These include the availability of cheap cassettes on every high street, cheap personal stereos, and the ability to use the same format for a wide range of applications (personal stereo, portable radio/cassette players, in the car, in your hi-fi stack).
So for the Linux Unix guys in user laymans terms this is why windows dominates:
These include the availability of cheap personal computers on every street corner, and the ability to use a vast category of applications made available by mulitple vendors that are standardized and built on windows.
Now back to Microsoft putting Windows on top of Linux. Linux is better, faster, stronger than whatever is living underneath XP now, right? Performance would improve. As Mike Class points out, by not having to develop its own OS, Microsoft could also save money. They wouldn't need however many people are presently devoted to maintaining the underlying OS that isn't supposed to be there.
And what actual data do you have to prove this? Our win200 advanced server smokes our Caldera server both running on the same hardware config, but then again Im comparing SQL server on win 2000 VS MySQL on Linux.
Oh..thats right...I'm sorry Linux pundits..I guess this isnt a fair comparison because SQL server is optimized on windows.....Please.
This is ridiculous. MS persists to achieve its goals, achieve them amidst years of laughter and jokes from Mr Big Iron.
Its a bit late Linux. I'm sure you'll mature, but you need the apps. Then again perhaps this article just proves what I've said before.
Linux just turns more into windows with every so called improvement. Why build what already exists.
In other words, instead of sending a SYN packet like every other TCP/IP application in the world, IE would send out the request packet first of all. Just to check. Just in case the HTTP server was, oh, say, a Microsoft IIS server. Because IIS' HTTP teardown sequence looked like this:
Client Server
1.
...And that's it. The client doesn't FIN, and the server doesn't ACK. In other words, the connection is kept "half-open" on the server end. The reason for this? Why, to make subsequent connections from IE clients faster. If the connection isn't torn down all the way, all IE has to do is send an HTTP request, with no preamble-- and the server will immediately respond. Ingenious!
So what your complaining about is that Microsoft being ingenious is wrong.
Good points, but the only folks I EVER run into that find windows unreliable are the IT folks biased towards Unix or the mainframe guy biased toward say the AS400. yes they have experience, but cant seem to quite get things like using a good VPN and terminal services on an NT box. Does Linux have terminal services built in? and so forth. All they know is their Unix bind commands and korn shell scripts. Im not going to grep through tons of text files to find information on batch jobs give me a break. At least Linux would have better management utilities geez.
By the way if you want to talk reliablity and history perhaps we could say that the AS400 platform is by far better than Unix or Linux? So why are the hardcore network folks so enamored with Unix? Because during the late 80's early 90's and with the internet boom, it was "hip" to be Pro Unix. Unix servers were the first web servers, this does not mean they are the best servers. So Linux is built on the BASH shell and has Unix roots. This does not mean Linux is the better desktop or even server solution. I'm sure many mainframe users or OS400 users would beg to differ. OS400 is more stable than Unix in my opinion, but then again I cant stand its file structure with objects and RPG ughh!
The reality, however, is that Unix has become the new standard defacto server in IT. On the other hand windows is the standard defacto desktop OS and mid level file server. The key to the winner is...yes stability and security, but ALSO the winner will need the best workstation server integration, the abundance of APPS that will work seamlessly and integrate with the OS. That leader is windows.
I see MS pursuing stability and security within windows FASTER than Unix or Linux is moving to achieve the server workstation integration and the abundant APP support.
MS has always been in the pursuit for windows to achieve integration between the workstation and server OS, better usability, better applications, and just plain simply better and easier methods for implementing various things period. Its that simple. Unix didnt care..and now suddenly we have a boon with the Linux campaign and how all of a sudden thay do care.
MS is achieving its goals, and yes windows is not yet perfect, but its definitely made more strides with its ambitions and goals than Unix has made in the last 30 years. (remember for all you anti windows folks, windows 2000 and XP was suppose to be vaporware..Oh and so was C# and.NET).
