In short, TCO isn't just marketing-speak. Apple hardware isn't *that* expensive, and if a little extra money up-front can save me more money in the long-run (in support costs, for example), then I'd be stupid not to evaluate that option.
Just did a quick comparison of an Xserve and a Dell PE1950:
Dual 2.8Ghz quad-core CPUs
8G RAM (4x2, no option for 2x4 from Apple)
3x300G@15k 3.5" drives (Xserve), 4x300G@10k 2.5" drives (PE1950)
Hardware RAID
Dual PSUs
DRAC remote management (PE1950) (Xserve has no equivalent)
1-year warranty (Xserve), 3 year warranty (PE2950).
Xserve: $7,750, PE1950: $6,300
Let's not forget that the minimum buy-in for an Xserve is $3,000, whereas an equivalently-specced Dell R200 is about 1/3rd that amount.
Also, if you buy an Xserv, you can a copy with OSX server with unlimited client licenses. No more worrying about CALs-- and CALs are a big hidden cost in choosing to use Windows/Exchange.
In the grand scheme of things, the cost of CALs is miniscule.
As far as technical merit, Apple has it in spades. It's real Unix running most of the same hardware that long-trusted Unix servers run. There's no problem there.
Yes, but it only kind of looks, feels, and tastes like a UNIX, so a standard UNIX-jockey is not going to be highly productive.
However, at least the Finder is better than Explorer for windows (or whatever the file manager is called on vista nowadays).
No way. Windows-95-era Explorer is _still_ a better file manager than Finder is today. Hell, Finder doesn't even have a keyboard shortcut for 'cut'(/move) or a decent directory-tree+file-list view.
Every time I have to do some file reorganisation on my wife's MBP, I curse just how atrociously bad Finder is at doing so.
I think the/. crowd has yet to find a file manager they actually like. Until then I would say the Finder is the head of pack, though I use an alternative on my Mac, most of the time.
Err, what ? You seriously think a file manager that doesn't have a decent split-pane directory-tree+file-list view (essential for working with any non-trivial directory structure) and lacks a keyboard shortcut for 'move' is going to be seen with anything but derision by the Slashdot crowd ?
As a file browser Finder is tolerably adequate. As a file manager it's awful. *DOS* had better graphical file managers twenty years ago, than Finder.
You can still get as rich as you want, but you have to pay your fair share to society for the managment of the ever growing pool of resources you individually consume. (for example: why should the poor be forced to subsidize the greater value the rich get from police? After all, it's not the poor who are worried about people breaking in and stealing the tiffany glasswork. Let the wealthy pay their fair share for law enforcement)
I agree with most of what you're saying, but this is just a load of bollocks. The "rich" have a much, much lower impact on public and social services than the "not rich". For example, while, certainly, the rich have more to lose if they are robbed, their houses don't take any more resources to 'protect'. They also tend to fit out their houses with fancy security systems, or hire private security, or have proper insurance, etc, thus reducing their overall burden on society even when they are robbed.
The idea that the "rich" use a disproportionately (or even relatively) high amount of social services doesn't even pass the laugh test. The complete opposite is true.
Of course, I'm also kind of holding out for the Mini to support dual-head (at different resolutions), but that'll probably never happen.
Highly unlikely. That would make it a possible alternative for some users to the Mac Pro, and you will never see that happen so long as The Steve is in charge.
For the same reason we'll never see a mid-range Mac tower until he's gone, despite the demand for one.
UAC is an example of both listening to the customer and at the same time ignoring them. They gave them the security they wanted but they didn't deliver it to them in a way they wanted.
Of course. That's because what the "customer" wants - magic pixie dust that can secure their computer with no tradeofs or downsides - doesn't exist.
I've never understood how you can want to 'protect' your work but use everyone else's.
For the same reason you might want to be able to patent your never-seen-before Super Automatic Frobulator 3000 and make money from it, without having to pay royalties to the milkman, your teachers, and everyone else remotely related to your ability to invent.
Why not GIVE the English language a term for free-libre eg.
Because the "free as in freedom" definition in English is easy to determine from context, except when people like Stallman deliberately make it confusing. Just like when politicians use names like "The PATRIOT act".
The problem is not the language, the problem is abusing the language.
BSD makes the end user free. GPL makes the code free. You can't really have it both ways (because there will always be end users who want to make the code non-free).
You can't make BSD code "non-free". You can add your own code, and make the resultant product "non-free", but the original BSD-licensed code, will remain BSD licensed.
