I honestly haven't read all the comments here.. But, I find it absolutely amazing that Slashdot picked this up and every major news outlet online (cnn, foxnews, msnbc, etc) don't have ANY mention of it. While I agree that its one of those actions that's really just self-serving, and point-making.. It's amazing to me that it isn't even second page news. Then again, I had to watch the Daily Show to hear about the Intelligence Committee's famed "Phase 2" report. Big up to John Stewart!
I've seen IBM do things like this before. I'm sure we all remember the fairly recent story of their plans to convert to VoIP. When you're a company the size of IBM (approx 350k employees worldwide).. Aside from a workforce, you have another very useful tool. A large testbed for refining both technology as well as sales/deployment strategy. Working out the kinks in systems you want to sell (IBM's shift toward services) as well as being able to say, "Hey. We did it company-wide, and it works for us" in a sales pitch to companies small and large. Its all about strategy. Definitely an intelligent way to testmarket things such as a Business Linux Desktop... prove it works.. and sell the idea to the skeptics. It used to be that "Nobody got fired for buying IBM" While that isn't necessarily true anymore, it just shows that while IBM has shown itself to be a progressive company, they still carry the weight they did when they were that evil empire of old.
I do agree with you.. If they were going to use dumb terminals, they should have used wyse winterms in the windows example. Even with all the lisencing hell you'd have to go through and pay for, it would have been much cheaper and easier to maintain than an all-pc network.
Just as a sidebar, it still would have been more expensive than the UNIX net they proposed.
For the large corporation... and especially one that may continue to expand its network, etc.. There is one other business consideration.
UNIX admins are much fewer and further between than an NT admin.. They're more expensive and harder to replace.
When you use NT, chances are that if a sysadmin leaves its not a huge feat to bring in a replacement who can jump right into it.
You know... the question that I and my friend Jonathan were discussing yesterday was... "How much of our civil rights are we willing to lose for security?"
I'm having a really hard time with this. Just to give a little bit of context.. my parents were both Pakistani and moved here about five or six years before I was born.
Anyway.. I work out in Arizona and my job requires me to travel from time to time.. And look at me.. middle-eastern (sort of), early 20s.. travelling alone and single.
These random security checks always manage to pick me out of the crowd.
in san jose i was asked for my passport.. and when i told them i didn't have one i was detained and missed my flight. last i checked, you didn't need a passport to cross a state line.
sorry.. i didn'tk now i had to have all my papers in order for random inspection.
okay.. so i'm a tad bitter.. but.. blah..
Sounds far fetched? It's not really. Even Microsoft knows it. That is why they are pushing renting software rather than selling it. With renting they have an income stream without having to sell new software. I did not think they would succeed in renting software, until it dawned on me that already had succeeded with Windows. I didn't even think of this one!
Just as an IBM comparison... remember the IBM of the 80s? Mainframes and other big bundles. IBM all but stopped selling their hardware. They started to rent it to corporations along with a lucrative service contract... Almost like buying windows.. paying the monthly fee to keep using it.. and then being forced to pay a tech support fee.
This killed IBM because other technology was found (ahem, Windows.. i love the irony) that could be bought.. and for which people could be HIRED to support.
It looks like things are coming right back around to where they were. IBM soon realized that by forcing a service contract or not allowing companies to buy and support mainframes themselves, they were just making themselves less palletable as a provider of business solutions.
Re:The huge difference between the two
on
Microsoft's Future
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· Score: 1
While IBM may in fact be a great innovator, don't take their number of patents as evidence of anything.
Well. I would have to disagree with you there.. partially. I think perhaps I may have stated it a bit too strongly.
But if you look a little deeper than the surface of my words...you'll see the point.
Their number of patents don't equal innovation.. But the fact that they turn out so many is evidence of a work environment that fosters development.
A company can never be innovative on its own. It can only provide the appropriate environment... its the employees who think up cool shit that provide the innovation.
Re:The huge difference between the two
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 1
Absolutely. If you don't grow, you die. And once you hit a growth ceiling.. you don't grow.
Okay, so that's a bit backwards.
The problem that IBM got into went far beyond just "not turning a profit"... Departments that weren't producing were still growing their budgets... people who had been there 20 years were still getting huge raises.
Aside from migrating IBM from a manufacturing based industry to a service industry, Gerstner also put a great deal more emphasis on results.
The problem with some of these large successful companies is that they get lazy. From the CEO all the way down to the R&D guy wearing a lab coat.
I don't think that this is microsoft's problem. Microsoft isn't a conglomeration of lazy programmers that aren't turning out.
Microsoft's problem is one of corporate strategy. IBM's fix to their financial situation was simply to conserve money and shift gears as far as company goals.
