and the penalty for failure-to-disclose would be public source release of Office; that would almost guarantee they behave, since there'd be legions of open-source eyes looking for any inconsistencies.
Wonder if using these with the Linux bolt-on kit would be useful as a cheap desktop for the K-12 environment or the college terminal room? Or would the students just pull off the HD and reboot with a game disk?
One thing I found interesting was Ballmer's comment/threat that they'd have to pull Windows off the market if the non-DOJ rules were put in place. This sounds a whole lot like the sort of threats they were accused of against the OEMs in the original trial, to pull their Windows license if they dared to co-load, or Ghu forbid, replace IE with Netscape. If so, it only confims that they haven't learned diddly since getting convicted as monopolists, and they think they can cower the courts/DOJ by making this sort of threat against them.
Of course, if I were a businessman seeing this sort of schoolyard-bully crap ("If you don't play my way, I'm taking my ball and going home!") on the witness stand of a Federal court from the CEO of the company supplying my enterprise software, I'd be beating down the doors at IBM or Red Hat to sign up for MS-rehab ASAP. What this particular schoolyard bully seems to have missed is the pile of other balls the rest of the neighborhood has collected along the sidelines waiting for the fool to get off their field:-)
That's the first thing I thought of when I heard DOJ had revised the numbers to make it look less lopsided against their precious settlement.
But looking at the index by name, yup, there I was, complete with the PDF of the fax I'd sent in from the office.
I'm still wondering about where all the form letters in support were coming from, though; some last minute ballot-stuffing from an MS site (hell, from some DOJ office) to improve the percentages?
You're seeing the 'academic' version of Office XP all over the place for relatively cheap? Businesses actually might take a shrinkwrapped SO with a bill attached seriously, so MS is low-balling (for them) Office to keep their hooks in the population.
Suggestion to doorbot.com: would that Bynari Exchange-alike tool make sense here? Put up a Linux box running generic IMAP/POP/SMTP services and that tool so all those Outlook users can't tell the diff. Since Bynari is charging per-seat for this one, a small user base could make this a serious cost save...
on the other hand, a large user base worth of Exchange licensing could still make this a serious cost save...
(b) After the writers' strike scare, the appeal of "reality" shows to the execs has never been better .
(c) They've already farmed off most genre TV to the net-lets like WB and UPN, and the cable channels like USA, TNT and SciFi, leaving themselves the mass-market sitcoms and drama shows. With Time/Warner's bankroll, if Turner wanted to put on a "quality production values" show, don't you think they could?
If PVR's honestly begin to skew the audience numbers, then the primary effect would probably be to spread the wealth to some of the smaller outlets, not cut off production of high-end shows.
I suspect the must-carry rule for cable providers is there to protect the broadcast networks' revenue stream as much as to provide the 'local' content for subscribers. For my part, watching the Olympic coverage is the most Big-Three-Network time I've put in since the Sydney Games.
The comment about compatibility with existing systems is a strong one: having done a little contract work for state govt I know they get told their systems must be compatible upstream with federal systems and has to be downstream-compatible with typical municipal systems. Unless you're planning to reverse-engineer all these for OSS during your term (which may be a business opportunity afterwards), you're sadly stuck.
You can say something about expecting your experience in IT can save the city $$, but the fact is that most of the expenditures in city government involve things like road construction, public health, etc. where the cost of software is a very minor percentage of the pie. The best bet on saving the city money is to pry the 'preferred' contractors off the public teat.
The reference LDAP implementations use a database tuned for read-mostly access, which makes sense in context. A traditional RDBMS would not perform as well.
The ease in extending the schema 'on the fly' is also a major plus over traditional DB environments.
The protocol is fine, the implementations make sense, and the overwhelming cross-environment support makes it a winner for implementing authorization & authentication solutions.
MS' embrace-and-extinguish strategy is actually a disadvantage here. Since their extensions to 'vanilla' LDAP are specific to them, it's harder to integrate other systems' directories, which makes it harder for Redmond to get traction in the typical mixed-platform Big Company. Other LDAP services (OpenLDAP, Novell, iPlanet/Sun) are pretty much interoperable, and the toolset for integration is that much bigger as a result.
If it was going to be him as a "beardless youth", then why would *he* be in it? My understanding was that it would be set in the present, with Giles as an investigator of the occult.
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If you go from there and use my argument on how they probably cooked the numbers for admin costs, and factor in at least one OS upgrade in that five years and the numbers probably look a whole lot worse for Windows...
HERE'S WHERE THEY CAN COOK THE NUMBERS: if they say one-admin-per-10-machines, and MS admins are so much cheaper than Unix/Linux admins, then Windows wins. Of course, typically an admin can support many more boxes using *ix than Windows, so the higher cost of the *ix admin is spread out more, so *ix wins (or at least breaks even) vs. Windows.
Lies, damn lies, and statistics?
And if you look towards the bottom of this Infoworld article, you notice that MS' next rev of Office is using "XSD", and they comment that "anything OASIS comes up with that's compatible with XSD will be fine in Office 11", i.e. make yourselves compatible with us or FOD.
Also means you can expect about the same quality, i.e. 110% whaledreck, and whatever version of *ix you're using is at least two revs ahead of what they'll support.
The EXACT SAME troll showed up in The Register's letter column; didn't get enough response there, binky?
