This effort to put hardware in front of the OS to protect the OS is mostly because Microsoft won't fix their OS to limit its crackability.
There are some cases where you absolutely must have physical security, but for the most part, this whole thing is about forcing new hardware changes, new upgrades, new $$ for Microsoft, and new restrictions on what users can do on Windows.
They, Microsoft, also get to restrict what OS/filesystem gets installed on the system too. So while the number of GNU/Linux users is still ONLY in the 10-20 Million, their voices need to be pretty loud on this one. IMO.
wow, these guys are feeling REALLY comfortable with their install base to pull this kind of thing. Or, maybe they're getting coaching from MSFT lawyers on how to be a good MSFT partner in-training for purchase...;-)
From what I heard, it was poor software control and management along with bad mechanical design. IBM has demoed standard OS/2 doing realtime tasks by balancing a stick or pencil on a 2 axis motion table. FWIW, out of the box, you can get 10ms timing accuracy as long as you control threading correctly and you keep the GUI/PMShell off the mission critical systems. Windows NT was only only getting close to 50ms back when I did some OS/2 and NT work for mil messaging systems. Oh, and the carts were falling off the tracks so it's tough to blame any OS for that...
Too bad they never got a handle on the project after all these years. I'd heard that there's a system like it in Germany but it took close to 6 years to get it debugged sufficiently.
I think it was a free-wheeling system( roller coaster like ) and so timing issues were always popping up. In hindsight, it might have been better to design it with somekind of fixed speed system( cable car like system of grabbing a moving cable ). That way, the different weights of the baggage and varying frictional aspects could be factored out of the design...
Also, whom ever wrote that contract which had United paying $60 mil/year for a nonfunctional system should be flogged or forced to ride in the baggage carts til eternity. What a mess for United. IMO.
personally, if the "marketing" is done correctly, the customer is actually interested in the product and is not annoyed at recieving notices. Viral or otherwise. But, if overdone, THEN it can get annoying. The web is good this way in that like-minded people can gather virtually and discuss like-minded concepts. Unlike say AM/FM radio where there's such a mixed audience that we are stuck listening to ads for whatever Clearchannel can get paid to put on the air.
As far as the "viral" part goes, that will only work if, as you mentioned, "carefully chosen forums/blogs"( ie the products customer base ) are found. And IMO, that is not a bad thing. They won't get much "spread" or traction if they seed the Firefly info to...a genital herpes forum for instance. And it would be a waste of time to even think that those forum/blog members would be remotely interested.
and you can file a provisional patent for $100 to "fix" the invention date.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Was there corporate espionage involved? Who copied whom and how was it done? The short period surrounding all this seems to imply something "interesting" was going on. IMHO.
I think either there was too much waste and too little thought/research put into the orbiting space stations and therefore, much else was never funded. You really would have thought we'd be so much further along with regard to space travel and exploration considering what was done so many years ago, yet we couldn't even keep ourselves in orbit for any length of time. And to think that they've still not even designed a better shuttle system after all these years of knowing the current system was pretty fragile...
IMO, we should have built a great automatic delivery system in the image of the Russian system and then used a capsule-like system(the old way) for sending up the humans. Done right, the capsules could be mounted on the automatic system or even dock in space with them for manned payload delivery or repair.
Heck, we can't even go BACK to the moon in less time it took to create the space program and go there the first time. It's probably taking longer because Haliburton needs $100 billion and 10 years just to look at the moon and pick out the landing spot. It'll be interesting to see if the Russians are the first to RE-orbit the moon now they there are plans for paying passengers for such trips.
My confidence isn't very high with regard to seeing trips to Mars in my lifetime. Take a look at the inside of the International Space Station to see how far we've come. It just doesn't LOOK very well planned. And do you remember the crews having to build their own lunch table out of duct-tape? What was that all about?
my bad, I commented on the article headline and didn't read the article before posting. The article spec's what I said but said that they were only able to get 12' in clear space and this is an obvious flaw in the system design and spec. Most likely an antenna design problem in one of the devices.
this is a massive error in design for this kind of product.