The big difference between the BSD and GPL, is with the BSD you're stating what you want to do with your code, but with the GPL you're stating what you want to do with other people's code.
Personally I would rather go back to the old way, where the DRM software is on whatever disc(or website,etc) that I want to access and then give me the CHOICE on whether to install it or not.
Practically speaking, it is. If you aren't using DRM-encumbered media, the protected path is not activated.
So I am really interested in whether protected path is active in Win7 or not.
It will be the same as Vista - only active when you're using it [with DRM-encumbered media].
Mostly because a serial terminal can be managed remotely, and because that video card takes up more space and electricity than a serial port.
A regular video card can also be "managed remotely" in the same fashion and, well, it's the whole *point* of a LOM card.
And yet, I seem to remember not needing a serial port either. It's a headless machine; let it be headless.
Not having _any_ way to connect a console directly to a machine is asking for trouble. 'Headless' typically means 'without a console attached' not 'without any way to attach a console'.
Must be a recent phenomenon, then.
Maybe if you call the last 8-10 years "recent", because that's at least how long video cards have been standard on the majority of servers sold.
I certainly remember buying motherboards without video cards, which would run fine without them. If it was unbootable for some reason, you'd go find a spare PCI video card and use that.
"Motherboards" ? "Find a spare PCI video card" ? We're talking about server hardware, not DIY-in-the-basement projects (and even for the latter, it is serial ports, not video, that is becoming harder to find on motherboards).
Most server hardware, bought from Dell, HP, IBM, et al, comes with a video card, and has for quite a while.
And yet, we're not necessarily talking about hardware, either. Consider virtual machines, and the problem compounds. You now need a virtual display somewhere, either by virtualizing access to the actual video hardware, or by running a video card in software (slow). Contrast to a Linux VM, which ends up using a pseudo terminal.
Again, the difference in the real world is zero. Once they're installed, you're only going to use the local display hardware (be it real or virtualised) in emergencies. How "fast" it is, is irrelevant when it isn't doing anything.
The main reason I consider this to be moronic, though, is how completely unnecessary it should be. It speaks volumes about the brittleness of the software. Even if it had no practical implication -- and I believe it does -- what's a good reason for requiring a video card to be present? For not being able to simply run an RDP server, or cmd.exe over a serial console?
For not wasting development time and money handling a scenario relevant to a vanishingly small proportion of users. "Optimise for the common case" is a fairly solid engineering principle, and one that is being employed here.
15-odd years ago, back in the early '90s, "needs a video card" was an argument that may have carried a bit of weight in a world where the majority of server-room infrastructure was based around serial consoles and few servers came with video included. Today, when IP KVMs are common, Lights-Out-Management cards (delivering more benefits than just console redirection) come with all but the lowest-end machines, and Blades are rapidly growing in popularity, it's just silly.
I don't have to use it to think that requiring a video card on a server is fucking moronic.
Why is it any different to "requiring" a serial port or a Lights-out-management card ?
Incidentally, I doubt the vast majority of hardware engineers are "moronic", yet for some reason they think including a video card is a reasonably good idea.
And who knows what Windows 7 will bring, it may be that in the final release they remove all compatibility with Office below 2007 in which case showing people that they might not have to be retrained with the (IMO) horrid "ribbon" interface of Office 2007 but a more familiar one of OOo might be enough to convince your boss to go with the free app even if it might take more admin work to make it work.
It's always hilarious to hear the various paranoid rants about how Microsoft is going to deliberately break $OLDPROGRAM so everyone has to upgrade, despite them having one of the best records for legacy support in the industry.
A better example of FUD, it is difficult to think of.
What is wrong with the intellectual insights of children?
They tend to be short-sighted, ignorant and inexperienced.
Very often they don't beat around the bushes and tell it like it is.
That doesn't make two kids standing on either side of the playground yelling names at each other any less childish and immature.
Children are not morons.
I never suggested children were morons. Straw man, much ?
Uneducated? Honestly, where have you been all these years when the pursuit of profit by this company has meant the consistent breaking of the law in different localities worldwide?
Looking at all the other companies who are behaving in vastly more damaging and immoral ways.
M$ is a moniker far too polite to refer to this company.
Oh, grow up and get some perspective. People like you seem to think Microsoft is a poster child for corporate misbehaviour, but on a scale of 1-10 they wouldn't even make it to a '5'. Tobacco, mining, oil, banking - those are just a few types of businesses responsible for causing widespread, severe and lasting harm on an individual level, yet your big concern is not being able to buy a particular model of Dell PC without Windows ?
