The reason Google is successful, is that they understand the needs of their audience and they cater to them. Yahoo has never allowed anyone to correct their business model, which is why Google exists today.
How in the world is this Insightful? It is completely off topic and quite honestly the article contradicts what the above claim. Of course there *might* be reasonable arguments to back up the claim being made but "Yahoo has never allowed anyone to correct their business model", especially in the context of the article, is not one of them.
"I have worked for 3 fortune 500's and this is how they all do it. They layoff a nice chunk of workers and then give themselves a big fat bonus for doing it."
How do you know they got a bonus? What companies were these ? You sound like someone who is bitter and has no proof of what you alledge happened to you no less what someone in another company is planning to do. Trust me this guy is not scheming for a bonus by putting his butt on the line writing this memo. That makes little to no sense except among the most cynical and bitter.
Sorry but Yahoo has some seriously good sites:
finance
news
my
ask
autos
flickr
local
weather
maps
I just do not see a single other web company that is at the top or leading in all these markets. Whether Yahoo remains cool or perfect for us infallible Slashdotters is obviously settled (it is not) - but it is the highest hit web presence day in and day out and that is why "we give a shit about yahoo."
Because he lives in a repressed society that doesn't allow him to call his partner his husband?
How about calling his "partner" his "boyfriend". My guess is that if he did that then people would surely think he was a woman. I think there is a reason to use the word "partner" in a semi-anonymous, print (of otherwise non-vocal) forum. But perhaps we are overthinking this. We are certainly off topic.
I ran into an issue in one of my environments that is related to what you are talking about. I had power users (bunch of developers and a dba). The rules went like this: If you want to install your own machine and have the freedom that comes with that, you cannot ask me for support on the machine ( I have no desire to debate this policy and it is not the point of the post; please keep that in mind). If I installed it I fixed all your issues but you got no root access and some sudo access. This was pretty black and white and therefore did not work for everything. I used apt-rpm for updating the systems as well as for inhouse custom packages. On the workstations I managed for the power users I did not want them to feel like they could not make any choices and wanted them to be able to install apps if they felt they needed them. I also needed to make sure that the apps they installed were not going to be bad for the setup.
The solution? Well since we had an internal apt repository I setup the repository so that one channel could be accessed without authentication (for the power users), set their sources.list file so that it only referenced that one channel (they did not have root) and allowed them to run apt-get via sudo. Any application a developer or the dba wanted I tested briefly and threw into the open channel so that everybody had access to it. It did not take very long to have pretty much all the apps everybody needed to do their job in the channel so that they could install it. The good thing is that one persons smart app choice was available to everybody once it was in the repository.
Actually with Solaris Zones Sun provides a means to work the issue out. You can install and run Oracle in a zone that only uses two of the 4 processors (not sure oracle supports running their db in a solaris zone). But you point is well taken, Oracle does not give you a means to run on a subset of the hardware if that is all you have paid for or want to pay for.
"If the customer doesn't have access to original install media (and you're going to be a Good Little Tech and refuse to put pirated software on), you're going to have to do it the hard way."
This is quite laughable. You will have more luck seeing little green men than a Windows "Good Little Tech" that does not have a trough full of pirated Windows software that they are not only willing to use but think it is almost silly not to.
"Everyone seems to be thinking that the story is all about a thousand times performance increase because they switched to Linux.
I don't see the article make that claim..."
Ah the subtle things that we miss... The whole reason this article was posted here on Slashdot is because Linux is in the mix. Get it? If this was an article with the word "Windows" or "Solaris" substituted for "Linux" then it would never be on Slashdot. If this way about a 1000% increase in performance with our new Solaris, Oracle RAC on such and such hardware it might have appeared on sun.com instead. It should be apparent to everyone reading Slashdot why articles make it on the front page.
"Yes, but in the end, who is the campus network serving? The students/faculty of the campus, right. Network policies that are made for making's sake are useless. You're point of view is fascist."
You're point of view that these policies are for "making's sake" is ignorant.
I knew I was going to have to straighten this out: I am almost certain that Oracle is moving it development evironment to Linux from Solaris. This most certainly means their development servers and not user's workstations. Now this does not mean that their workstations will not be changing to Linux, but I would guess that most people workstations are going to remain what they are presently and would change slowly over time. So presently there are probably Windows, Sun/Solaris and Linux workstations in use on developers desks. At my company we could care less what the developers use on their machine as long as they do all their work on our Linux servers:) .