Microsoft needs to concentrate on what they do well.. and admit that other people do other things better. Its only then that they'll be able to play well with the competition. This whole idea that you must eliminate your competition is about as archaeic as the idea of monopoly. It's never worked in the long-term.
Case in point... IBM manufacturers a piece of software called Tivoli. The few people that I know who work in Storage Systems management don't really think too highly of it. IBM's solution to an under-par piece of software is to support its competition (Microsoft SMS).... They didn't just take Tivoli and cram it down their customers' throats.
The huge difference between the two
on
Microsoft's Future
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
By the time you get to this post, you know all about IBM's near death experience of the early 90s.
Its true, IBM set standards.. and a lot of them. But did you know that IBM still puts out more patents than any other corporation in the world (per year)?
They're still a company that innovates.
What they realized was that instead of innovating and then trying to force that upon users.. It was far lest costly for them to just toss out a few options and let users go along with them.
The moved from the manufacturing industry to a service industry.. which is why, in the recent slump, they've managed to stay relatively strong despite losses.
The thing is.. IBM's a company that services everything... not just AIX running on RS/6000s or Aptivas or Thinkpads. IBM is huge on supporting and partnering with its competition as well. Global Services has a larger NT support team than microsofts! They support sun too.
Anyway.. what's the point of all of this?
IBM changed its philosophy to diversify.
I don't see microsoft going down that road. Even though they're strategy is failing (or is at leasted doomed to).. they seem very pigheaded about continuing on the same route.
If they stay on the track they're on, they'll spiral down just like IBM almost did.
This is actually something I learned about a few semesters ago. These chemicals are found inside little vacules [sp] within every cell.
They are actually supposed to protect us against things like cancer. If an error is found during/after cellular reproduction, they dissolve the cell from the inside out.
The key now, is to find out why these little sacs aren't triggered in cancer cells (cancer cells obviously being flawed)
As for the fountain of youth? I dont know about that.
If they are implying in this article that by stopping the function of this enzyme they might get people to live longer, everything I know says that its a bad idea.
This might let individual cells live longer, but it doesn't necessarily mean that people will live longer as a result.
More likely, it will cause the growth of tumours and defects as "broken" cells are allowed to reproduce.
schmim
Slashdot Mirror
And this was flagged as terrorism because of what .. geographic location? Its like me flagging every story that comes out of the south with racism.
Unrelated, and unfair tag for a wholy tech story.
I honestly haven't read all the comments here .. .. It's amazing to me that it isn't even second page news.
But, I find it absolutely amazing that Slashdot picked this up and every major news outlet online (cnn, foxnews, msnbc, etc) don't have ANY mention of it.
While I agree that its one of those actions that's really just self-serving, and point-making
Then again, I had to watch the Daily Show to hear about the Intelligence Committee's famed "Phase 2" report.
Big up to John Stewart!
I've seen IBM do things like this before. I'm sure we all remember the fairly recent story of their plans to convert to VoIP. .. Aside from a workforce, you have another very useful tool. A large testbed for refining both technology as well as sales/deployment strategy. ... prove it works .. and sell the idea to the skeptics.
When you're a company the size of IBM (approx 350k employees worldwide)
Working out the kinks in systems you want to sell (IBM's shift toward services) as well as being able to say, "Hey. We did it company-wide, and it works for us" in a sales pitch to companies small and large.
Its all about strategy. Definitely an intelligent way to testmarket things such as a Business Linux Desktop
It used to be that "Nobody got fired for buying IBM"
While that isn't necessarily true anymore, it just shows that while IBM has shown itself to be a progressive company, they still carry the weight they did when they were that evil empire of old.
I'll be ridin' one of these around instead.
http://www.transamws6.com/pics/goped.jpg
I do agree with you .. If they were going to use dumb terminals, they should have used wyse winterms in the windows example. Even with all the lisencing hell you'd have to go through and pay for, it would have been much cheaper and easier to maintain than an all-pc network.
Just as a sidebar, it still would have been more expensive than the UNIX net they proposed.
Imran
For the large corporation ... and especially one that may continue to expand its network, etc .. There is one other business consideration.
UNIX admins are much fewer and further between than an NT admin.. They're more expensive and harder to replace.
When you use NT, chances are that if a sysadmin leaves its not a huge feat to bring in a replacement who can jump right into it.
You know ... the question that I and my friend Jonathan were discussing yesterday was ... "How much of our civil rights are we willing to lose for security?"
.. my parents were both Pakistani and moved here about five or six years before I was born.
.. middle-eastern (sort of), early 20s.. travelling alone and single.
.. blah..
