You would be referring to the tiny niche that doesn't build custom boxes?
I'm referring to the "tiny niches" that:
a) want a mid-range, flexible machine at a reasonable price that isn't welded to someone else's choice of screen.
b) want a business-oriented laptop line with docking station options.
My personal guesstimate is those two markets cover around a third to one half of potential purchasers out there. Any home user for whom gaming is a significant interest. Any business user who needs a slight amount of flexibility in their desktops.
The company I work for, for example, requires the ability to connect two of our own LCDs to machines in a portrait orientation (Radiologist reading stations). To do this with Macs, we would need to buy a quad-core Mac Pro *and* upgrade with an ATI video card (since Apple won't fix their Nvidia drivers to support display rotation). When a Dell PC at literally half the price can do the job just as well, it makes Apple an impossible sell.
Regarding laptops, the lack of a decent docking station is about the only thing stopping me (and several colleagues) from buying MacBook Pros. The other thing obvious thing missing in this arena is a 12" PowerBook replacement (why they didn't take the opportunity to make the black MB such a machine is beyond me).
The suggestion that the only customers Apple doesn't have products catering to are "custom box builders" is ridiculous when such gaping and obvious holes in Apple's lineup exist. One is a mid-range tower (I can personally see room for two discrete models here, but one would quite adequately fill the gap), the other is a business-user-oriented laptop (and, again, room for two - possibly even three - discrete models).
So were applications supposed to deal with the problem of running software as unprivileged users in Windows 95 or Windows 98?
Firstly, Windows NT has been around longer than Windows 9x and always been multiuser.
Secondly, from Windows 98 and Windows 95 OSR3 (not 100% sure on the latter, might even have been OSR2), Windows 9x had the same capabilities for per-user home directories, registry hives, etc. Certainly, it couldn't enforce user separation, but the API infrastructure for developers to write multiuser-friendly apps that would work properly under the multiuser NT-based Windows, was there.
No developer has had an excuse for releasing an application that doesn't run in an unprivileged account (discounting situations where elevated privileges are genuinely necessary, which are few and far between) since *at least* ca. 1998. None.
Maybe someone said it the other way after microsoft specifically coded windows 3.11 to check for drdos and fail.
Except that's not what they did.
The AARD code checks for a *non-Microsoft* DOS, not DR-DOS specifically. Additionally, it was only enabled in the beta versions and was a warning, not a fatal error.
Finally, anyone who knows about the messing around Windows 3.x did with DOS's undocumented, internal memory structures should realise in a minute or two why checking whether or not the code messing with those undocumented data structures was working on data structures it actually knew about, was a prudent idea.
Disabling it doesn't put the money back into my pocket, or spend it on things that are more likely to be usable.
There's an option to turn it off, and then it won't be used. I'd rather have the option there and not use it than not have it when I do need it.
Sounds like an argument for Apple's cheapest machine to be a Mac Pro with a pair of 30" Cinema displays...
It's like how I'll be moving to Florida this summer, but I'm still buying a car that has heated seats. Yes, it's a package deal thing (just like the Mac, have to buy it at order time and can't add it in later) but I'd rather have that switch there instead of a blank hole cover on the occasional time when I do want to warm up my butt. If I don't want to use it, I can just leave the switch on "off".
There's the difference. The _vast_ majority of desktop PCs derive no benefit from having wifi included by default. They will never use it, because cheaper, faster, more reliable wired networking infrastructure already exists and is no less convenient to connect to.
One cannot make the same argument for the seats in a car or many other "options" in computers like, say, DVD drives.
The arguments for non-optional wifi in *desktop PCs* are weak, at best.
I use wireless in my Mac Pro. I help manage the wireless network at my institution, and it's cheaper to put a wireless card in my desktop than it is to get another laptop.
Note that I didn't say it should be an option, merely that the arguments for making it non-optional are weak.
_Most_ desktop machines are located easily within reach of (faster, cheaper) wired connectivity (usually by virtue of being near a power point) and are rarely moved. Most desktops derive no benefit from the possibility of wireless connectivity and for them it is nothing more than additional cost that could have been spent on something useful, like RAM.