MS is action and results. Too many others are turning too swiftly to the courts for solutions. (ahem.. SUN Ahem.. SUN) Its quite one thing to focus on hardware and big iron file servers, but now Big Iron is finding itself squeezed as network centric apps are becoming more sophisticed, functional, and yes GUI or web based.
Not something Big Iron is very talented at.
(screen scrapes and slow java applications are not sophisticated functional GUI apps)
Now we have little Linux. Not a bad OS, but still a bit crude compared to winXP or OSX, but still it has made strides. So what is the future of Unix and/or Linux? I'm not saying they will go away. but the old methods of implementation with Unix will fall wayside just as Novell in their hubris fell wayside to NT for the LCD factor: (Lowest common denominator functionality over efficiency) Gee didnt you think we could use more than 8megs of RAM in a computer?
Windows is achieveing high functionality with great efficiency. Linux is in pursuit of that goal to provide an alternative. To be that alternative it needs the Apps and the same seamless usability built into windows or OSX. I just dont see Linux gaining the app support in the same timeframe that windows and its future versions achieve their mark in the big iron server world..and it will happen.
Hate Microsoft all you want, but their belief in something beyond green screens and terminals has taken windows and windows as a server platfom to the top. They are a powerhouse company and they need to be taken seriously because its not Unix or Linux pushing the threshold, its Microsoft and windows.
Danather I completely agree =) You hit the nail on the head.
Linux companies need to get adobe support, symantec support, etc etc for 95%+ applications on the market. There should be a linux version available. Until that happens Linux can never achieve desktop dominance. Heck BEOS was cool, but I never really used it.
Whos sick of windows...What the 5% or 10% of techie geeks that simply hate anything that oriented toward windows.
Your small potatoes in numbers compared to the rest of those so called users out there. Those 95% users prefer and will continue to use windows or OSX.
I'm not saying Linux doesn't have a chance, but its still not even close.
When Microsoft and Apple pursued the computer as a device not just for the backrooms of IT departments but for the average joe, unix and mainframe weenies scoffed. Years later they find they are a bit behind, the applications are crude, character is eventually going to fall wayside to GUI, and understanding "good" UI will be a skill, not just "eye candy" as so many in the Unix community have viewed GUI for years. Oh how you have missed the point.
Windows is now a standard on the desktop. Apple second to that. Now comes the suddenly awake Nix folks with there catchup answer Linux. Linux does not have the applications, and everything Linux does to improve itself is try and become more like windows or Mac OS. Oh boy, Linux has auto update, oh boy the fonts are better, oh boy oh boy. So many of these oh boys are old hat standard features that have existed in windows and MAC OS for years.
Hey Mr Unix why didnt you take GUI, apps and UI seriously in the early 80's?.
Now all of a sudden your the champion in that arena as well? Look learn that windows isnt just due to marketing. Its due to the fact that Microsoft payed attention to the computer as a laymans device as well as a box in the darkrooms of IT depts. Why couldn't it be both a powerful and INTUITIVE tool to use. Oh but thats right you scoffed at that as well. command line is simple. Windows is a resource hog blah blah blah. Your lowest common denominator mentality has left you blind sided..
Stability, its not an issue with win NT. I find our linux server (caldera mail server) is no more prone to occasional reboots as our win 2000 server. MS is meeting the stability challenge, I dont see Linux meeting the usability, applications and recognition technology challenge..
.NET: say what you will, but.NET platform with C# is proving to be a better implementation than java. look I'm sorry, but when it comes to GOOD applications or app development platforms I rank unix folks on the bottom of the list. WHAT! you say.. what do you mean?
What I mean is that Unix programmers are an odd sort. Brilliant and intelligent folks who understand evrything there is to know about networking and DB administration and development, but in the areas of rich application development, good UI, good IDE apps or devlopment platforms two words comes to mind:.
fragmented and cryptic..
No offense SLASHDOT, but your website is a good example of nix oriented programmer app and UI in a website...and no i'm not reffering to the fact that it doesnt have enough eye candy. If you dont get it, I completely understand...Its sort of that Einstein lost at the train station type of thing
There has never been a reason why programming on a development platform needs to be extra complicated, but for mr nix it always been a sin to create a powerful and yet somewhat easy to implement development platform with outstanding IDE packages to back it on top of a GUI OS. If its easy to implement, intuitive, GUI or TRULY integrated it was a sin.