I thought credibility was measured by analyzing the validity of other people's comments.
The use of logical fallacies like ad hominems *does* hurt the fundamental validity of their argument(s).
I can use M$ to refer to this company and that should not dent my credibility in the slightest as long as this use is backed up by informed opinion.
Well, it does. Just like no-one is going to take the guys calling Obama the anti-christ seriously, even if they happen to have the odd valid and reasonable point. It's not worth the effort when you can find the same valid and reasonable points from people who can express them in a mature and inoffensive fashion.
You can take this to heart, and strive for a polite and civil discussion, or you can ignore it and act like a ciildish twit. Rest assured, however, that former will get you a vastly more attentive, interested and open audience than the latter, whether you're talking to your parents, your boss, or anyone else.
Right. Question is whether the disk array is concatenating the drives somehow, or if ZFS can actually see each individual drive. I would think the latter would be much more useful.
Given it's the ZFS folks at Sun, it will be the latter.
"JBOD" in this context will be a reference to the style of disk array (eg: vs one with a RAID controller like the Dell MD3000), not the ZFS RAID level.
What makes you question the credibility of one statement vs the other? They say the same exact thing. Is your thinking that since the person used M$ he must be biased and not like Microsoft? Of course he does not like them, it was clearly stated.
No, I think he lacks the maturity to make a statement without resorting to childish name calling. That is typically indicative of a mindset that does not lend itself to objective, reasoned thinking which, in turn, suggests that their overall arguments may be similarly poorly constructed.
If you would prefer a more formal criticism, the ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy. Use of logical fallacies reduces credibility, as they are a sign of a fundamentally poor argument.
Far from a more accurate description because you did not just shake your head bemusedly, you posted a reply specifically stating the person was childish, uneducated, like a 10 year old, and questioned the credibility (but offered nothing that actually questioned it).
Actually, I did just ignore it and move on, which is why my response was to your question, and not mikael's rant.
Those sound like someone "pissed off" to me, not someone just shrugging it off and shaking their head. If you did that, your post(s) would not be here complaining about it.
Hundreds (probably thousands) of ad hominem attacks against Microsoft, et al, are posted on Slashdot every day. The fact I've made a handful of posts only tangentially related to the topic in ~10 years of Slashdot reading seems to indicate that "shaking my head bemusedly" is a far more accurate description of my typical reaction than being "pissed off".
Different people have different opinions and express them in a different way than you would.
Indeed. But the person making an argument with calm, reasoned, polite terms is more credible than the person doing so with immature, childish name-calling even if they're saying the same thing.
They may not always be the same opinion you have and they may actually have a reason to have that opinion.
Something that, at no stage, have I ever disagreed with. All I have done is pointed out that the delivery of an argument, not just the content, factors in its credibility. Which is why, for example, so few people take twitter seriously, even though even he occasionally manages to raise a valid point (often by accident, I suspect) in amongst his masses of anti-Microsoft bile.
Civil discourse is an essential part of productive discussion.
Actually, I am familiar with some of those apps. The difference is that they tend to be highly specialized and the result of many more years of development and typically don't nickel and dime you to death like microsoft products. You pay your fee and you use the program. You don't get hit up for additional fees for every petty little feature you might try to use.
High-end software (and software attached to hardware - eg: SANs) is legend for "nickel and diming" to add bits of functionality (only it tends to be more like "$thousanded and $ten-thousanded").
I'm not quite sure how you think you're getting "nickel and dimed" by Microsoft but not by other vendors, or why the 5-20 years they put into developing their software somehow didn't happen, but they certainly don't seem any worse to me than anyone else (and substantially better than some).
Slashdot Mirror
In short, TCO isn't just marketing-speak. Apple hardware isn't *that* expensive, and if a little extra money up-front can save me more money in the long-run (in support costs, for example), then I'd be stupid not to evaluate that option.
Just did a quick comparison of an Xserve and a Dell PE1950:
Dual 2.8Ghz quad-core CPUs
8G RAM (4x2, no option for 2x4 from Apple)
3x300G@15k 3.5" drives (Xserve), 4x300G@10k 2.5" drives (PE1950)
Hardware RAID
Dual PSUs
DRAC remote management (PE1950) (Xserve has no equivalent)
1-year warranty (Xserve), 3 year warranty (PE2950).