I don't want to talk past each other with statistics, because that's been done to death, and frankly neither side ever seems to trounce the other. All I know is that I keep seeing wealthy Canadians and even Europeans coming to the States for their elective procedures. You can live a long time and still be miserable because you can't get the knee surgery that you need.
This is not a apples to apples comparison. You are highlighting the difference between getting your knee reconstruction done in, say, 3 months instead of 12.
What you should be thinking about is the difference between getting your knee reconstruction done in 12 months vs not getting it done at all.
The other problem is that the US market is currently subsidizing drug and equipment development (even in other countries).
The US is not the only place in the world contributing to medical research. _Especially_ when you take out the mostly-worthless lifestyle drugs like Viagra.
There is the other issue, too. The model countries for socialized health care are Germany and France. These countries have horrible economic problems as a result of their social spending. I don't like the thought of 50% unemployment for those under 25. The last thing we need is more government spending.
Firstly, their economic problems are not directly related to socialised healthcare. Secondly, I suggest you cast your net a bit wider and look at places like, say, Australia.
That old canard is getting very tired. When compared to equivalent hardware and bundles, Macs are very competitive.
The problem is as soon as you step outside one of those narrow sets of hardware specification, you're pretty much stuffed when it comes to Macs. This is a problem, because there are 2 - 4 gaping holes in Apple's hardware lineup (and that's just regarding desktops and notebooks).
So, yes, while comparing, say, a 20" iMac to an equivalent PC is quite favourable for the iMac, if you want one of those things the iMac can't deliver (like, say, an upgradable video card or a separate LCD), suddenly the PC becomes a _far_ better deal.
Vista's been rebuilt to work properly as you would expect with non administrator level accounts. Applications should work without error from lower level accounts. People you do not trust to tinker freely with 100% of the entire system should not have administrator access, period.
Strictly speaking, Vista has been kludged so that all those broken applications _assuming_ they have the run of the machine will work without it.
The problem of running software as an unprivileged user has always been because of broken applications, not because of Windows. While Vista gives the illusion of having "fixed" the "problem" due to all the ugly stuff it's doing in the background, unfortunately it's not going to help fix the _real_ problems of incompetent developers and broken software.
(Yet another example of why people who say Microsoft don't bend over backwards to help developers and end users are clueless.)
I think the problem most Slashdotters have is that they can't conceive of building the type of machines Apple sells.
No, the problem is that most Slashdotters - indeed, most "enthusiasts" - want a machine Apple refuses to sell: a single processor box without an integrated LCD, a replacable video card (plus another vacant x16 slot, even with only x8 signalling) and room for two 3.5" hard disks. In fact, I suspect most would be happy with just having a replacable video card and no integrated LCD (I certainly would). So - depending on your perspective - either a headless iMac (which people have been clamouring for since the original iMac was released) or a "Mini Mac Pro".
There are 2 - 4 gaping holes in Apple's product lineup. This is one (or two, depending) of them.
You can't even configure that machine to be comparable to the iMac. To get in the same ballpark, you've got to jump up to an XPS 410, up the CPU to 2.13 GHz, add the 2007WFP and the Radeon 1300 Pro. Now you're at $1487, and you still have half the cache, a slower graphics card, no firewire, no wi-fi, no bluetooth, no webcam, and no remote. And it'll still take up much more space in your office!
An E520 upgraded to these specs is $1229. While it _does_ lack some features the iMac has, on the flipside you have a machine with infinitely more expandability. This may or may not be important to you - but if it is, the iMac simply cannot deliver, nor can any Apple machine until you hit the $2000+ Mac Pro.
This is the problem Apple has. In the tiny niche that their hardware targets, it's a fairly good deal - but if you have needs that are even slightly outside that niche, Apple has nothing for you.
However, if you try to match the basic specs, and a couple of the accessories (ie: no consumer machine today should ship without wifi!) you're not going to save a lot of money over the Mac.
Again, you may or may not "save a lot of money". If you want a machine that's good for gaming, for example, nothing Apple has really delivers until you hit the Mac Pro - a $2200ish minimum buy-in (and that's without a screen). So, yes, while you might get roughly the same PC as an iMac for roughly the same cost, when you want to upgrade the video card 12 months down the track to play new games, on a PC it's a few hundreds dollars worth of upgrade, on the iMac it's impossible (without buying whatever the latest iMac is).