I will say, however, that Microsoft must sucumb to providing standards and apps that are open. PHP is a good example of an open esy to implement devlopment platform. The syntax could be improved a bit. Take a lesson from 4GL languages folks ever program with Progress DB? Its an outstanding easy and yet powerful language to code in without having to be cryptic. both MS and the rest could take lessons here.
I know the spams gonna fly, but I am not going to simply say Linux is better on the desktop just because I want to hate a big corporate conglomerate that has built a good OS that is standard and does everything I need. I hope Linux improves and I'm sure it will, but there is nothing innovative in Linux, there is nothing Unique, and I would hope that linux does not kill itself by becoming a fragmented mess of a gajillion distro's and become just as fragmented as its forefather Unix. At least the Unix community has Apple with OSX, because good lord, they both sorely need each other, and they both need more applications or stick to their niche conrners of the computing universe.
Whoever thought developers from a Unix background understand good UI and design.
It will take awhile for these to be hammered out. Thats foreign territory.
I know I'll get slammed, but with every enhancement, KDE and GNOME become more like windows. New windows type features are added.
Perhaps windows isn't so bad, otherwise why copy?
If you can't beat them join them.
Seriously, though, its good to see it becoming more polished, which Linux needs to gain ground on the desktop, most importantly than anything else, if Joe consumer cant enter a CompUSA and find a linux version for 95% of the software on the shelf, Linux will remain a niche OS forever.
Smalltalk has been phased out by IBM, and the widget elemnts etc are old. Perhaps we could use.NET to fix programmer UI errors like the slashdot messageboard UI ugh!
Slashdot Mirror
These include the availability of cheap cassettes on every high street, cheap personal stereos, and the ability to use the same format for a wide range of applications (personal stereo, portable radio/cassette players, in the car, in your hi-fi stack).
So for the Linux Unix guys in user laymans terms this is why windows dominates:
These include the availability of cheap personal computers on every street corner, and the ability to use a vast category of applications made available by mulitple vendors that are standardized and built on windows.
Come folks this is business. Red Hat is being very smart, especially for a linux OS company.
When the squeeze is on, RED HAT Linux will be one of the few if not THE last linux distro standing.
Now back to Microsoft putting Windows on top of Linux. Linux is better, faster, stronger than whatever is living underneath XP now, right? Performance would improve. As Mike Class points out, by not having to develop its own OS, Microsoft could also save money. They wouldn't need however many people are presently devoted to maintaining the underlying OS that isn't supposed to be there. And what actual data do you have to prove this? Our win200 advanced server smokes our Caldera server both running on the same hardware config, but then again Im comparing SQL server on win 2000 VS MySQL on Linux. Oh..thats right...I'm sorry Linux pundits..I guess this isnt a fair comparison because SQL server is optimized on windows.....Please.
Apple doesnt use BSD. It uses some variant code of BSD, but it is not BSD.
This is ridiculous. MS persists to achieve its goals, achieve them amidst years of laughter and jokes from Mr Big Iron. Its a bit late Linux. I'm sure you'll mature, but you need the apps. Then again perhaps this article just proves what I've said before. Linux just turns more into windows with every so called improvement. Why build what already exists.
Yes, support for applications, standardized integration is important.
In other words, instead of sending a SYN packet like every other TCP/IP application in the world, IE would send out the request packet first of all. Just to check. Just in case the HTTP server was, oh, say, a Microsoft IIS server. Because IIS' HTTP teardown sequence looked like this:
...And that's it. The client doesn't FIN, and the server doesn't ACK. In other words, the connection is kept "half-open" on the server end. The reason for this? Why, to make subsequent connections from IE clients faster. If the connection isn't torn down all the way, all IE has to do is send an HTTP request, with no preamble-- and the server will immediately respond. Ingenious!
Client Server 1.
