I dispute the definition of "professional" as someone driven by "marketing and business" objectives. I'm sure most of the professional classes might dispute that definition. Otherwise, many of the points the post makes are valid.
I think the more accurate word to use is simply "commercial". Frankly, I find people driven by "marketing and business" a great deal of the source behind many problems in the several decades I've been paying attention.
Admittedly, (after all this is Slashdot), we're speculating somewhat and I definitely plead guilty to not having scanned the leaked base to critique the modularity. So lets be massively conservative and figure it takes six weeks (a couple of weeks of brainstorming analysis to make sure nothing "down the road" is impacted, a couple of weeks of unit changes and tests, and at least 2 weeks of inhouse system level retesting). A lot of that time is spent twiddling from impacts due to the network overhaul the suits ordered (rather than just clipping the wires). They'll miss the Yuletide season (distribution clogs and the pain of a mid-December release). January and February are kind of murder on new release sales so their marketroids are probably saying March is the next best release date. But then, I get my revelations from dust motes....
Here's a question: how automated are the test suites for a typical game development project? Do they have autobot mice that search terrain geometry for holes? (anyone remember that hole in the map in Tribes ice station map?). Do they automate user creation decision trees?
OT: I worked with an inhouse compiler once... if the code compiled, the return code was: "None of the errors were detected."
Here's hoping HL2 doesn't pull a Tribes 2 or Pools of Radiance on release because of this.
Obviously very few people on Slashdot have ever been involved in COMMERCIAL software development. You change the APIs, change the interfaces, move the data... guess what? ALL your validation and verification testing is SHOT. Any software project leader with any sense would hve zero confidence in the codebase. Every piece of code changed triggers a retest and re-integration of all systems that have any connection to it. They're going to have to do the entire test suite over and possibly even drop back to alpha level.
I am of course, assuming, that Valve follows some sort of software methodology and not the "infinite keypounding monkeys" method -- in which case their customers are fucked in the way "Pools of Radiance 2" or "Shadowbane" fucked the community.
The last 2 places I've worked, every developer had TWO machines. The "development" machine was on a physically isolated network and the "office box" was the one with Internet access, email, etc. It didn't stop sneaker-net issues, but it sure stopped those little port buzzes and tickles from outside....and woe unto the developer that ever mixed the two.
I used to do Cold War era work in the 80s... the procedures to keep delicate things isolated did not require any rocket science (outside of the frequency-isolating chickenwire that enveloped the work area).
I will say as a consultant, I'm never too amazed at the LACK of prudent and simple precautions taken for critical operations at many businesses.
Can we say Canada? I thought you'd have trouble...
Having worked in the network and telco arenas for 15 odd years... it has *much* more to do with no competition and no incentive to upgrade equipment than with distances.
If America wants to broadband the nation, then deregulation is only going to cement the status quo of one provider who is completely uninterested in upgrading.
Heh... first I did not claim to speak for my generation. I also know a hell of lot more about computers, networks, and physics than most people so you are correct I am not representational. Second, I did not say the all the new music was crap. However, I *do* believe that the corporate media is pushing excessively mediocre talent. Maybe thats what the average listener wants to hear but I really think they're just that fad-sheepish. Your point about why the recording industry is failing is, I think, dead on correct (model failure). But my recollection of most of the trend changes you describe had more to do with the music being "dangerous" to the elders rather than boring drivel. Little Richard was dangerous, the Beatles were dangerous, Led Zeppelin was dangerous, the BeeGees scared the hell out of me but I was listening to Tull at the time... but the music pushed through Clear Channel is *boring*.
The problem with "generation gap" myth is this: I'm in my 40s.... but I listen to everything from Offspring and rave to 11th Century medieval, bluegrass, Finnish folk, Tibetan monks, and even... the occasionally literate rap piece. Most of what is being force-pumped by our media giants is CRAP or, at best, average singers who in past ages would have made an average living in bar-lounge acts or singing gospel. So, please don't pose by saying "you're just old" or "out of touch".... because its a myth pushed by the corporate musicwraiths who desperately want you to believe they're cool.
I hate to ruin the day for all you DSL/T1/cable weenie slackers... but the majority of the US and the rest of the planet still use dialup to access the Internet... and its *all* they can get (subtracting satellite). Don't you people read the fine print in all those telco/cable commercials?? "Services may not be available in all areas." The truth is that services are not even available in many high density population areas. The telcos *won't* upgrade and they do everything they can to prevent competititors from stepping up to the demand.