(I would also argue that there's no reason whatsoever for compulsory wifi on non-laptop computers.)
Ah, but if Apple were to support some random PC with their OS, their margin would drop to ZERO very fast. First, they wouldn't be selling their hardware.
Actually, they probably would. These days, in its niches, Apple hardware stacks up quite competitively with the alternatives.
I expect to go to any computer retailer and be able to buy a computer without Windows pre-installed. That's all I want -- I don't dispute anything you wrote.
What about vendors who don't want the overheads of having to deal with multiple operating systems ?
You can pretend these overheads are zero, if you want, but reality dicates otherwise.
Exactly, and this is why a lot less people should be using Windows. As long as Windows is shipped with computers and people have to pay the Microsoft tax, there isn't a free market to speak of.
It is trivial to buy a PC without Windows, if you want to.
The way it's written (or, at least, the way I read it) is you can't use the same Vista license you're using to run your PC, within a VM on that PC.
So, you can't install Vista, then use that same copy of Vista to create (and use) a VM.
With Ultimate, you can - your Vista Ultimate license lets you run one copy "natively" and as many virtualised copies *on that same machine* as you want.
So, to come back to the Mac scenario, you're fine to run Vista either via Boot Camp, or within OS X using parallels.
At least, that's how I'm interpreting it, and that interpretation certainly seems reasonable to me.
Basically they are saying if you want to run Vista on a Mac, you're gonna have to fork up cabbage for an Ultimate edition who's only purpose is to run on a Mac (whether you do it in a VM or via Bootcamp is your business).
Uh, no they're not (as you just argued the paragraph before ?).
Yes, you really are allowed to do damn near anything you want to with it. You bought it, it's your property. You can't make copies for other people due to copyright law, but if you want to install it in a virtual machine running on your toaster then knock yourself out.
You do not "own" anything classed as "intellectual property". You are allowed to use it under the conditions granted to you by a) copyright law and b) the copyright holder.
Yeah, but that's because it actually costs them more to fit them. The car doesn't come with those things fitted and then deliberately dissabled.
While this is true to a degree, it doesn't cost anything close to the additional amount charged, to actually manufacture and fit "optional extras" in vehicles (or, indeed, in anything) - so in essence the situation is identical.
These permissions should look familiar, because they are very close to the same security permissions a user can set for her files today, [...]
I see political correctness continues to run rampant.
The correct gender-neutral term in English is "his" (or he, him, etc). There is no rational argument that can be mounted for using "her" (or similar) - it's both equally as "discriminatory" as "his" _and_ grammatically incorrect.
Ladies, if y'all are feeling oppressed by The Patriarchy, come up with a new word and make it an accepted part of the language. Committing the same offence you're allegedly railing against is nothing more than simple hypocrisy.
Agreed. This clause refers to running Vista in VMs a la VMWare. The concern is that they want you to buy 3 copies of Vista instead of cloning three VMWare images and running 3 machines on one fat piece of hardware.
No, they're not (and the previous EULA - along with most EULAs for most software - would stop that scenario anyway).
This is just another form of disciminatory pricing, like having the Home/Premium/Ultimate split in the first place.
Additionally, the last time I checked the wording of the EULA could quite easily be interpreted to allow a Vista VM running under another OS (just not a re-use of your existing Vista license to run a VM under a "native" install).
you can't really count microsoft in that... they have enough money that they can spend it inefficiently just to make a point.
Your supposition that they do, however, is neither proof nor evidence that they do.
that said, i don't doubt that many organizations do just that... that was never a question, the question is how old and well established is the company? what roles in their enterprise are they using windows based servers for? and how critical are those roles?
Again, I'd be more than happy to bet money Microsoft is Windows basically top to bottom, and have been for a very long time. Microsoft are famous for "eating their own dog food" to "encourage" improvement in their products (the Hotmail example being a prime example).
take for example a large (probably the largest in the country) insulation manufacturer in north western ohio for whom i worked on their helpdesk. they were pretty much windows from top to bottom (AD, exchange, iis, you name it) there was only one major application that ran on sun... the SAP system. in terms of volume of machines and resources sun represented maybe 20% of the overall IT infrastructure. in terms of criticality (if such a word exists) the whole business depended on SAP above all else to track materials, production, shipping, etc.