I'm having a really hard time with this. Just to give a little bit of context
Anyway.. I work out in Arizona and my job requires me to travel from time to time.. And look at me
These random security checks always manage to pick me out of the crowd.
in san jose i was asked for my passport.. and when i told them i didn't have one i was detained and missed my flight. last i checked, you didn't need a passport to cross a state line.
sorry.. i didn'tk now i had to have all my papers in order for random inspection.
okay.. so i'm a tad bitter.. but
Sounds far fetched? It's not really. Even Microsoft knows it. That is why they are pushing renting software rather than selling it. With renting they have an income stream without having to sell new software. I did not think they would succeed in renting software, until it dawned on me that already had succeeded with Windows. ... remember the IBM of the 80s? Mainframes and other big bundles. IBM all but stopped selling their hardware. They started to rent it to corporations along with a lucrative service contract... Almost like buying windows.. paying the monthly fee to keep using it.. and then being forced to pay a tech support fee.
I didn't even think of this one!
Just as an IBM comparison
This killed IBM because other technology was found (ahem, Windows.. i love the irony) that could be bought.. and for which people could be HIRED to support.
It looks like things are coming right back around to where they were. IBM soon realized that by forcing a service contract or not allowing companies to buy and support mainframes themselves, they were just making themselves less palletable as a provider of business solutions.
While IBM may in fact be a great innovator, don't take their number of patents as evidence of anything.
...you'll see the point.
.. But the fact that they turn out so many is evidence of a work environment that fosters development.
Well. I would have to disagree with you there.. partially. I think perhaps I may have stated it a bit too strongly.
But if you look a little deeper than the surface of my words
Their number of patents don't equal innovation
A company can never be innovative on its own. It can only provide the appropriate environment... its the employees who think up cool shit that provide the innovation.
Absolutely. If you don't grow, you die. And once you hit a growth ceiling.. you don't grow. ... Departments that weren't producing were still growing their budgets... people who had been there 20 years were still getting huge raises.
.. and admit that other people do other things better. Its only then that they'll be able to play well with the competition. This whole idea that you must eliminate your competition is about as archaeic as the idea of monopoly. It's never worked in the long-term.
... IBM manufacturers a piece of software called Tivoli. The few people that I know who work in Storage Systems management don't really think too highly of it. IBM's solution to an under-par piece of software is to support its competition (Microsoft SMS).... They didn't just take Tivoli and cram it down their customers' throats.
Okay, so that's a bit backwards.
The problem that IBM got into went far beyond just "not turning a profit"
Aside from migrating IBM from a manufacturing based industry to a service industry, Gerstner also put a great deal more emphasis on results.
The problem with some of these large successful companies is that they get lazy. From the CEO all the way down to the R&D guy wearing a lab coat.
I don't think that this is microsoft's problem. Microsoft isn't a conglomeration of lazy programmers that aren't turning out.
Microsoft's problem is one of corporate strategy. IBM's fix to their financial situation was simply to conserve money and shift gears as far as company goals.
Microsoft needs to concentrate on what they do well
Case in point
By the time you get to this post, you know all about IBM's near death experience of the early 90s. .. It was far lest costly for them to just toss out a few options and let users go along with them.
.. which is why, in the recent slump, they've managed to stay relatively strong despite losses.
.. IBM's a company that services everything... not just AIX running on RS/6000s or Aptivas or Thinkpads. IBM is huge on supporting and partnering with its competition as well. Global Services has a larger NT support team than microsofts! They support sun too.
.. they seem very pigheaded about continuing on the same route.
Its true, IBM set standards.. and a lot of them. But did you know that IBM still puts out more patents than any other corporation in the world (per year)?
They're still a company that innovates.
What they realized was that instead of innovating and then trying to force that upon users
The moved from the manufacturing industry to a service industry
The thing is
Anyway.. what's the point of all of this?
IBM changed its philosophy to diversify.
I don't see microsoft going down that road. Even though they're strategy is failing (or is at leasted doomed to)
If they stay on the track they're on, they'll spiral down just like IBM almost did.
This is actually something I learned about a few semesters ago. These chemicals are found inside little vacules [sp] within every cell. They are actually supposed to protect us against things like cancer. If an error is found during/after cellular reproduction, they dissolve the cell from the inside out. The key now, is to find out why these little sacs aren't triggered in cancer cells (cancer cells obviously being flawed) As for the fountain of youth? I dont know about that. If they are implying in this article that by stopping the function of this enzyme they might get people to live longer, everything I know says that its a bad idea. This might let individual cells live longer, but it doesn't necessarily mean that people will live longer as a result. More likely, it will cause the growth of tumours and defects as "broken" cells are allowed to reproduce. schmim