Xserve: $7,750, PE1950: $6,300
Let's not forget that the minimum buy-in for an Xserve is $3,000, whereas an equivalently-specced Dell R200 is about 1/3rd that amount.
Also, if you buy an Xserv, you can a copy with OSX server with unlimited client licenses. No more worrying about CALs-- and CALs are a big hidden cost in choosing to use Windows/Exchange.
In the grand scheme of things, the cost of CALs is miniscule.
As far as technical merit, Apple has it in spades. It's real Unix running most of the same hardware that long-trusted Unix servers run. There's no problem there.
Yes, but it only kind of looks, feels, and tastes like a UNIX, so a standard UNIX-jockey is not going to be highly productive.
However, at least the Finder is better than Explorer for windows (or whatever the file manager is called on vista nowadays).
No way. Windows-95-era Explorer is _still_ a better file manager than Finder is today. Hell, Finder doesn't even have a keyboard shortcut for 'cut'(/move) or a decent directory-tree+file-list view.
Every time I have to do some file reorganisation on my wife's MBP, I curse just how atrociously bad Finder is at doing so.
I think the /. crowd has yet to find a file manager they actually like. Until then I would say the Finder is the head of pack, though I use an alternative on my Mac, most of the time.
Err, what ? You seriously think a file manager that doesn't have a decent split-pane directory-tree+file-list view (essential for working with any non-trivial directory structure) and lacks a keyboard shortcut for 'move' is going to be seen with anything but derision by the Slashdot crowd ?
As a file browser Finder is tolerably adequate. As a file manager it's awful. *DOS* had better graphical file managers twenty years ago, than Finder.
None of that has anything to do with my post...
You can still get as rich as you want, but you have to pay your fair share to society for the managment of the ever growing pool of resources you individually consume. (for example: why should the poor be forced to subsidize the greater value the rich get from police? After all, it's not the poor who are worried about people breaking in and stealing the tiffany glasswork. Let the wealthy pay their fair share for law enforcement)
I agree with most of what you're saying, but this is just a load of bollocks. The "rich" have a much, much lower impact on public and social services than the "not rich". For example, while, certainly, the rich have more to lose if they are robbed, their houses don't take any more resources to 'protect'. They also tend to fit out their houses with fancy security systems, or hire private security, or have proper insurance, etc, thus reducing their overall burden on society even when they are robbed.
The idea that the "rich" use a disproportionately (or even relatively) high amount of social services doesn't even pass the laugh test. The complete opposite is true.
Of course, I'm also kind of holding out for the Mini to support dual-head (at different resolutions), but that'll probably never happen.
Highly unlikely. That would make it a possible alternative for some users to the Mac Pro, and you will never see that happen so long as The Steve is in charge.
For the same reason we'll never see a mid-range Mac tower until he's gone, despite the demand for one.
UAC is an example of both listening to the customer and at the same time ignoring them. They gave them the security they wanted but they didn't deliver it to them in a way they wanted.
Of course. That's because what the "customer" wants - magic pixie dust that can secure their computer with no tradeofs or downsides - doesn't exist.
I've never understood how you can want to 'protect' your work but use everyone else's.
For the same reason you might want to be able to patent your never-seen-before Super Automatic Frobulator 3000 and make money from it, without having to pay royalties to the milkman, your teachers, and everyone else remotely related to your ability to invent.
Why not GIVE the English language a term for free-libre eg.
Because the "free as in freedom" definition in English is easy to determine from context, except when people like Stallman deliberately make it confusing. Just like when politicians use names like "The PATRIOT act".
The problem is not the language, the problem is abusing the language.
BSD makes the end user free. GPL makes the code free. You can't really have it both ways (because there will always be end users who want to make the code non-free).
You can't make BSD code "non-free". You can add your own code, and make the resultant product "non-free", but the original BSD-licensed code, will remain BSD licensed.
The big difference between the BSD and GPL, is with the BSD you're stating what you want to do with your code, but with the GPL you're stating what you want to do with other people's code.
You can dance all you want, but the truth is we have no evidence that they even performed testing since there are no numbers.
How would the situation be any different if he had provided numbers ? They could, equally, be just made up.
If there are numbers out there, other people can compare and go "hey, that isn't what I got using the exact same setup as you tested with", etc.
They can do that now. Take the same hardware, run the same tests, and see if they get the same rankings.
(Yes NT 4.0 versions had 64bit modes and used 48bit addressing space on hardware capable of it, like the DEC Alpha)
Windows NT 4.0 on Alpha was (rather famously) only 32 bit.