You are apparently ignoring the effects of inertia. The vast majority of large entities - quite correctly - function on the "if it ain't broke [...]" principle.
This, however, says nothing meaningful about alternative platforms' ability to perform the same task. Migrating something like a SAP instance (or any non-trivial application) to an entirely different (or even slightly different - eg: Solaris to Linux) platform is an enormous and expensive task, and the business case for doing so would need to identify _substantial_ improvements in the target system to justify it. "Will do the job just as well" doesn't even come close.
In short, using examples of well-established unix systems that aren't being migrated to Windows is not evidence that Windows cannot perform the equivalent task (this works both ways as well - eg: desktops not being migrated from Windows to Linux is not evidence Linux cannot work just as well on desktops).
the reason that i think the age of the enterprise is a factor [...]
The age of the enterprise is important because of the aforementioned "if it ain't broke [...]" principle. For a large organisation, even changing vendors for a product (ie: same product, different seller) is a non-trivial exercise. Once a product is entrenched in an enterprise, changing it is a monumental task, even when the advantages of doing so are non-trivial.
Except, in a short time, Vista is going to start causing everyone to need to upgrade to big, honking machines with high power consumption just to run the new interface.
A PC you could buy five years ago will happily run Vista (well, you might need to drop a $30 video card into it, since DX9 cards hadn't been invented back then, but that's pretty much it).
i would imagine that is the case in many large datacenters. to paraphrase the great philosopher jules winnfield: mission critical enterprise applications are not in the same ballpark as windows and linux on x86. it's not even the same sport.
I'd be quite willing to bet money that Microsoft runs most - if not all - of their "enterprise" on Windows-based machines, and that they are not the only large organisation doing so.
Slashdot Mirror
You would be referring to the tiny niche that doesn't build custom boxes?
I'm referring to the "tiny niches" that:
a) want a mid-range, flexible machine at a reasonable price that isn't welded to someone else's choice of screen.
b) want a business-oriented laptop line with docking station options.
My personal guesstimate is those two markets cover around a third to one half of potential purchasers out there. Any home user for whom gaming is a significant interest. Any business user who needs a slight amount of flexibility in their desktops.
The company I work for, for example, requires the ability to connect two of our own LCDs to machines in a portrait orientation (Radiologist reading stations). To do this with Macs, we would need to buy a quad-core Mac Pro *and* upgrade with an ATI video card (since Apple won't fix their Nvidia drivers to support display rotation). When a Dell PC at literally half the price can do the job just as well, it makes Apple an impossible sell.
Regarding laptops, the lack of a decent docking station is about the only thing stopping me (and several colleagues) from buying MacBook Pros. The other thing obvious thing missing in this arena is a 12" PowerBook replacement (why they didn't take the opportunity to make the black MB such a machine is beyond me).
The suggestion that the only customers Apple doesn't have products catering to are "custom box builders" is ridiculous when such gaping and obvious holes in Apple's lineup exist. One is a mid-range tower (I can personally see room for two discrete models here, but one would quite adequately fill the gap), the other is a business-user-oriented laptop (and, again, room for two - possibly even three - discrete models).
So were applications supposed to deal with the problem of running software as unprivileged users in Windows 95 or Windows 98?
Firstly, Windows NT has been around longer than Windows 9x and always been multiuser.
Secondly, from Windows 98 and Windows 95 OSR3 (not 100% sure on the latter, might even have been OSR2), Windows 9x had the same capabilities for per-user home directories, registry hives, etc. Certainly, it couldn't enforce user separation, but the API infrastructure for developers to write multiuser-friendly apps that would work properly under the multiuser NT-based Windows, was there.
No developer has had an excuse for releasing an application that doesn't run in an unprivileged account (discounting situations where elevated privileges are genuinely necessary, which are few and far between) since *at least* ca. 1998. None.
Maybe someone said it the other way after microsoft specifically coded windows 3.11 to check for drdos and fail.
Except that's not what they did.
The AARD code checks for a *non-Microsoft* DOS, not DR-DOS specifically. Additionally, it was only enabled in the beta versions and was a warning, not a fatal error.
Finally, anyone who knows about the messing around Windows 3.x did with DOS's undocumented, internal memory structures should realise in a minute or two why checking whether or not the code messing with those undocumented data structures was working on data structures it actually knew about, was a prudent idea.