I was just getting into the sector in the 80's so I must have missed seeing the actions you mentioned.
It could also understand that in a truely competitive marketplace, companies would be more "interested" in outperforming the competition as opposed to attempting to block them. Though protecting designs and IP has always been a blocking technique. And not illegal in a competitive market. I would think that was Apple might have done years ago would have been very different from what Microsoft has done since the late 80's once a monopoly in the PC OS market was obtained.
I've warned people over the last couple of years that Microsoft would us patents to fight OSS and the GPL. And that this fight would likely not be legal but would be effective. Mostly because the OSS and GPL based projects are often run by small groups or individuals and just a threat of legal action with a official document( patent ) will shut them down. The expense of proving that "official document" invalid is the hammer they'll use against OSS/GPL projects. And this is very different from a company like Apple going after a company for copying the GUI layout in something like GEM. After all, who is going to proove Microsoft is doing something illegal when they start going after OSS projects this way? They'll have government documents to say they have the right to do it....
We'll be seeing this new chapter in Microsofts anti-competitive operations play out in the next 5 years IMO. But I think it'll be their last such fight, one way or another.
gawd, here we go again.... Look, Jobs was invited to see what was going on at PARC and what he say, he implemented in his own way at Apple and very differently from the way the PARC people did it. Contrast that with how Microsoft got to see how Apple wrote and implemented their GUI for the Mac when Microsoft brought MS Word to the Mac. Then, somehow, Microsoft starts working on their own GUI layer for DOS and it's API's and graphical layout are VERY similar to Apples....
It's one thing to see a concept/idea and apply those concepts in a new and unique way, and other to just copy from someone else and put your name on it. And if you look at what Apple and Microsoft have done over the years, they both continue to operate the same way. Apples uses existing ideas and designs and creates something very different and far more useful. Microsoft, uses existing ideas and designs, threatens the original inventor(s) while copying the tech into Windows with only minor changes that are almost always only to make the tech work ON Windows.
So, "Steve Jobs and Bill Gates" operate in vastly different ways. It's probably why Apple has not ended up in court with the DOJ and Microsoft has many times. One's a thug fighting to keep his business at all costs and the other keeps his business going within the guidelines of an open market and market choice. Anti-competition as opposed to competition. IMO.
all this is going to do is reduce the number of hardware options for the product, raise the price of the accessories, and reduce sales. Add this to the added( +$10 ) per game MSFT is requiring and it all adds up to a win for Sony.
It's kinda strange that they are doing this considering for the life of Windows CE, they've been willing to lose ~$1 billion per year and haven't resorted to this kind of extortion from its WinCE cohorts. Then again, WinCE is a software product and Xbox 180 is hardware. And expensive hardware at that.
I just loved how they are not only requiring accessory vendors to pay MSFT, but they also must sign an agreement to NOT develope certain accessories. For instance, nobody but MSFT can build wireless accessories. Good luck with that.
That's because we now need a Central Homeland Security Agency. Its purpose would be to oversee the operations of the Department of Homeland Security, and all the other agencies of subversion created under the Bush Administration.
It's what Dick Cheney is working on now but won't tell anybody.;-)
Regarding your request for comments1
regarding “The Copyright Office is supplementing its Notice of
Proposed Rulemaking on preregistration of copyright claims”
announcement. I would like to state my comments as follows with
regard to the exclusive use requirement of the Microsoft Windows
Internet Explorer web browser for electronic-only preregistration
forms.
That product, the Microsoft
Internet Explorer web browser, is not supported nor available on the
computer systems we use.
That product is known to not
support world wide standards for displaying web content as described
by the W3C2
organization. Such a lack of standards support prevents millions of
Americans from accessing web content designed specifically for
Microsoft Windows operating system and its web browser(s).
There is an openly supported and
publicly controlled web browser( Mozilla Firefox ) which has become
very popular as security, reliability, and standards support has
wavered on the Microsoft Windows platform. Also, many businesses and
individuals have come to rely in it. For example, Novell, Oracle,
and IBM just to name a few. This web browser is available for free
on all versions of Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, UNIX, and
GNU/Linux.