Windows 2000 on Alpha had a fully 64 bit build, but sadly was never released (it came very close though - RC1 or RC2 from memory).
Personally I would rather go back to the old way, where the DRM software is on whatever disc(or website,etc) that I want to access and then give me the CHOICE on whether to install it or not.
Practically speaking, it is. If you aren't using DRM-encumbered media, the protected path is not activated.
So I am really interested in whether protected path is active in Win7 or not.
It will be the same as Vista - only active when you're using it [with DRM-encumbered media].
Mostly because a serial terminal can be managed remotely, and because that video card takes up more space and electricity than a serial port.
A regular video card can also be "managed remotely" in the same fashion and, well, it's the whole *point* of a LOM card.
And yet, I seem to remember not needing a serial port either. It's a headless machine; let it be headless.
Not having _any_ way to connect a console directly to a machine is asking for trouble. 'Headless' typically means 'without a console attached' not 'without any way to attach a console'.
Must be a recent phenomenon, then.
Maybe if you call the last 8-10 years "recent", because that's at least how long video cards have been standard on the majority of servers sold.
I certainly remember buying motherboards without video cards, which would run fine without them. If it was unbootable for some reason, you'd go find a spare PCI video card and use that.
"Motherboards" ? "Find a spare PCI video card" ? We're talking about server hardware, not DIY-in-the-basement projects (and even for the latter, it is serial ports, not video, that is becoming harder to find on motherboards).
Most server hardware, bought from Dell, HP, IBM, et al, comes with a video card, and has for quite a while.
And yet, we're not necessarily talking about hardware, either. Consider virtual machines, and the problem compounds. You now need a virtual display somewhere, either by virtualizing access to the actual video hardware, or by running a video card in software (slow). Contrast to a Linux VM, which ends up using a pseudo terminal.
Again, the difference in the real world is zero. Once they're installed, you're only going to use the local display hardware (be it real or virtualised) in emergencies. How "fast" it is, is irrelevant when it isn't doing anything.
The main reason I consider this to be moronic, though, is how completely unnecessary it should be. It speaks volumes about the brittleness of the software. Even if it had no practical implication -- and I believe it does -- what's a good reason for requiring a video card to be present? For not being able to simply run an RDP server, or cmd.exe over a serial console?
For not wasting development time and money handling a scenario relevant to a vanishingly small proportion of users. "Optimise for the common case" is a fairly solid engineering principle, and one that is being employed here.
15-odd years ago, back in the early '90s, "needs a video card" was an argument that may have carried a bit of weight in a world where the majority of server-room infrastructure was based around serial consoles and few servers came with video included. Today, when IP KVMs are common, Lights-Out-Management cards (delivering more benefits than just console redirection) come with all but the lowest-end machines, and Blades are rapidly growing in popularity, it's just silly.
I don't have to use it to think that requiring a video card on a server is fucking moronic.
Why is it any different to "requiring" a serial port or a Lights-out-management card ?
Incidentally, I doubt the vast majority of hardware engineers are "moronic", yet for some reason they think including a video card is a reasonably good idea.
And who knows what Windows 7 will bring, it may be that in the final release they remove all compatibility with Office below 2007 in which case showing people that they might not have to be retrained with the (IMO) horrid "ribbon" interface of Office 2007 but a more familiar one of OOo might be enough to convince your boss to go with the free app even if it might take more admin work to make it work.
It's always hilarious to hear the various paranoid rants about how Microsoft is going to deliberately break $OLDPROGRAM so everyone has to upgrade, despite them having one of the best records for legacy support in the industry.
A better example of FUD, it is difficult to think of.
Who are you to decide what is childish or mature?
Someone who's right.
What is wrong with the intellectual insights of children?
They tend to be short-sighted, ignorant and inexperienced.
Very often they don't beat around the bushes and tell it like it is.
That doesn't make two kids standing on either side of the playground yelling names at each other any less childish and immature.
Children are not morons.
I never suggested children were morons. Straw man, much ?
Uneducated? Honestly, where have you been all these years when the pursuit of profit by this company has meant the consistent breaking of the law in different localities worldwide?
Looking at all the other companies who are behaving in vastly more damaging and immoral ways.
M$ is a moniker far too polite to refer to this company.