I may reach through the Internet and strangle the next person that moronically drools, "Dude, just get DSL or cable!!!"
If you were a subscriber to NTBugtraq (as any sys-admin who has to wrangle MS boxes should be), you'd know that Windows Update has been having critically serious problems in the last few months. Problems that have broken systems, or worse, claimed to have patched them and NOT ACTUALLY HAVING DONE SO. Granted, the *concept* of auto-updating is good... but its fairly clear that MS management isn't doing the quality control necessary on the updating wizard *or* on the patches themselves properly. Take a look at the increase in "patch recalls" in the last 12 months. My concern is that critical personnel have been lost (no, software people are not interchangeable entities, my dear managers) in those areas of MS where they're needed most.
Lawyers have the same problem doctors have: poor policing within their own. It doesn't take many bad lawyers to color the profession poorly. Pharmacists tend to police their profession more thoroughly.
If 40% of Congress are lawyers... why do we repeatedly get such wretchedly written laws? And how many congresscritters keep lawyers on staff or have lawyer lobbyists "reviewing" bills for them?
Its the companies that keep lawyer "on staff" that tend to be the worst about "protecting" stuff... they need to justify their job. I worked a couple of places where the IP lawyers would wander around like weasels on the hunt for eggs hoping to create IP. "NO! Prior art abounds! Go away!" should have been stitched on our shirts.
Pertaining to the USPTO... now you're spinning. You well know that you get what you pay for. The USPTO admits to understaffing and underqualification issues, but they won't stop issuing junk patents.
Myself... I know 4 lawyers, one in the family. One is family law, one is civil rights, the other two are public defenders -- none are feelthy reech. Finally, I don't *hate* lawyers, but there are lawyers I detest. The Shakespearean quote so happily tagged is also taken out of context and really means something quite different.
Um..... interesting theory but:
1) Legislators/Congress == mostly lawyers.
2) Judges == mostly lawyers.
3) Clients == ones who have patents because lawyers suggested it.
4) USPTO == encircled by patent attorneys who make more in a month than an inspector makes in a year.
The system is *infested* with lawyers, who have a self-oriented interest in ensuring their continued "need". Its kind of like the MSCE who fails to protect Exchange behind a fortified gateway smtp handler.... guarantees job security from fearful PHBs. Blowing my moderator status to answer this, bleh.
The Nazi apologists are like Scientologists.... no argument can avoid their twisting it out of its original topic. Go away... and take the ADL, the Scientologists, and hell, take the Republicans and Democrats with you. All of you are loony.
In all my business and personal dealings with Microsoft, I've always gotten the feeling I'm really dealing with a maturity level equivalent to the "100sr sux!! We r0xx0rd U!!! doofuses that infest many online games. Really... Bill and his companions may use complete sentences but anyone who's worked internally with the folks knows the "if you don't agree with me, you suck and are stupid" culture inside MS. They can put all the suits on they want and have thug Ballmer dance the monkey dance... but they really are kind of pathetic.
Not only is it dangerous and lethal, not to mention analog... its ILLEGAL in most places for you to do the work unless you're a licensed electrician (some exceptions for certain 120vac work). Heck... a lot of places require you to have a Low Voltage certification to run cat5...... For home, who cares,,, for business: follow the rules.
Oh no, its much easier for autopr0n to call someone stupid than to *actually* *look* *it* *up*.
Lexmark --- cartridges --- DMCA is much too hard to type into google...
My apologies... I was in "work brain mode"... where I get frazzled by the hordes of sheep masquerading as humans who insist I stop correcting systemic network problems to help them find their "icon" they've deleted.
It must be nice to live in such a confident world where "there's no way" something might be. A number of studies dispute your contention about coordination games. GTA3, much like many other twitch games, improves eye-hand coordination and reaction speed. It improves his anticipation of likely events. If your reaction to the game was to feel more violent, I suggest you seek counseling as you have underlying problems. I, for one, have wanted a plasma laser and a "look out for stupid" paint gun mounted on my vehicle since well before Pong.
I'm a rather strong proponent of using games to teach various subjects. For example, games like Age of Empires (resource-driven and trade games) teach the fundamentals of supply --- BUT they also teach the inadequacies of such models if discussed. My son understands that the games do not reflect the real world manifestations of new value creation - they basically model: rats in closed system with fixed amount of food.
