I totally agree with you that Apple has released innovative and compelling technologies, however, Microsoft pre-announces years in advance for corporate customers. Apple doesn't have to worry about companies migrating 10,000 desktops, which by the way, takes a few years to do.
As far as Microsoft complaining about how hard software is to write, well... it is. They have decided they want to support damn near every craptastic piece of computer hardware out there. Their own fault! For Apple, its a hell of a lot easier. If they didn't make the machine and Steve Jobs didn't personally put an Apple sticker somewhere on the case you don't get OSX.
How many have tried to install OSX on their $5,000 gaming franken-rig. Not going to happen, but you can ruin your MacBook Pro and install Vista quite easily.
For those of you old enough to remember when SUN, HP and IBM made their own Hardware AND Operating system will recall how reliable those devices were. They reduced the number of variables by controlling both the hardware and software. Now they were a lot more expensive and those companies could really be a-holes about some things but those boxes kicked ass.
I've been challenged many times by management with this type of issue, whether it be Linux, open source or even just a new product.
You need to get them away from the IT "RAGS" as their only source of IT information, they use "shock value" to sell an issue. You can almost always find an article by the same publication that contradicts a previous postion (sometimes event the same author).
Use your vendors to help back your position. For instance I got my Oracle, IBM and HP reps together to support our Linux push. All they had to say was x% of their growth was in the Linux space. Belive it or not, if you have a good relation with a vendor, your management will be very willing to hear what they have to say.
Handlers Diary June 15th 2004 Updated June 15th 2004 14:31 UTC (Handler: Lenny Zeltser) Akamai DNS outage
Akamai DNS problem
Starting at around 8:30 am EDT (12:30 UTC), a number of sources started to report a widespread Akamai DNS issue. Large web sites, which use Akamai for its DNS service, did no longer resolve. Effected sites are Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Fedex, Xerox, Apple and likely many others.
At this time (10:30 am EDT), some effected domains removed the Akamai DNS servers and are reachable again using their own DNS servers.
Typically, the domain itself (e.g. 'google.com') still resolves, but popular hostnames, like 'www.google.com' will not resolve. As a result, the web site is no longer reachable.
The effect appears to be world wide. Some of the Akamai servers do respond to pings, but do not respond to DNS queries.
posts to the NANOG mailing list regarding this issue: http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/m sg05267. html Interested in meeting handlers in person? Discuss this diary over a beer? Visit us at SANSFIRE, the Internet Storm Center Conferences. Monterey, CA, July 6-11th. @Night talks picked by the ISC and the best security training you can get.
Toshiba Magnia SG20 Appliance Server
These are all over Fleabay for about $200-300 bucks. Runs RH 7.3 and supports WiFi.
Can also do NAS so you have the whole show in 1 easy to fail,,,,,,, errrr use box.
If you really want to spend more do a Froogle search, you can find them for anywhere from 600-2,000 bucks!
In 1996 I helped setup the 1st US/Mexico call center for a large US bank, where we sent calls to Mexico for Spanish speaking customers. This worked great until the company got greedy (paying the agents about $50 a week) and started sending English calls to English speaking Mexican agents. The accents in many cases were almost non-existent, however we received a lot of complaints from our customers about their ability to provide good service. Eventually we determined the cultural differences between the US customers and Mexican agents were so great, the Mexican agents could only handle the simpler calls even with rather extensive training and reference info.
In the end most English calls went to back to American agents.
Slashdot Mirror
As far as Microsoft complaining about how hard software is to write, well
For those of you old enough to remember when SUN, HP and IBM made their own Hardware AND Operating system will recall how reliable those devices were. They reduced the number of variables by controlling both the hardware and software. Now they were a lot more expensive and those companies could really be a-holes about some things but those boxes kicked ass.
If you are using Breezy try out Easy Ubuntu http://www.ubuntuforums.org/forumdisplay.php?f=86/ . Installed on about 5 machines with almost no problems.
If you are using Dapper try out BUMPS http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=13888 9&highlight=bumps/. I have a lot of success with this. The author (Ian Alexander) is always soliciting suggestions and has nade quite a few updates in just the last couple of weeks.
You need to get them away from the IT "RAGS" as their only source of IT information, they use "shock value" to sell an issue. You can almost always find an article by the same publication that contradicts a previous postion (sometimes event the same author).
Use your vendors to help back your position. For instance I got my Oracle, IBM and HP reps together to support our Linux push. All they had to say was x% of their growth was in the Linux space. Belive it or not, if you have a good relation with a vendor, your management will be very willing to hear what they have to say.
Also, take a look at this article, it really says it all. http://www.freesoftwaremagazine.com/free_issues/is sue_10/convince_management/.
Hope this helps and good luck. Just remember don't recommend a technology just becuase it is cool, management hates cool!
Handlers Diary June 15th 2004
m sg05267. html
Updated June 15th 2004 14:31 UTC (Handler: Lenny Zeltser)
Akamai DNS outage
Akamai DNS problem
Starting at around 8:30 am EDT (12:30 UTC), a number of sources started to report a widespread Akamai DNS issue. Large web sites, which use Akamai for its DNS service, did no longer resolve. Effected sites are Yahoo, Google, Microsoft, Fedex, Xerox, Apple and likely many others.
At this time (10:30 am EDT), some effected domains removed the Akamai DNS servers and are reachable again using their own DNS servers.
Typically, the domain itself (e.g. 'google.com') still resolves, but popular hostnames, like 'www.google.com' will not resolve. As a result, the web site is no longer reachable.
The effect appears to be world wide. Some of the Akamai servers do respond to pings, but do not respond to DNS queries.
posts to the NANOG mailing list regarding this issue:
http://www.merit.edu/mail.archives/nanog/
Interested in meeting handlers in person? Discuss this diary over a beer? Visit us at SANSFIRE, the Internet Storm Center Conferences. Monterey, CA, July 6-11th. @Night talks picked by the ISC and the best security training you can get.
Toshiba Magnia SG20 Appliance Server These are all over Fleabay for about $200-300 bucks. Runs RH 7.3 and supports WiFi. Can also do NAS so you have the whole show in 1 easy to fail,,,,,,, errrr use box. If you really want to spend more do a Froogle search, you can find them for anywhere from 600-2,000 bucks!
In 1996 I helped setup the 1st US/Mexico call center for a large US bank, where we sent calls to Mexico for Spanish speaking customers. This worked great until the company got greedy (paying the agents about $50 a week) and started sending English calls to English speaking Mexican agents. The accents in many cases were almost non-existent, however we received a lot of complaints from our customers about their ability to provide good service. Eventually we determined the cultural differences between the US customers and Mexican agents were so great, the Mexican agents could only handle the simpler calls even with rather extensive training and reference info.
In the end most English calls went to back to American agents.