As a vinyl-era performer, is it a safe bet that you're getting more distribution from your touring than from anything the music companies are doing for you? And is your older music affected by the recent changes in the copyright laws extending terms, or is there actually some chance rights may revert in your lifetime?
Of course, if you only need per-second precision, and you really want to go cheap, get a handheld GPS off the pegboard at Wal-Mart and use one of the software packages mentioned elsewhere, but don't expect the same level of precision as the dedicated units mentioned.
Definitely dated, but think about when Verizon invokes its UCITA rights and shuts down your brain for failing to pay your monthly implant fee...
Given the improved uptime, decreased exposure to virii, bundling in of things like terminal emulators and office suites, and reduced/removed licensing fees (yes I know any business will be buying a support contract, why do you THINK IBM's so big on Linux?), even factoring in retraining it's still likely you'll see a nice ROI.
This chain (mostly Southeastern US, some Midwest) looks like a Courtyard-type chain, but includes "high-speed Internet access" in the room rate. Probably a bulk deal with someone like STSN (mentioned above) and they just lump the $10/day into their rates...
Counterpane? Bruce Schneier's rep for security is certainly pretty strong. Oh, this is their website.
Unfortunately, it's a little more (but just a little) than that. The Empire took the public LDAP spec and glued in a tweaked version of the public Kerberos spec [for the actual 'password'] to create a bastard blend supported by no one outside of Redmond WA.
And of course they then turn around and trumpet how they really DO support open standards, see?
As far as "not buying the products", you tell me where to buy a Windows-free PC and I'll run there; oh wait, you guys are harassing white-box shops that do that, and you certainly won't be able to get one from the major companies like Compaq, HP, Dell, etc.
What would make much more sense to me is complete documentation of the formats used in Office, with a mandatory N-month lead time (they were convicted of monopoly, weren't they?) before implementing new, um, features [yeah, that's what they are, features...]. This would allow compatibility filters from the competing office suites, and remove the window of opportunity for new versions from MS while the others chase the changes.
Oh, and the penalty for failure-to-disclose would be public source release of Office; that would almost guarantee they behave, since there'd be legions of open-source eyes looking for any inconsistencies.
Wonder if using these with the Linux bolt-on kit would be useful as a cheap desktop for the K-12 environment or the college terminal room? Or would the students just pull off the HD and reboot with a game disk?
Of course, if I were a businessman seeing this sort of schoolyard-bully crap ("If you don't play my way, I'm taking my ball and going home!") on the witness stand of a Federal court from the CEO of the company supplying my enterprise software, I'd be beating down the doors at IBM or Red Hat to sign up for MS-rehab ASAP. What this particular schoolyard bully seems to have missed is the pile of other balls the rest of the neighborhood has collected along the sidelines waiting for the fool to get off their field :-)
But looking at the index by name, yup, there I was, complete with the PDF of the fax I'd sent in from the office.
I'm still wondering about where all the form letters in support were coming from, though; some last minute ballot-stuffing from an MS site (hell, from some DOJ office) to improve the percentages?
You're seeing the 'academic' version of Office XP all over the place for relatively cheap? Businesses actually might take a shrinkwrapped SO with a bill attached seriously, so MS is low-balling (for them) Office to keep their hooks in the population.
Just a thought.
on the other hand, a large user base worth of Exchange licensing could still make this a serious cost save...
(b) After the writers' strike scare, the appeal of "reality" shows to the execs has never been better .
(c) They've already farmed off most genre TV to the net-lets like WB and UPN, and the cable channels like USA, TNT and SciFi, leaving themselves the mass-market sitcoms and drama shows. With Time/Warner's bankroll, if Turner wanted to put on a "quality production values" show, don't you think they could?
If PVR's honestly begin to skew the audience numbers, then the primary effect would probably be to spread the wealth to some of the smaller outlets, not cut off production of high-end shows.
I suspect the must-carry rule for cable providers is there to protect the broadcast networks' revenue stream as much as to provide the 'local' content for subscribers. For my part, watching the Olympic coverage is the most Big-Three-Network time I've put in since the Sydney Games.
You can say something about expecting your experience in IT can save the city $$, but the fact is that most of the expenditures in city government involve things like road construction, public health, etc. where the cost of software is a very minor percentage of the pie. The best bet on saving the city money is to pry the 'preferred' contractors off the public teat.
Technically, it gives them (Tivo) a low-bandwidth streaming video option for PPV flicks, cross-feed from your home network perhaps.
Politically, after the WMV-on-DVD-players announcement, it gives Real a PR counterpunch.
As little as I like the quality of most RM files, I'm glad to see a response to Gates' latest push to *really* become King of All Media.
The reference LDAP implementations use a database tuned for read-mostly access, which makes sense in context. A traditional RDBMS would not perform as well.
The ease in extending the schema 'on the fly' is also a major plus over traditional DB environments.
The protocol is fine, the implementations make sense, and the overwhelming cross-environment support makes it a winner for implementing authorization & authentication solutions.
MS' embrace-and-extinguish strategy is actually a disadvantage here. Since their extensions to 'vanilla' LDAP are specific to them, it's harder to integrate other systems' directories, which makes it harder for Redmond to get traction in the typical mixed-platform Big Company. Other LDAP services (OpenLDAP, Novell, iPlanet/Sun) are pretty much interoperable, and the toolset for integration is that much bigger as a result.
If it was going to be him as a "beardless youth", then why would *he* be in it? My understanding was that it would be set in the present, with Giles as an investigator of the occult.