Thank you for the opportunity to
provide comment on the issue of public access to the services
provided at the US Copyright Office.
Kind regards,
Your Name
Your Address
Your City, State, Zip
1http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.ht ml
thanks for expaining all that. I've read so many times that 802.11g downgraded the whole bus with a single 802.11b client that I figured that's what happened. It doesn't sound so bad they way you've explained it, but it does sound like you want to keep the 802.11b client count low.
As far as 802.11a goes, I figured that was passed over since 'g' was announced relatively quickly after 'a' and 'a' wasn't compatible with 'b'. It would have been foolish to implement 'a' after 'b' at a university IMO. But doesn't mean it didn't happen.:-)
EMC's management software is JAVA on Windows and so it's likely that they were finding they could only manage one or two SAN systems at a time before Microsoft Windows crashed. Now, they can manage a much larger number of systems from one Microsoft Windows PC running many VM sessions.;-)
My guess is that because Windows sucks so bad at server resource utilization, they purchased VMWare to expand out from the SAN market. After all, SAN gets them in the server room already. Microsoft followed them quickly with the purchase of VirtualPC. And all THIS came from the fact that organizations were learning that one LinuxPC could run the database, print server, email server, and intranet webserver when it took 4 WindowsPCs to do the same tasks. Eight if they wanted the same uptime( via redundency ).
I think another important factor today is power consumption and the ability to support handheld devices. 8 years ago, it was all about the PC and laptops, today, printers, dig-cameras, webcams, gamecontollers, PDAs, headsets, etc all are going wireless.
There will be not one wireless thing to end all wireless things. Unless it scales and scales well.
I don't remember if VHS was that much cheaper than BetaMax but I do remember that one TV movie could be recorded without you having to be there to change tapes. In those days, how many were RECORDING something they had to be there to change tapes anyways? Not many. THAT was the one and only thing that gave VHS the marketshare lead IMO.
The rest of the story goes alot like how Microsoft Windows still exists. It's because most consumers are not that smart about quality. BetaMAX was better looking but VHS was good enough and already established its marketing channels. BetaMAX would have had to come in way under price and with a marketing plan to designed to sell the quality, or atleast to spread some FUD about VHS quality. They didn't and it only caught on where quality mattered. In video and TV studios mostly. It's still used today.
it does seem pretty excessive to have switched wireless technologies 3 times but maybe it's just different implementatons of 802.11. I can see them starting with 802.11b and then going to 802.11g, only to realize that it'll drop down to 802.11b speeds for all connections when one 802.11b client is allowed to connect...
I too am interested in what 3 technologies a university would switch to. I suppose there is Boingo but other than that, 802.11 is the only thing that would make sense today. UWB tomorrow maybe but who knows?
He also needs to factor in specialty tools based on if the company is high end or low/middle end architecture. If high end, a stereo lith machine or 3D scanner might be in the budget. Wow'ing high end clients with high end models can help justify the high end bills they'll get. If middle/low end, color laserjet, inkjets, or scanners might be all you get outside the standard desktop and server systems.
hey, maybe the guy showed them how to use a spreadsheet and plugged in a printer so now he is now the Windows expert. Because he could click on a few buttons, he's now getting loaded with things he's totally unqualified to do but he doesn't want to let them know he's clueless. I've seen this happen over and over again.
next thing you know, he's asking/. about getting an MCSE cert the quickest and cheapest way so that he can embed Microsofts crappy software further into the system and balloon his IT budget.
Good point since he did say architecture firm didn't he. IMO, architects are right behind lawyers and doctors in the "I am god" complex list. So whatever you calculate your support costs to be, quadruple the man hours estimate and double the hardware estimate.
Whatever you do, don't forget to budget for ample supplies of chicken blood and other black magic staples. You know you will need it when the boss asks for those apps and hardware that magically do things that aren't possible in the natural realm.