So what your complaining about is that Microsoft being ingenious is wrong.
More lame excuses
Good points, but the only folks I EVER run into that find windows unreliable are the IT folks biased towards Unix or the mainframe guy biased toward say the AS400. yes they have experience, but cant seem to quite get things like using a good VPN and terminal services on an NT box. Does Linux have terminal services built in? and so forth. All they know is their Unix bind commands and korn shell scripts. Im not going to grep through tons of text files to find information on batch jobs give me a break. At least Linux would have better management utilities geez.
.NET).
By the way if you want to talk reliablity and history perhaps we could say that the AS400 platform is by far better than Unix or Linux? So why are the hardcore network folks so enamored with Unix? Because during the late 80's early 90's and with the internet boom, it was "hip" to be Pro Unix. Unix servers were the first web servers, this does not mean they are the best servers. So Linux is built on the BASH shell and has Unix roots. This does not mean Linux is the better desktop or even server solution. I'm sure many mainframe users or OS400 users would beg to differ. OS400 is more stable than Unix in my opinion, but then again I cant stand its file structure with objects and RPG ughh!
The reality, however, is that Unix has become the new standard defacto server in IT. On the other hand windows is the standard defacto desktop OS and mid level file server. The key to the winner is...yes stability and security, but ALSO the winner will need the best workstation server integration, the abundance of APPS that will work seamlessly and integrate with the OS. That leader is windows.
I see MS pursuing stability and security within windows FASTER than Unix or Linux is moving to achieve the server workstation integration and the abundant APP support.
MS has always been in the pursuit for windows to achieve integration between the workstation and server OS, better usability, better applications, and just plain simply better and easier methods for implementing various things period. Its that simple. Unix didnt care..and now suddenly we have a boon with the Linux campaign and how all of a sudden thay do care.
MS is achieving its goals, and yes windows is not yet perfect, but its definitely made more strides with its ambitions and goals than Unix has made in the last 30 years. (remember for all you anti windows folks, windows 2000 and XP was suppose to be vaporware..Oh and so was C# and
MS is action and results. Too many others are turning too swiftly to the courts for solutions. (ahem.. SUN Ahem.. SUN) Its quite one thing to focus on hardware and big iron file servers, but now Big Iron is finding itself squeezed as network centric apps are becoming more sophisticed, functional, and yes GUI or web based. Not something Big Iron is very talented at.
(screen scrapes and slow java applications are not sophisticated functional GUI apps)
Now we have little Linux. Not a bad OS, but still a bit crude compared to winXP or OSX, but still it has made strides. So what is the future of Unix and/or Linux? I'm not saying they will go away. but the old methods of implementation with Unix will fall wayside just as Novell in their hubris fell wayside to NT for the LCD factor: (Lowest common denominator functionality over efficiency) Gee didnt you think we could use more than 8megs of RAM in a computer?
Windows is achieveing high functionality with great efficiency. Linux is in pursuit of that goal to provide an alternative. To be that alternative it needs the Apps and the same seamless usability built into windows or OSX. I just dont see Linux gaining the app support in the same timeframe that windows and its future versions achieve their mark in the big iron server world..and it will happen.
Hate Microsoft all you want, but their belief in something beyond green screens and terminals has taken windows and windows as a server platfom to the top. They are a powerhouse company and they need to be taken seriously because its not Unix or Linux pushing the threshold, its Microsoft and windows.
Danather I completely agree =) You hit the nail on the head.
Linux companies need to get adobe support, symantec support, etc etc for 95%+ applications on the market. There should be a linux version available. Until that happens Linux can never achieve desktop dominance. Heck BEOS was cool, but I never really used it.
Whos sick of windows...What the 5% or 10% of techie geeks that simply hate anything that oriented toward windows.
Your small potatoes in numbers compared to the rest of those so called users out there. Those 95% users prefer and will continue to use windows or OSX.
I'm not saying Linux doesn't have a chance, but its still not even close.