What is even more sad is that I could sware the the original is more or less taken from some keynote speeches Larry Ellison did when Oracle RAC first came out. The part that does not seem like it was taken from Ellison was the mention that everybody uses #3 for TPC-C benchmarking. This is not the case. They actually either use Shared Nothing (which will give you big time clustered results) or they go unclustered (which is the benchmark that is closest to a realworld setup and is what people actually consider these days; albeit it is not exactly real world either). Other than that, every major point was given by Ellison to the best of my memory.
"You should set up two systems, one DOS and one RedHat 5. Perform random system reboots while under normal desktop usage. Then report back to us."
While we are at it why don't we test which one will cause more bodily damage: Jumping off of a speeding big wheel or jumping off of a speeding motorcycle? Sound stupid? So didn't your "empirical" test.
"The equivalent of this problem would selecting the wrong Microsoft Partner to do your rollout."
The notion in the above quote is flawed because you almost never have Microsoft or a Microsoft integrator replacing such an entrenched Linux or UNIX environment (essentially the reverse challenge of the Munich environment) . Doing so would be very problematic particularly if that environment had many average computer users. These users and environments that have many such users tend to be the hardest to overcome.
Ballmer should remember his amusement when he talks about Windows being integrateable. The failings of people to be able to replace his OS simply proves the lack of interoperability of the OS and the file formats from MS applications. It also proves their effort to lock out competition based on predatory practices, rather than soley in competitive products is working. Anybody who thought replacing Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Applications was going to be even relatively easy is not very smart and has never tried any such thing (and I do not mean sone granola head replacing his girlfriends Windows with Linux). For less skilled users, even the replacement of Outlook with *any* other email/collaboration program is a difficult task. These people are not very trainable and painfully closed minded (probably due to fear or technology). This has nothing to do with features easy because I have gone through such hardships with users who used Outlook simply as a pop3 email client.
Slashdot Mirror
Most of Yahoo's infrastructure runs on FreeBSD, and the lead developer of PHP, Rasmus Lerdorf, works as an engineer at Yahoo.
Trust me there is way more Linux than FreeBSD.
If his sister/wife/daughter would "lose" her e-mail would he be so dismissive?
Does the fact that the customer is a woman have anything to do with it?
search.yahoo.com
The reason Google is successful, is that they understand the needs of their audience and they cater to them. Yahoo has never allowed anyone to correct their business model, which is why Google exists today.
How in the world is this Insightful? It is completely off topic and quite honestly the article contradicts what the above claim. Of course there *might* be reasonable arguments to back up the claim being made but "Yahoo has never allowed anyone to correct their business model", especially in the context of the article, is not one of them.
How is the parent post Insightful?
"I have worked for 3 fortune 500's and this is how they all do it. They layoff a nice chunk of workers and then give themselves a big fat bonus for doing it."
How do you know they got a bonus? What companies were these ? You sound like someone who is bitter and has no proof of what you alledge happened to you no less what someone in another company is planning to do. Trust me this guy is not scheming for a bonus by putting his butt on the line writing this memo. That makes little to no sense except among the most cynical and bitter.
MikeSorry but Yahoo has some seriously good sites: finance news my ask autos flickr local weather maps I just do not see a single other web company that is at the top or leading in all these markets. Whether Yahoo remains cool or perfect for us infallible Slashdotters is obviously settled (it is not) - but it is the highest hit web presence day in and day out and that is why "we give a shit about yahoo."
Because he lives in a repressed society that doesn't allow him to call his partner his husband?
How about calling his "partner" his "boyfriend". My guess is that if he did that then people would surely think he was a woman. I think there is a reason to use the word "partner" in a semi-anonymous, print (of otherwise non-vocal) forum. But perhaps we are overthinking this. We are certainly off topic.
I agree with you in the groups within groups. I wish this was more common.
This is the same kind of ignorance that perpetuates the notion that you can only get AIDS from gay men.
Wake up! Or shut up.
I ran into an issue in one of my environments that is related to what you are talking about. I had power users (bunch of developers and a dba). The rules went like this: If you want to install your own machine and have the freedom that comes with that, you cannot ask me for support on the machine ( I have no desire to debate this policy and it is not the point of the post; please keep that in mind). If I installed it I fixed all your issues but you got no root access and some sudo access. This was pretty black and white and therefore did not work for everything. I used apt-rpm for updating the systems as well as for inhouse custom packages. On the workstations I managed for the power users I did not want them to feel like they could not make any choices and wanted them to be able to install apps if they felt they needed them. I also needed to make sure that the apps they installed were not going to be bad for the setup.