You mean the ones which Microsoft says will be out 'real soon now' or 'in the next major release of Windows'?
You'll also need some penguin blood with that black magic if you think you're going to use OSS and/or GNU/Linux without knowing anything but Windows. Well, you could probably get away with Firefox/Mozilla and OpenOffice but that's about it. IMO.
if you're new to the company, get the previous 3 years IT expenses, including outside services, software, hardware, etc. From that, you should be able to determine the baseline for your budget. Now, figure out what you want to do to IMPROVE the department over the next 5 years, and make sure you've discussed this with other department heads since they WILL be involved.
You're going to have a difficult time justifying someone elses budget if you just go by what "others" say and do. And for goodness sake, include some training $$ for GNU/Linux. Just being able to support one or two OSS projects will save the training costs and then some.
I'm sorry but years and years of lies from Microsoft have jaded me to see these guys as nothing more than technology killers.
I didn't see anything in what he said that told me that they were using the Linux Lab to make Windows better and when asked if what the lab learned would be used against Linux, he only stated what HIS job was and not what the purpose of the lab is.
IMO, that lab is only for finding places where Microsoft can market Windows against Linux. Since Microsoft has NEVER embraced an outside technology without implementing it's extend and extinguish policies, I can only see it's use as distructive. Not competitive and not co-opetition.. WTF
I would not talk with these guys other than saying thanks for the free pizza. Let alone talk shop with them if you appreciate the GPL, GNU/Linux, OSS, and having a system which works and works well at a reasonable cost. IMHO.
Slashdot Mirror
This effort to put hardware in front of the OS to protect the OS is mostly because Microsoft won't fix their OS to limit its crackability.
There are some cases where you absolutely must have physical security, but for the most part, this whole thing is about forcing new hardware changes, new upgrades, new $$ for Microsoft, and new restrictions on what users can do on Windows.
They, Microsoft, also get to restrict what OS/filesystem gets installed on the system too. So while the number of GNU/Linux users is still ONLY in the 10-20 Million, their voices need to be pretty loud on this one. IMO.
LoB
wow, these guys are feeling REALLY comfortable with their install base to pull this kind of thing. Or, maybe they're getting coaching from MSFT lawyers on how to be a good MSFT partner in-training for purchase... ;-)
Go http://gplflash.sourceforge.net/ and SVG!
LoB
Here's a better link to Michael Schloh's( calpoly.edu ) complete "Analysis of the Denver International Airport baggage system":
t /csc463.html
http://www.csc.calpoly.edu/~dstearns/SchlohProjec
LoB
From what I heard, it was poor software control and management along with bad mechanical design. IBM has demoed standard OS/2 doing realtime tasks by balancing a stick or pencil on a 2 axis motion table. FWIW, out of the box, you can get 10ms timing accuracy as long as you control threading correctly and you keep the GUI/PMShell off the mission critical systems. Windows NT was only only getting close to 50ms back when I did some OS/2 and NT work for mil messaging systems. Oh, and the carts were falling off the tracks so it's tough to blame any OS for that...
Too bad they never got a handle on the project after all these years. I'd heard that there's a system like it in Germany but it took close to 6 years to get it debugged sufficiently.
I think it was a free-wheeling system( roller coaster like ) and so timing issues were always popping up. In hindsight, it might have been better to design it with somekind of fixed speed system( cable car like system of grabbing a moving cable ). That way, the different weights of the baggage and varying frictional aspects could be factored out of the design...
Also, whom ever wrote that contract which had United paying $60 mil/year for a nonfunctional system should be flogged or forced to ride in the baggage carts til eternity. What a mess for United. IMO.
LoB
personally, if the "marketing" is done correctly, the customer is actually interested in the product and is not annoyed at recieving notices. Viral or otherwise. But, if overdone, THEN it can get annoying. The web is good this way in that like-minded people can gather virtually and discuss like-minded concepts. Unlike say AM/FM radio where there's such a mixed audience that we are stuck listening to ads for whatever Clearchannel can get paid to put on the air.