Ghost Recon has improved his interest in world politics (o look, Liberia... I sense more GR scenarios coming up, heh). It also enhances his communication and teaming skills. My son has developed an extensive interest in history due to WW2 and period games.
Believe it or not, GTA3 appears to help both my sons in their soccer endeavors ("look ahead, predictive reaction time") and the older one's driving skills and ability to recover from other drivers is enhanced. The cynical social commentary (and ClearChannel radio satire) gets a lot of discussion: "funny yet tragic".
Whats the underlying theme here? I, a parent, participate in my children's activities and help them socratically analyze what they absorb. Parents who permit the computer (or tv) to "babysit" their kids are basically selfish twits who should never have had kids. And don't whine to me about "your needs"... stop having kids if you don't want to spend 20 years raising them, dammit.
The primary thing to remember with Schumer is not to stand between him and any news camera in the area. You will get trampled. The guy is all about himself and is Machievellian politics in the purest sense. He *always* has a personal anecdote to go with his latest grandstand. He *always* appeals to the irrational and emotional and seeks to eliminate intellectual discussion. He is all about the acquisition of influence and power rather than results. He is the poster child of what anyone with intellect finds disgusting about politicians.
You know, you've really got to hand it to Kenneth Lay/Rockefeller/Stalin/Vlad the Impaler/Coronado/Caligula/. Give.. me.. a.. break. Praising someone for becoming successful by being an asshole is a strong indication that we have traveled nowhere from the "apes at the waterhole" mode of society. Well.. maybe we got worse - at least the apes hardly ever kill each other... okay.. so our modern businessman have mostly stopped killing their obstacles... so we're back up to waterhole ape ethics. It was less than a hundred years ago that businessmen were able to have workers killed for suggesting that they work only 40hrs/wk or get time off for family matters.
(reference: Pinkerton and government union-busting actions of turn of the century).
I don't get the feeling my post was read (and yes, I have about 25 years experience with NASA, USAF contracts, telecom, Intel, web services, secure networks, etc ranging from programming to project management and CIO).
You are correct: no one "got fired" for buying Microsoft just like no one got fired for buying IBM in the 70s and 80s. However, IBM backed their product up big time (and lawsuits were less common then anyway). I've worked in Microsoft development shops (partners'R'us) at multiple levels and MS support was generally useless. Often we were explaining to them how their software was working (or didn't work).
My point was that the "accountability" excuse is a crock... there is no *vendor* accountability in the legal or monetary sense in our current environment. There is no one to sue if proprietary software fails.
You are also incorrect: you get fired if your solution doesn't work -- not on the basis of the components being Microsoft, Sun, HP, or Open Source.
It will be interesting to see if the Korean lawsuits start a trend toward software accountability...
Will someone please point to ANY example of a successful lawsuit against Microsoft (or IBM/Sun/HP for that matter) for producing faulty software that impacted someone's business???
The whole "gives us someone to blame" is a complete crock of manure. I used to write software for government apps... they always built a one year warranty into the product. Guess what we spent most of our time doing? Trying to prove a reported bug was actually a request for a new feature.
As far as contract support goes... those tend to be "time and material" peoples.... never seen a successful lawsuit there either...
This is the main reason I stopped playing EQ in favor of Camelot. EQ is a packet spewing monster delivering all sorts of crap "I don't need to know". Living on a 26.4kbps connection (thanks to Verizon), I can get 3 sessions of Camelot running smoothly (for myself and 2 offspring). ONE session of EQ chokes in heavily populated areas. (no, Verizon will not upgrade my circuit to 56k, much less IDSN, IDSL, xDSL, frame-relay, or mutant chipmunks --- they are jerks).
Then, of course, there's Microsoft's AC and AC2 which STILL can't deal with more than one session over a firewall/NAT or ICS (their own freaking product)... multiple ports over one IP is too hard I guess.
Isn't it fascinating how virtually *every* pro-MS comment here is from "Anonymous Coward"?
TCO analysis depends substantially on the intended outputs of your "engine of commerce". If your product is going to be creative, resourceful programmers, engineers, scientists, and critical thinkers, my answer is different than one might prescribe for a traditional office environment. The "expense" and "lack of interconnectivity" demons seem to be unsubstantiated FUD in this case.
You know, until XP came out I usually recommended Microsoft solutions to my business clients and Unix/Mac solutions for non-profit/academic clients. With the new licensing burden and onerous EULA, it is getting much tougher to say Microsoft with a straight face... smoke that one for a while.