So why not disable it?
Disabling it doesn't put the money back into my pocket, or spend it on things that are more likely to be usable.
There's an option to turn it off, and then it won't be used. I'd rather have the option there and not use it than not have it when I do need it.
Sounds like an argument for Apple's cheapest machine to be a Mac Pro with a pair of 30" Cinema displays...
It's like how I'll be moving to Florida this summer, but I'm still buying a car that has heated seats. Yes, it's a package deal thing (just like the Mac, have to buy it at order time and can't add it in later) but I'd rather have that switch there instead of a blank hole cover on the occasional time when I do want to warm up my butt. If I don't want to use it, I can just leave the switch on "off".
There's the difference. The _vast_ majority of desktop PCs derive no benefit from having wifi included by default. They will never use it, because cheaper, faster, more reliable wired networking infrastructure already exists and is no less convenient to connect to.
One cannot make the same argument for the seats in a car or many other "options" in computers like, say, DVD drives.
The arguments for non-optional wifi in *desktop PCs* are weak, at best.
I use wireless in my Mac Pro. I help manage the wireless network at my institution, and it's cheaper to put a wireless card in my desktop than it is to get another laptop.
Note that I didn't say it should be an option, merely that the arguments for making it non-optional are weak.
_Most_ desktop machines are located easily within reach of (faster, cheaper) wired connectivity (usually by virtue of being near a power point) and are rarely moved. Most desktops derive no benefit from the possibility of wireless connectivity and for them it is nothing more than additional cost that could have been spent on something useful, like RAM.
I don't want to talk past each other with statistics, because that's been done to death, and frankly neither side ever seems to trounce the other. All I know is that I keep seeing wealthy Canadians and even Europeans coming to the States for their elective procedures. You can live a long time and still be miserable because you can't get the knee surgery that you need.
This is not a apples to apples comparison. You are highlighting the difference between getting your knee reconstruction done in, say, 3 months instead of 12.
What you should be thinking about is the difference between getting your knee reconstruction done in 12 months vs not getting it done at all.
The other problem is that the US market is currently subsidizing drug and equipment development (even in other countries).
The US is not the only place in the world contributing to medical research. _Especially_ when you take out the mostly-worthless lifestyle drugs like Viagra.
There is the other issue, too. The model countries for socialized health care are Germany and France. These countries have horrible economic problems as a result of their social spending. I don't like the thought of 50% unemployment for those under 25. The last thing we need is more government spending.
Firstly, their economic problems are not directly related to socialised healthcare. Secondly, I suggest you cast your net a bit wider and look at places like, say, Australia.
That old canard is getting very tired. When compared to equivalent hardware and bundles, Macs are very competitive.
The problem is as soon as you step outside one of those narrow sets of hardware specification, you're pretty much stuffed when it comes to Macs. This is a problem, because there are 2 - 4 gaping holes in Apple's hardware lineup (and that's just regarding desktops and notebooks).
So, yes, while comparing, say, a 20" iMac to an equivalent PC is quite favourable for the iMac, if you want one of those things the iMac can't deliver (like, say, an upgradable video card or a separate LCD), suddenly the PC becomes a _far_ better deal.
Vista's been rebuilt to work properly as you would expect with non administrator level accounts. Applications should work without error from lower level accounts. People you do not trust to tinker freely with 100% of the entire system should not have administrator access, period.
Strictly speaking, Vista has been kludged so that all those broken applications _assuming_ they have the run of the machine will work without it.
The problem of running software as an unprivileged user has always been because of broken applications, not because of Windows. While Vista gives the illusion of having "fixed" the "problem" due to all the ugly stuff it's doing in the background, unfortunately it's not going to help fix the _real_ problems of incompetent developers and broken software.
(Yet another example of why people who say Microsoft don't bend over backwards to help developers and end users are clueless.)
Of course. Even Jim Allchin said, "I would buy a Mac today if I was not working at Microsoft."
Of course, he also said that 3 years ago...
I think the problem most Slashdotters have is that they can't conceive of building the type of machines Apple sells.