As far as the "viral" part goes, that will only work if, as you mentioned, "carefully chosen forums/blogs"( ie the products customer base ) are found. And IMO, that is not a bad thing. They won't get much "spread" or traction if they seed the Firefly info to...a genital herpes forum for instance. And it would be a waste of time to even think that those forum/blog members would be remotely interested.
LoB
and you can file a provisional patent for $100 to "fix" the invention date.
It'll be interesting to see how this plays out. Was there corporate espionage involved? Who copied whom and how was it done? The short period surrounding all this seems to imply something "interesting" was going on. IMHO.
LoB
I think either there was too much waste and too little thought/research put into the orbiting space stations and therefore, much else was never funded. You really would have thought we'd be so much further along with regard to space travel and exploration considering what was done so many years ago, yet we couldn't even keep ourselves in orbit for any length of time. And to think that they've still not even designed a better shuttle system after all these years of knowing the current system was pretty fragile...
IMO, we should have built a great automatic delivery system in the image of the Russian system and then used a capsule-like system(the old way) for sending up the humans. Done right, the capsules could be mounted on the automatic system or even dock in space with them for manned payload delivery or repair.
Heck, we can't even go BACK to the moon in less time it took to create the space program and go there the first time. It's probably taking longer because Haliburton needs $100 billion and 10 years just to look at the moon and pick out the landing spot. It'll be interesting to see if the Russians are the first to RE-orbit the moon now they there are plans for paying passengers for such trips.
My confidence isn't very high with regard to seeing trips to Mars in my lifetime. Take a look at the inside of the International Space Station to see how far we've come. It just doesn't LOOK very well planned. And do you remember the crews having to build their own lunch table out of duct-tape? What was that all about?
LoB
my bad, I commented on the article headline and didn't read the article before posting. The article spec's what I said but said that they were only able to get 12' in clear space and this is an obvious flaw in the system design and spec. Most likely an antenna design problem in one of the devices.
this is a massive error in design for this kind of product.
LoB
Class III ~1M( 3' )
Class II ~10M( 30' )
Class 1 ~100M( 300' )
YMMV since if you put one end of this in a 6'x6'x6' metal cage, your actual range will be 6'.
LoB
I was just getting into the sector in the 80's so I must have missed seeing the actions you mentioned.
It could also understand that in a truely competitive marketplace, companies would be more "interested" in outperforming the competition as opposed to attempting to block them. Though protecting designs and IP has always been a blocking technique. And not illegal in a competitive market. I would think that was Apple might have done years ago would have been very different from what Microsoft has done since the late 80's once a monopoly in the PC OS market was obtained.
I've warned people over the last couple of years that Microsoft would us patents to fight OSS and the GPL. And that this fight would likely not be legal but would be effective. Mostly because the OSS and GPL based projects are often run by small groups or individuals and just a threat of legal action with a official document( patent ) will shut them down. The expense of proving that "official document" invalid is the hammer they'll use against OSS/GPL projects. And this is very different from a company like Apple going after a company for copying the GUI layout in something like GEM. After all, who is going to proove Microsoft is doing something illegal when they start going after OSS projects this way? They'll have government documents to say they have the right to do it....
We'll be seeing this new chapter in Microsofts anti-competitive operations play out in the next 5 years IMO. But I think it'll be their last such fight, one way or another.
LoB
gawd, here we go again.... Look, Jobs was invited to see what was going on at PARC and what he say, he implemented in his own way at Apple and very differently from the way the PARC people did it. Contrast that with how Microsoft got to see how Apple wrote and implemented their GUI for the Mac when Microsoft brought MS Word to the Mac. Then, somehow, Microsoft starts working on their own GUI layer for DOS and it's API's and graphical layout are VERY similar to Apples....
It's one thing to see a concept/idea and apply those concepts in a new and unique way, and other to just copy from someone else and put your name on it. And if you look at what Apple and Microsoft have done over the years, they both continue to operate the same way. Apples uses existing ideas and designs and creates something very different and far more useful. Microsoft, uses existing ideas and designs, threatens the original inventor(s) while copying the tech into Windows with only minor changes that are almost always only to make the tech work ON Windows.