The solution? Well since we had an internal apt repository I setup the repository so that one channel could be accessed without authentication (for the power users), set their sources.list file so that it only referenced that one channel (they did not have root) and allowed them to run apt-get via sudo. Any application a developer or the dba wanted I tested briefly and threw into the open channel so that everybody had access to it. It did not take very long to have pretty much all the apps everybody needed to do their job in the channel so that they could install it. The good thing is that one persons smart app choice was available to everybody once it was in the repository.
Try to keep this technique between you and I ;)
One of the funniest fucking posts I have ever read!
Actually with Solaris Zones Sun provides a means to work the issue out. You can install and run Oracle in a zone that only uses two of the 4 processors (not sure oracle supports running their db in a solaris zone). But you point is well taken, Oracle does not give you a means to run on a subset of the hardware if that is all you have paid for or want to pay for.
"Its not news , and the world dont resolve around yourself , or your idea or your conception or missunderstanding of it."
Great sentence. You might want to "resolve" your grammar issues before throwing stones regarding the "misunderstanding" of "concept[s]."
AMEN Brother.
You are an idiot if you do not understand why Sun was crying.
"If the customer doesn't have access to original install media (and you're going to be a Good Little Tech and refuse to put pirated software on), you're going to have to do it the hard way."
This is quite laughable. You will have more luck seeing little green men than a Windows "Good Little Tech" that does not have a trough full of pirated Windows software that they are not only willing to use but think it is almost silly not to.
http://www.sun.com/third-party/global/oracle/Sun_O racle_DS_final.pdf
Still waiting to learn how this "history lesson" applies to Linux?
"Everyone seems to be thinking that the story is all about a thousand times performance increase because they switched to Linux.
I don't see the article make that claim..."
Ah the subtle things that we miss... The whole reason this article was posted here on Slashdot is because Linux is in the mix. Get it? If this was an article with the word "Windows" or "Solaris" substituted for "Linux" then it would never be on Slashdot. If this way about a 1000% increase in performance with our new Solaris, Oracle RAC on such and such hardware it might have appeared on sun.com instead. It should be apparent to everyone reading Slashdot why articles make it on the front page.
"Yes, but in the end, who is the campus network serving? The students/faculty of the campus, right. Network policies that are made for making's sake are useless. You're point of view is fascist."
You're point of view that these policies are for "making's sake" is ignorant.
If this stuff is not obvious to you then it is already too late!
I knew I was going to have to straighten this out: I am almost certain that Oracle is moving it development evironment to Linux from Solaris. This most certainly means their development servers and not user's workstations. Now this does not mean that their workstations will not be changing to Linux, but I would guess that most people workstations are going to remain what they are presently and would change slowly over time. So presently there are probably Windows, Sun/Solaris and Linux workstations in use on developers desks. At my company we could care less what the developers use on their machine as long as they do all their work on our Linux servers :) .
What is even more sad is that I could sware the the original is more or less taken from some keynote speeches Larry Ellison did when Oracle RAC first came out. The part that does not seem like it was taken from Ellison was the mention that everybody uses #3 for TPC-C benchmarking. This is not the case. They actually either use Shared Nothing (which will give you big time clustered results) or they go unclustered (which is the benchmark that is closest to a realworld setup and is what people actually consider these days; albeit it is not exactly real world either). Other than that, every major point was given by Ellison to the best of my memory.
"You should set up two systems, one DOS and one RedHat 5. Perform random system reboots while under normal desktop usage. Then report back to us."
While we are at it why don't we test which one will cause more bodily damage: Jumping off of a speeding big wheel or jumping off of a speeding motorcycle? Sound stupid? So didn't your "empirical" test.
"The equivalent of this problem would selecting the wrong Microsoft Partner to do your rollout."
The notion in the above quote is flawed because you almost never have Microsoft or a Microsoft integrator replacing such an entrenched Linux or UNIX environment (essentially the reverse challenge of the Munich environment) . Doing so would be very problematic particularly if that environment had many average computer users. These users and environments that have many such users tend to be the hardest to overcome.
Ballmer should remember his amusement when he talks about Windows being integrateable. The failings of people to be able to replace his OS simply proves the lack of interoperability of the OS and the file formats from MS applications. It also proves their effort to lock out competition based on predatory practices, rather than soley in competitive products is working. Anybody who thought replacing Microsoft Windows and Microsoft Applications was going to be even relatively easy is not very smart and has never tried any such thing (and I do not mean sone granola head replacing his girlfriends Windows with Linux). For less skilled users, even the replacement of Outlook with *any* other email/collaboration program is a difficult task. These people are not very trainable and painfully closed minded (probably due to fear or technology). This has nothing to do with features easy because I have gone through such hardships with users who used Outlook simply as a pop3 email client.