Slashdot Mirror
I dispute the definition of "professional" as someone driven by "marketing and business" objectives. I'm sure most of the professional classes might dispute that definition. Otherwise, many of the points the post makes are valid. I think the more accurate word to use is simply "commercial". Frankly, I find people driven by "marketing and business" a great deal of the source behind many problems in the several decades I've been paying attention.
Admittedly, (after all this is Slashdot), we're speculating somewhat and I definitely plead guilty to not having scanned the leaked base to critique the modularity. So lets be massively conservative and figure it takes six weeks (a couple of weeks of brainstorming analysis to make sure nothing "down the road" is impacted, a couple of weeks of unit changes and tests, and at least 2 weeks of inhouse system level retesting). A lot of that time is spent twiddling from impacts due to the network overhaul the suits ordered (rather than just clipping the wires). They'll miss the Yuletide season (distribution clogs and the pain of a mid-December release). January and February are kind of murder on new release sales so their marketroids are probably saying March is the next best release date. But then, I get my revelations from dust motes.... Here's a question: how automated are the test suites for a typical game development project? Do they have autobot mice that search terrain geometry for holes? (anyone remember that hole in the map in Tribes ice station map?). Do they automate user creation decision trees? OT: I worked with an inhouse compiler once... if the code compiled, the return code was: "None of the errors were detected." Here's hoping HL2 doesn't pull a Tribes 2 or Pools of Radiance on release because of this.
Obviously very few people on Slashdot have ever been involved in COMMERCIAL software development. You change the APIs, change the interfaces, move the data... guess what? ALL your validation and verification testing is SHOT. Any software project leader with any sense would hve zero confidence in the codebase. Every piece of code changed triggers a retest and re-integration of all systems that have any connection to it. They're going to have to do the entire test suite over and possibly even drop back to alpha level. I am of course, assuming, that Valve follows some sort of software methodology and not the "infinite keypounding monkeys" method -- in which case their customers are fucked in the way "Pools of Radiance 2" or "Shadowbane" fucked the community.
The last 2 places I've worked, every developer had TWO machines. The "development" machine was on a physically isolated network and the "office box" was the one with Internet access, email, etc. It didn't stop sneaker-net issues, but it sure stopped those little port buzzes and tickles from outside. ...and woe unto the developer that ever mixed the two.
I used to do Cold War era work in the 80s... the procedures to keep delicate things isolated did not require any rocket science (outside of the frequency-isolating chickenwire that enveloped the work area).
I will say as a consultant, I'm never too amazed at the LACK of prudent and simple precautions taken for critical operations at many businesses.
Can we say Canada? I thought you'd have trouble... Having worked in the network and telco arenas for 15 odd years... it has *much* more to do with no competition and no incentive to upgrade equipment than with distances. If America wants to broadband the nation, then deregulation is only going to cement the status quo of one provider who is completely uninterested in upgrading.
Heh... first I did not claim to speak for my generation. I also know a hell of lot more about computers, networks, and physics than most people so you are correct I am not representational. Second, I did not say the all the new music was crap. However, I *do* believe that the corporate media is pushing excessively mediocre talent. Maybe thats what the average listener wants to hear but I really think they're just that fad-sheepish. Your point about why the recording industry is failing is, I think, dead on correct (model failure). But my recollection of most of the trend changes you describe had more to do with the music being "dangerous" to the elders rather than boring drivel. Little Richard was dangerous, the Beatles were dangerous, Led Zeppelin was dangerous, the BeeGees scared the hell out of me but I was listening to Tull at the time... but the music pushed through Clear Channel is *boring*.
The problem with "generation gap" myth is this: I'm in my 40s.... but I listen to everything from Offspring and rave to 11th Century medieval, bluegrass, Finnish folk, Tibetan monks, and even... the occasionally literate rap piece. Most of what is being force-pumped by our media giants is CRAP or, at best, average singers who in past ages would have made an average living in bar-lounge acts or singing gospel. So, please don't pose by saying "you're just old" or "out of touch".... because its a myth pushed by the corporate musicwraiths who desperately want you to believe they're cool.
I hate to ruin the day for all you DSL/T1/cable weenie slackers... but the majority of the US and the rest of the planet still use dialup to access the Internet... and its *all* they can get (subtracting satellite). Don't you people read the fine print in all those telco/cable commercials?? "Services may not be available in all areas." The truth is that services are not even available in many high density population areas. The telcos *won't* upgrade and they do everything they can to prevent competititors from stepping up to the demand. I may reach through the Internet and strangle the next person that moronically drools, "Dude, just get DSL or cable!!!"