So, "Steve Jobs and Bill Gates" operate in vastly different ways. It's probably why Apple has not ended up in court with the DOJ and Microsoft has many times. One's a thug fighting to keep his business at all costs and the other keeps his business going within the guidelines of an open market and market choice. Anti-competition as opposed to competition. IMO.
LoB
all this is going to do is reduce the number of hardware options for the product, raise the price of the accessories, and reduce sales. Add this to the added( +$10 ) per game MSFT is requiring and it all adds up to a win for Sony.
It's kinda strange that they are doing this considering for the life of Windows CE, they've been willing to lose ~$1 billion per year and haven't resorted to this kind of extortion from its WinCE cohorts. Then again, WinCE is a software product and Xbox 180 is hardware. And expensive hardware at that.
I just loved how they are not only requiring accessory vendors to pay MSFT, but they also must sign an agreement to NOT develope certain accessories. For instance, nobody but MSFT can build wireless accessories. Good luck with that.
LoB
That's because we now need a Central Homeland Security Agency. Its purpose would be to oversee the operations of the Department of Homeland Security, and all the other agencies of subversion created under the Bush Administration.
;-)
It's what Dick Cheney is working on now but won't tell anybody.
LoB
Copyright GC/ I&R
P.O. Box 70400
Southwest Station, Washington, DC 20024-0400
Dear Sirs,
Regarding your request for comments1 regarding “The Copyright Office is supplementing its Notice of Proposed Rulemaking on preregistration of copyright claims” announcement. I would like to state my comments as follows with regard to the exclusive use requirement of the Microsoft Windows Internet Explorer web browser for electronic-only preregistration forms.
That product, the Microsoft Internet Explorer web browser, is not supported nor available on the computer systems we use.
That product is known to not support world wide standards for displaying web content as described by the W3C2 organization. Such a lack of standards support prevents millions of Americans from accessing web content designed specifically for Microsoft Windows operating system and its web browser(s).
There is an openly supported and publicly controlled web browser( Mozilla Firefox ) which has become very popular as security, reliability, and standards support has wavered on the Microsoft Windows platform. Also, many businesses and individuals have come to rely in it. For example, Novell, Oracle, and IBM just to name a few. This web browser is available for free on all versions of Microsoft Windows, Apple Mac, UNIX, and GNU/Linux.
Thank you for the opportunity to provide comment on the issue of public access to the services provided at the US Copyright Office.
Kind regards,
Your Name
Your Address
Your City, State, Zip
1http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2005/70fr44878.ht ml
2http://www.w3.org/Consortium/
thanks for expaining all that. I've read so many times that 802.11g downgraded the whole bus with a single 802.11b client that I figured that's what happened. It doesn't sound so bad they way you've explained it, but it does sound like you want to keep the 802.11b client count low.
:-)
As far as 802.11a goes, I figured that was passed over since 'g' was announced relatively quickly after 'a' and 'a' wasn't compatible with 'b'. It would have been foolish to implement 'a' after 'b' at a university IMO. But doesn't mean it didn't happen.
LoB
EMC's management software is JAVA on Windows and so it's likely that they were finding they could only manage one or two SAN systems at a time before Microsoft Windows crashed. Now, they can manage a much larger number of systems from one Microsoft Windows PC running many VM sessions. ;-)
My guess is that because Windows sucks so bad at server resource utilization, they purchased VMWare to expand out from the SAN market. After all, SAN gets them in the server room already. Microsoft followed them quickly with the purchase of VirtualPC. And all THIS came from the fact that organizations were learning that one LinuxPC could run the database, print server, email server, and intranet webserver when it took 4 WindowsPCs to do the same tasks. Eight if they wanted the same uptime( via redundency ).
LoB
I think another important factor today is power consumption and the ability to support handheld devices. 8 years ago, it was all about the PC and laptops, today, printers, dig-cameras, webcams, gamecontollers, PDAs, headsets, etc all are going wireless.