No, the problem is that most Slashdotters - indeed, most "enthusiasts" - want a machine Apple refuses to sell: a single processor box without an integrated LCD, a replacable video card (plus another vacant x16 slot, even with only x8 signalling) and room for two 3.5" hard disks. In fact, I suspect most would be happy with just having a replacable video card and no integrated LCD (I certainly would). So - depending on your perspective - either a headless iMac (which people have been clamouring for since the original iMac was released) or a "Mini Mac Pro".
There are 2 - 4 gaping holes in Apple's product lineup. This is one (or two, depending) of them.
You can't even configure that machine to be comparable to the iMac. To get in the same ballpark, you've got to jump up to an XPS 410, up the CPU to 2.13 GHz, add the 2007WFP and the Radeon 1300 Pro. Now you're at $1487, and you still have half the cache, a slower graphics card, no firewire, no wi-fi, no bluetooth, no webcam, and no remote. And it'll still take up much more space in your office!
An E520 upgraded to these specs is $1229. While it _does_ lack some features the iMac has, on the flipside you have a machine with infinitely more expandability. This may or may not be important to you - but if it is, the iMac simply cannot deliver, nor can any Apple machine until you hit the $2000+ Mac Pro.
This is the problem Apple has. In the tiny niche that their hardware targets, it's a fairly good deal - but if you have needs that are even slightly outside that niche, Apple has nothing for you.
However, if you try to match the basic specs, and a couple of the accessories (ie: no consumer machine today should ship without wifi!) you're not going to save a lot of money over the Mac.
Again, you may or may not "save a lot of money". If you want a machine that's good for gaming, for example, nothing Apple has really delivers until you hit the Mac Pro - a $2200ish minimum buy-in (and that's without a screen). So, yes, while you might get roughly the same PC as an iMac for roughly the same cost, when you want to upgrade the video card 12 months down the track to play new games, on a PC it's a few hundreds dollars worth of upgrade, on the iMac it's impossible (without buying whatever the latest iMac is).
(I would also argue that there's no reason whatsoever for compulsory wifi on non-laptop computers.)
Ah, but if Apple were to support some random PC with their OS, their margin would drop to ZERO very fast. First, they wouldn't be selling their hardware.
Actually, they probably would. These days, in its niches, Apple hardware stacks up quite competitively with the alternatives.
I expect to go to any computer retailer and be able to buy a computer without Windows pre-installed. That's all I want -- I don't dispute anything you wrote.
What about vendors who don't want the overheads of having to deal with multiple operating systems ?
You can pretend these overheads are zero, if you want, but reality dicates otherwise.
Exactly, and this is why a lot less people should be using Windows. As long as Windows is shipped with computers and people have to pay the Microsoft tax, there isn't a free market to speak of.
It is trivial to buy a PC without Windows, if you want to.
Inaccurate comparison, you're simplifying the situation (intentionally?)
Holy hypocrisy, Batman !
I don't like it. But that's the way it's written.
The way it's written (or, at least, the way I read it) is you can't use the same Vista license you're using to run your PC, within a VM on that PC.
So, you can't install Vista, then use that same copy of Vista to create (and use) a VM.
With Ultimate, you can - your Vista Ultimate license lets you run one copy "natively" and as many virtualised copies *on that same machine* as you want.
So, to come back to the Mac scenario, you're fine to run Vista either via Boot Camp, or within OS X using parallels.
At least, that's how I'm interpreting it, and that interpretation certainly seems reasonable to me.
Basically they are saying if you want to run Vista on a Mac, you're gonna have to fork up cabbage for an Ultimate edition who's only purpose is to run on a Mac (whether you do it in a VM or via Bootcamp is your business).
Uh, no they're not (as you just argued the paragraph before ?).
Yes, you really are allowed to do damn near anything you want to with it. You bought it, it's your property. You can't make copies for other people due to copyright law, but if you want to install it in a virtual machine running on your toaster then knock yourself out.
You do not "own" anything classed as "intellectual property". You are allowed to use it under the conditions granted to you by a) copyright law and b) the copyright holder.
Yeah, but that's because it actually costs them more to fit them. The car doesn't come with those things fitted and then deliberately dissabled.
While this is true to a degree, it doesn't cost anything close to the additional amount charged, to actually manufacture and fit "optional extras" in vehicles (or, indeed, in anything) - so in essence the situation is identical.