If you were a subscriber to NTBugtraq (as any sys-admin who has to wrangle MS boxes should be), you'd know that Windows Update has been having critically serious problems in the last few months. Problems that have broken systems, or worse, claimed to have patched them and NOT ACTUALLY HAVING DONE SO. Granted, the *concept* of auto-updating is good... but its fairly clear that MS management isn't doing the quality control necessary on the updating wizard *or* on the patches themselves properly. Take a look at the increase in "patch recalls" in the last 12 months. My concern is that critical personnel have been lost (no, software people are not interchangeable entities, my dear managers) in those areas of MS where they're needed most.
Lawyers have the same problem doctors have: poor policing within their own. It doesn't take many bad lawyers to color the profession poorly. Pharmacists tend to police their profession more thoroughly. If 40% of Congress are lawyers... why do we repeatedly get such wretchedly written laws? And how many congresscritters keep lawyers on staff or have lawyer lobbyists "reviewing" bills for them? Its the companies that keep lawyer "on staff" that tend to be the worst about "protecting" stuff... they need to justify their job. I worked a couple of places where the IP lawyers would wander around like weasels on the hunt for eggs hoping to create IP. "NO! Prior art abounds! Go away!" should have been stitched on our shirts. Pertaining to the USPTO... now you're spinning. You well know that you get what you pay for. The USPTO admits to understaffing and underqualification issues, but they won't stop issuing junk patents. Myself... I know 4 lawyers, one in the family. One is family law, one is civil rights, the other two are public defenders -- none are feelthy reech. Finally, I don't *hate* lawyers, but there are lawyers I detest. The Shakespearean quote so happily tagged is also taken out of context and really means something quite different.
Um..... interesting theory but: 1) Legislators/Congress == mostly lawyers. 2) Judges == mostly lawyers. 3) Clients == ones who have patents because lawyers suggested it. 4) USPTO == encircled by patent attorneys who make more in a month than an inspector makes in a year. The system is *infested* with lawyers, who have a self-oriented interest in ensuring their continued "need". Its kind of like the MSCE who fails to protect Exchange behind a fortified gateway smtp handler.... guarantees job security from fearful PHBs. Blowing my moderator status to answer this, bleh.
The Nazi apologists are like Scientologists.... no argument can avoid their twisting it out of its original topic. Go away... and take the ADL, the Scientologists, and hell, take the Republicans and Democrats with you. All of you are loony.
In all my business and personal dealings with Microsoft, I've always gotten the feeling I'm really dealing with a maturity level equivalent to the "100sr sux!! We r0xx0rd U!!! doofuses that infest many online games. Really... Bill and his companions may use complete sentences but anyone who's worked internally with the folks knows the "if you don't agree with me, you suck and are stupid" culture inside MS. They can put all the suits on they want and have thug Ballmer dance the monkey dance... but they really are kind of pathetic.
Not only is it dangerous and lethal, not to mention analog... its ILLEGAL in most places for you to do the work unless you're a licensed electrician (some exceptions for certain 120vac work). Heck... a lot of places require you to have a Low Voltage certification to run cat5......
For home, who cares,,, for business: follow the rules.
Oh no, its much easier for autopr0n to call someone stupid than to *actually* *look* *it* *up*. Lexmark --- cartridges --- DMCA is much too hard to type into google...
My apologies... I was in "work brain mode"... where I get frazzled by the hordes of sheep masquerading as humans who insist I stop correcting systemic network problems to help them find their "icon" they've deleted.
It must be nice to live in such a confident world where "there's no way" something might be. A number of studies dispute your contention about coordination games. GTA3, much like many other twitch games, improves eye-hand coordination and reaction speed. It improves his anticipation of likely events. If your reaction to the game was to feel more violent, I suggest you seek counseling as you have underlying problems. I, for one, have wanted a plasma laser and a "look out for stupid" paint gun mounted on my vehicle since well before Pong.