Oh, grow up and get some perspective. People like you seem to think Microsoft is a poster child for corporate misbehaviour, but on a scale of 1-10 they wouldn't even make it to a '5'. Tobacco, mining, oil, banking - those are just a few types of businesses responsible for causing widespread, severe and lasting harm on an individual level, yet your big concern is not being able to buy a particular model of Dell PC without Windows ?
I thought credibility was measured by analyzing the validity of other people's comments.
The use of logical fallacies like ad hominems *does* hurt the fundamental validity of their argument(s).
I can use M$ to refer to this company and that should not dent my credibility in the slightest as long as this use is backed up by informed opinion.
Well, it does. Just like no-one is going to take the guys calling Obama the anti-christ seriously, even if they happen to have the odd valid and reasonable point. It's not worth the effort when you can find the same valid and reasonable points from people who can express them in a mature and inoffensive fashion.
You can take this to heart, and strive for a polite and civil discussion, or you can ignore it and act like a ciildish twit. Rest assured, however, that former will get you a vastly more attentive, interested and open audience than the latter, whether you're talking to your parents, your boss, or anyone else.
The point is, Microsoft did commit illegal acts, which its competitors could have done just as easily with or without a monopoly.
Actually, no they couldn't, since many of those acts were only illegal *because* they had a monopoly.
Right. Question is whether the disk array is concatenating the drives somehow, or if ZFS can actually see each individual drive. I would think the latter would be much more useful.
Given it's the ZFS folks at Sun, it will be the latter.
Most games are between 3 - 30 million dollars to make, and 80% of them don't make money.
Genuinely "don't make money", or Hollywood-style "don't make money" ?
Or did I just mis-hear him?
"JBOD" in this context will be a reference to the style of disk array (eg: vs one with a RAID controller like the Dell MD3000), not the ZFS RAID level.
What makes you question the credibility of one statement vs the other? They say the same exact thing. Is your thinking that since the person used M$ he must be biased and not like Microsoft? Of course he does not like them, it was clearly stated.
No, I think he lacks the maturity to make a statement without resorting to childish name calling. That is typically indicative of a mindset that does not lend itself to objective, reasoned thinking which, in turn, suggests that their overall arguments may be similarly poorly constructed.
If you would prefer a more formal criticism, the ad hominem attack is a logical fallacy. Use of logical fallacies reduces credibility, as they are a sign of a fundamentally poor argument.
Far from a more accurate description because you did not just shake your head bemusedly, you posted a reply specifically stating the person was childish, uneducated, like a 10 year old, and questioned the credibility (but offered nothing that actually questioned it).
Actually, I did just ignore it and move on, which is why my response was to your question, and not mikael's rant.
Those sound like someone "pissed off" to me, not someone just shrugging it off and shaking their head. If you did that, your post(s) would not be here complaining about it.
Hundreds (probably thousands) of ad hominem attacks against Microsoft, et al, are posted on Slashdot every day. The fact I've made a handful of posts only tangentially related to the topic in ~10 years of Slashdot reading seems to indicate that "shaking my head bemusedly" is a far more accurate description of my typical reaction than being "pissed off".
Different people have different opinions and express them in a different way than you would.
Indeed. But the person making an argument with calm, reasoned, polite terms is more credible than the person doing so with immature, childish name-calling even if they're saying the same thing.
They may not always be the same opinion you have and they may actually have a reason to have that opinion.
Something that, at no stage, have I ever disagreed with. All I have done is pointed out that the delivery of an argument, not just the content, factors in its credibility. Which is why, for example, so few people take twitter seriously, even though even he occasionally manages to raise a valid point (often by accident, I suspect) in amongst his masses of anti-Microsoft bile.
Civil discourse is an essential part of productive discussion.
Actually, I am familiar with some of those apps. The difference is that they tend to be highly specialized and the result of many more years of development and typically don't nickel and dime you to death like microsoft products. You pay your fee and you use the program. You don't get hit up for additional fees for every petty little feature you might try to use.
High-end software (and software attached to hardware - eg: SANs) is legend for "nickel and diming" to add bits of functionality (only it tends to be more like "$thousanded and $ten-thousanded").
I'm not quite sure how you think you're getting "nickel and dimed" by Microsoft but not by other vendors, or why the 5-20 years they put into developing their software somehow didn't happen, but they certainly don't seem any worse to me than anyone else (and substantially better than some).
the terms serve their purpose well as long as they piss off people like you.
Can't say they "piss me off" in the slightest. "Shake my head bemusedly" would probably be a more accurate description.
One purpose they do serve, however, is as a barometer of a poster's credibility. As do posts like yours.