These permissions should look familiar, because they are very close to the same security permissions a user can set for her files today, [...]
I see political correctness continues to run rampant.
The correct gender-neutral term in English is "his" (or he, him, etc). There is no rational argument that can be mounted for using "her" (or similar) - it's both equally as "discriminatory" as "his" _and_ grammatically incorrect.
Ladies, if y'all are feeling oppressed by The Patriarchy, come up with a new word and make it an accepted part of the language. Committing the same offence you're allegedly railing against is nothing more than simple hypocrisy.
</RANT>
Agreed. This clause refers to running Vista in VMs a la VMWare. The concern is that they want you to buy 3 copies of Vista instead of cloning three VMWare images and running 3 machines on one fat piece of hardware.
No, they're not (and the previous EULA - along with most EULAs for most software - would stop that scenario anyway).
This is just another form of disciminatory pricing, like having the Home/Premium/Ultimate split in the first place.
Additionally, the last time I checked the wording of the EULA could quite easily be interpreted to allow a Vista VM running under another OS (just not a re-use of your existing Vista license to run a VM under a "native" install).
Aparrently, a lot of their critical back end stuff runs on Solaris and the like... Only the frontend stuff runs windows (for show, mostly).
Were this true, it would be better reported than an off-the-cuff troll on Slashdot.
you can't really count microsoft in that... they have enough money that they can spend it inefficiently just to make a point.
Your supposition that they do, however, is neither proof nor evidence that they do.
that said, i don't doubt that many organizations do just that... that was never a question, the question is how old and well established is the company? what roles in their enterprise are they using windows based servers for? and how critical are those roles?
Again, I'd be more than happy to bet money Microsoft is Windows basically top to bottom, and have been for a very long time. Microsoft are famous for "eating their own dog food" to "encourage" improvement in their products (the Hotmail example being a prime example).
take for example a large (probably the largest in the country) insulation manufacturer in north western ohio for whom i worked on their helpdesk. they were pretty much windows from top to bottom (AD, exchange, iis, you name it) there was only one major application that ran on sun... the SAP system. in terms of volume of machines and resources sun represented maybe 20% of the overall IT infrastructure. in terms of criticality (if such a word exists) the whole business depended on SAP above all else to track materials, production, shipping, etc.
You are apparently ignoring the effects of inertia. The vast majority of large entities - quite correctly - function on the "if it ain't broke [...]" principle.
This, however, says nothing meaningful about alternative platforms' ability to perform the same task. Migrating something like a SAP instance (or any non-trivial application) to an entirely different (or even slightly different - eg: Solaris to Linux) platform is an enormous and expensive task, and the business case for doing so would need to identify _substantial_ improvements in the target system to justify it. "Will do the job just as well" doesn't even come close.
In short, using examples of well-established unix systems that aren't being migrated to Windows is not evidence that Windows cannot perform the equivalent task (this works both ways as well - eg: desktops not being migrated from Windows to Linux is not evidence Linux cannot work just as well on desktops).
the reason that i think the age of the enterprise is a factor [...]
The age of the enterprise is important because of the aforementioned "if it ain't broke [...]" principle. For a large organisation, even changing vendors for a product (ie: same product, different seller) is a non-trivial exercise. Once a product is entrenched in an enterprise, changing it is a monumental task, even when the advantages of doing so are non-trivial.
Except, in a short time, Vista is going to start causing everyone to need to upgrade to big, honking machines with high power consumption just to run the new interface.
A PC you could buy five years ago will happily run Vista (well, you might need to drop a $30 video card into it, since DX9 cards hadn't been invented back then, but that's pretty much it).
Locking down along with no source code is simply security by obscurity.
Untrue. It reduces the surface area for attack by reducing the amount of code typically running at privileged levels.
There WILL be bugs found, and those bugs will have kernel rights. Do you think that is good? Guess what, I dont.
Bugs and bad practices are two wholly separate issues.
i would imagine that is the case in many large datacenters. to paraphrase the great philosopher jules winnfield: mission critical enterprise applications are not in the same ballpark as windows and linux on x86. it's not even the same sport.
I'd be quite willing to bet money that Microsoft runs most - if not all - of their "enterprise" on Windows-based machines, and that they are not the only large organisation doing so.