There will be not one wireless thing to end all wireless things. Unless it scales and scales well.
LoB
I don't remember if VHS was that much cheaper than BetaMax but I do remember that one TV movie could be recorded without you having to be there to change tapes. In those days, how many were RECORDING something they had to be there to change tapes anyways? Not many. THAT was the one and only thing that gave VHS the marketshare lead IMO.
The rest of the story goes alot like how Microsoft Windows still exists. It's because most consumers are not that smart about quality. BetaMAX was better looking but VHS was good enough and already established its marketing channels. BetaMAX would have had to come in way under price and with a marketing plan to designed to sell the quality, or atleast to spread some FUD about VHS quality. They didn't and it only caught on where quality mattered. In video and TV studios mostly. It's still used today.
LoB
it does seem pretty excessive to have switched wireless technologies 3 times but maybe it's just different implementatons of 802.11. I can see them starting with 802.11b and then going to 802.11g, only to realize that it'll drop down to 802.11b speeds for all connections when one 802.11b client is allowed to connect...
I too am interested in what 3 technologies a university would switch to. I suppose there is Boingo but other than that, 802.11 is the only thing that would make sense today. UWB tomorrow maybe but who knows?
LoB
He also needs to factor in specialty tools based on if the company is high end or low/middle end architecture. If high end, a stereo lith machine or 3D scanner might be in the budget. Wow'ing high end clients with high end models can help justify the high end bills they'll get. If middle/low end, color laserjet, inkjets, or scanners might be all you get outside the standard desktop and server systems.
LoB
hey, maybe the guy showed them how to use a spreadsheet and plugged in a printer so now he is now the Windows expert. Because he could click on a few buttons, he's now getting loaded with things he's totally unqualified to do but he doesn't want to let them know he's clueless. I've seen this happen over and over again.
/. about getting an MCSE cert the quickest and cheapest way so that he can embed Microsofts crappy software further into the system and balloon his IT budget.
next thing you know, he's asking
or not.
LoB
Good point since he did say architecture firm didn't he. IMO, architects are right behind lawyers and doctors in the "I am god" complex list. So whatever you calculate your support costs to be, quadruple the man hours estimate and double the hardware estimate.
LoB
Whatever you do, don't forget to budget for ample supplies of chicken blood and other black magic staples. You know you will need it when the boss asks for those apps and hardware that magically do things that aren't possible in the natural realm.
You mean the ones which Microsoft says will be out 'real soon now' or 'in the next major release of Windows'?
You'll also need some penguin blood with that black magic if you think you're going to use OSS and/or GNU/Linux without knowing anything but Windows. Well, you could probably get away with Firefox/Mozilla and OpenOffice but that's about it. IMO.
LoB
if you're new to the company, get the previous 3 years IT expenses, including outside services, software, hardware, etc. From that, you should be able to determine the baseline for your budget. Now, figure out what you want to do to IMPROVE the department over the next 5 years, and make sure you've discussed this with other department heads since they WILL be involved.
You're going to have a difficult time justifying someone elses budget if you just go by what "others" say and do. And for goodness sake, include some training $$ for GNU/Linux. Just being able to support one or two OSS projects will save the training costs and then some.
LoB
I'm sorry but years and years of lies from Microsoft have jaded me to see these guys as nothing more than technology killers.
I didn't see anything in what he said that told me that they were using the Linux Lab to make Windows better and when asked if what the lab learned would be used against Linux, he only stated what HIS job was and not what the purpose of the lab is.
IMO, that lab is only for finding places where Microsoft can market Windows against Linux. Since Microsoft has NEVER embraced an outside technology without implementing it's extend and extinguish policies, I can only see it's use as distructive. Not competitive and not co-opetition.. WTF
I would not talk with these guys other than saying thanks for the free pizza. Let alone talk shop with them if you appreciate the GPL, GNU/Linux, OSS, and having a system which works and works well at a reasonable cost. IMHO.
LoB