I'm a rather strong proponent of using games to teach various subjects. For example, games like Age of Empires (resource-driven and trade games) teach the fundamentals of supply --- BUT they also teach the inadequacies of such models if discussed. My son understands that the games do not reflect the real world manifestations of new value creation - they basically model: rats in closed system with fixed amount of food. Ghost Recon has improved his interest in world politics (o look, Liberia... I sense more GR scenarios coming up, heh). It also enhances his communication and teaming skills. My son has developed an extensive interest in history due to WW2 and period games. Believe it or not, GTA3 appears to help both my sons in their soccer endeavors ("look ahead, predictive reaction time") and the older one's driving skills and ability to recover from other drivers is enhanced. The cynical social commentary (and ClearChannel radio satire) gets a lot of discussion: "funny yet tragic". Whats the underlying theme here? I, a parent, participate in my children's activities and help them socratically analyze what they absorb. Parents who permit the computer (or tv) to "babysit" their kids are basically selfish twits who should never have had kids. And don't whine to me about "your needs"... stop having kids if you don't want to spend 20 years raising them, dammit.
Mirrors are not 100% efficient... eventually the light will fade out because of energy loss.
The primary thing to remember with Schumer is not to stand between him and any news camera in the area. You will get trampled. The guy is all about himself and is Machievellian politics in the purest sense. He *always* has a personal anecdote to go with his latest grandstand. He *always* appeals to the irrational and emotional and seeks to eliminate intellectual discussion. He is all about the acquisition of influence and power rather than results. He is the poster child of what anyone with intellect finds disgusting about politicians.
You know, you've really got to hand it to Kenneth Lay/Rockefeller/Stalin/Vlad the Impaler/Coronado/Caligula/. Give.. me.. a.. break. Praising someone for becoming successful by being an asshole is a strong indication that we have traveled nowhere from the "apes at the waterhole" mode of society. Well.. maybe we got worse - at least the apes hardly ever kill each other... okay.. so our modern businessman have mostly stopped killing their obstacles... so we're back up to waterhole ape ethics. It was less than a hundred years ago that businessmen were able to have workers killed for suggesting that they work only 40hrs/wk or get time off for family matters. (reference: Pinkerton and government union-busting actions of turn of the century).
I don't get the feeling my post was read (and yes, I have about 25 years experience with NASA, USAF contracts, telecom, Intel, web services, secure networks, etc ranging from programming to project management and CIO).
You are correct: no one "got fired" for buying Microsoft just like no one got fired for buying IBM in the 70s and 80s. However, IBM backed their product up big time (and lawsuits were less common then anyway). I've worked in Microsoft development shops (partners'R'us) at multiple levels and MS support was generally useless. Often we were explaining to them how their software was working (or didn't work).
My point was that the "accountability" excuse is a crock... there is no *vendor* accountability in the legal or monetary sense in our current environment. There is no one to sue if proprietary software fails.
You are also incorrect: you get fired if your solution doesn't work -- not on the basis of the components being Microsoft, Sun, HP, or Open Source.
It will be interesting to see if the Korean lawsuits start a trend toward software accountability...
Will someone please point to ANY example of a successful lawsuit against Microsoft (or IBM/Sun/HP for that matter) for producing faulty software that impacted someone's business???
The whole "gives us someone to blame" is a complete crock of manure. I used to write software for government apps... they always built a one year warranty into the product. Guess what we spent most of our time doing? Trying to prove a reported bug was actually a request for a new feature.
As far as contract support goes... those tend to be "time and material" peoples.... never seen a successful lawsuit there either...
This is the main reason I stopped playing EQ in favor of Camelot. EQ is a packet spewing monster delivering all sorts of crap "I don't need to know". Living on a 26.4kbps connection (thanks to Verizon), I can get 3 sessions of Camelot running smoothly (for myself and 2 offspring). ONE session of EQ chokes in heavily populated areas.
(no, Verizon will not upgrade my circuit to 56k, much less IDSN, IDSL, xDSL, frame-relay, or mutant chipmunks --- they are jerks).
Then, of course, there's Microsoft's AC and AC2 which STILL can't deal with more than one session over a firewall/NAT or ICS (their own freaking product)... multiple ports over one IP is too hard I guess.
Isn't it fascinating how virtually *every* pro-MS comment here is from "Anonymous Coward"? TCO analysis depends substantially on the intended outputs of your "engine of commerce". If your product is going to be creative, resourceful programmers, engineers, scientists, and critical thinkers, my answer is different than one might prescribe for a traditional office environment. The "expense" and "lack of interconnectivity" demons seem to be unsubstantiated FUD in this case. You know, until XP came out I usually recommended Microsoft solutions to my business clients and Unix/Mac solutions for non-profit/academic clients. With the new licensing burden and onerous EULA, it is getting much tougher to say Microsoft with a straight face... smoke that one for a while.