When Microsoft and Apple pursued the computer as a device not just for the backrooms of IT departments but for the average joe, unix and mainframe weenies scoffed. Years later they find they are a bit behind, the applications are crude, character is eventually going to fall wayside to GUI, and understanding "good" UI will be a skill, not just "eye candy" as so many in the Unix community have viewed GUI for years. Oh how you have missed the point.
.NET: say what you will, but .NET platform with C# is proving to be a better implementation than java. look I'm sorry, but when it comes to GOOD applications or app development platforms I rank unix folks on the bottom of the list. WHAT! you say.. what do you mean?
Windows is now a standard on the desktop. Apple second to that. Now comes the suddenly awake Nix folks with there catchup answer Linux. Linux does not have the applications, and everything Linux does to improve itself is try and become more like windows or Mac OS. Oh boy, Linux has auto update, oh boy the fonts are better, oh boy oh boy. So many of these oh boys are old hat standard features that have existed in windows and MAC OS for years.
Hey Mr Unix why didnt you take GUI, apps and UI seriously in the early 80's?.
Now all of a sudden your the champion in that arena as well? Look learn that windows isnt just due to marketing. Its due to the fact that Microsoft payed attention to the computer as a laymans device as well as a box in the darkrooms of IT depts. Why couldn't it be both a powerful and INTUITIVE tool to use. Oh but thats right you scoffed at that as well. command line is simple. Windows is a resource hog blah blah blah. Your lowest common denominator mentality has left you blind sided..
Stability, its not an issue with win NT. I find our linux server (caldera mail server) is no more prone to occasional reboots as our win 2000 server. MS is meeting the stability challenge, I dont see Linux meeting the usability, applications and recognition technology challenge..
What I mean is that Unix programmers are an odd sort. Brilliant and intelligent folks who understand evrything there is to know about networking and DB administration and development, but in the areas of rich application development, good UI, good IDE apps or devlopment platforms two words comes to mind:.
fragmented and cryptic..
No offense SLASHDOT, but your website is a good example of nix oriented programmer app and UI in a website...and no i'm not reffering to the fact that it doesnt have enough eye candy. If you dont get it, I completely understand...Its sort of that Einstein lost at the train station type of thing
There has never been a reason why programming on a development platform needs to be extra complicated, but for mr nix it always been a sin to create a powerful and yet somewhat easy to implement development platform with outstanding IDE packages to back it on top of a GUI OS. If its easy to implement, intuitive, GUI or TRULY integrated it was a sin.
I will say, however, that Microsoft must sucumb to providing standards and apps that are open. PHP is a good example of an open esy to implement devlopment platform. The syntax could be improved a bit. Take a lesson from 4GL languages folks ever program with Progress DB? Its an outstanding easy and yet powerful language to code in without having to be cryptic. both MS and the rest could take lessons here.
I know the spams gonna fly, but I am not going to simply say Linux is better on the desktop just because I want to hate a big corporate conglomerate that has built a good OS that is standard and does everything I need. I hope Linux improves and I'm sure it will, but there is nothing innovative in Linux, there is nothing Unique, and I would hope that linux does not kill itself by becoming a fragmented mess of a gajillion distro's and become just as fragmented as its forefather Unix. At least the Unix community has Apple with OSX, because good lord, they both sorely need each other, and they both need more applications or stick to their niche conrners of the computing universe.
Whoever thought developers from a Unix background understand good UI and design. It will take awhile for these to be hammered out. Thats foreign territory.
I know I'll get slammed, but with every enhancement, KDE and GNOME become more like windows. New windows type features are added. Perhaps windows isn't so bad, otherwise why copy? If you can't beat them join them. Seriously, though, its good to see it becoming more polished, which Linux needs to gain ground on the desktop, most importantly than anything else, if Joe consumer cant enter a CompUSA and find a linux version for 95% of the software on the shelf, Linux will remain a niche OS forever.
I'm betting BEA willbuild in .NET capability in Weblogic. Watch and see.
What good RAD development environement is there for Python other than a text editor
Smalltalk has been phased out by IBM, and the widget elemnts etc are old. Perhaps we could use .NET to fix programmer UI errors like the slashdot messageboard UI ugh!