a little miss there
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| maggrand Mar 21, 2006 10:18 AM EDT |
Well the big point here that you miss here. Is that IBM is a very big contributor to OpenSource and Linux. Moreover IBM works whith RedHat/SUSE. So now the threat is IBM/Linux. So the point is that Linux is the biggest threat ever. |
| tadelste Mar 21, 2006 10:46 AM EDT |
It should seem that way, but that's not IBM's strategy. They too have left the hardware/software playing field and have concentrated on services: IBM Global Services. Linux is a transition strategy until they sell all their hardware businesses. |
| grouch Mar 21, 2006 10:52 AM EDT |
maggrand: Agreed. MS is simply doing some PR shuffle. They know that GNU/Linux is the one real, credible threat to their entire business model. They have spent and will spend a lot of resources trying to convince people that it is not. However, they cannot compete on price, stability, function, robustness, interoperability, evolution, adaptability, developer mindshare. In spite of every obstacle MS has tried to throw in front of GNU/Linux, GNU/Linux has caught and surpassed MS in almost every way in just 15 years. MS and the media may claim this tactic of speaking to the execs is new, but it is not. MS did, of course, woo developers in the past, but they have always tried to dazzle the execs to get the software into the targetted company's back room. The network, viral effect of deliberate incompatibility hiding under a glitzy face has always been their weapon of choice for infiltration. Linux doesn't do "me too". Linux has always placed function above appearance. Bill has always assumed that advances in processors, RAM and storage will hide defective code. His aim was to make it look good, then try to make it actually work. That's bass-ackwards to what happens with free software. |
| IGnatiusTFoobar Mar 21, 2006 11:28 AM EDT |
grouch: you're partially correct, and I don't think even Microsoft realizes this: it's not Linux that they're competing with, nor is it IBM. It is, rather, the inevitable forces of commoditization that makes Microsoft's business model obsolete. Linux and open source represent the commoditization of platform software. The only reason Microsoft is still strong is because they have so much momentum behind their platform (plus millions of stupid people keeping it going). Eventually, though, commoditization works its way up the stack, eliminating the value from the components it finds along the way. |
| tadelste Mar 21, 2006 11:32 AM EDT |
grouch: I wish it was STILL true. I'm not speculating. If you know my modus operandi, I investigate everything. They started planning this in 1998. When they bought Great Plains they saw it as a future strategy. I'm still under an NDA for this because I worked for a firm that consulted a company in Redmond that did business planning for them. Did you know they made an offer for SAP? They know that they will not have the middle desktop market. They know it absolutely. They changed horses when the SAP merger fell through. Sun could have purchased Novell. In fact, that was an option before they bought Storagetek. They decided to go back to selling hardware. Guess what, they're selling Windows Server. That's Sun. Why? Because Microsoft plans to compete head on with Oracle and its businesses. Think about one other event. Larry Ellison said that Solaris10 was the preferred platform for Oracle. At one time, DEC was the preferred platform with their UNIX, VMS and Alpha 64 Bit chips, now XEONs. HP has marginal interest in Oracle. So, Oracle goes where it needs to go. That's their pattern. You may not remember but earlier Sequent was the preferred Oracle vendor. Here's the final kicker and I have lots of support on this: Dell needs big iron. They have a serious partnership with Red Hat and Oracle. Now, they've taken on Novell. Rumor has it, Dell will buy Sun to get its heavy metal Cray Servers running Solaris and break up the rest of Sun. Then they would have complied with Oracle's wishes. It's complicated, but Dell has no where to go without Oracle. What does Dell need? Cray UNIX boxes running Sparc and Intel with Solaris10. Also, watch to whom Dell sells the Java business. Oracle or IBM? Who will open source it? Or Microsoft? Maybe but it would be the endgame for Oracle if they did. How would you like to spend an afternoon with an angry Larry Ellison? Commodity hardware isn't where Microsoft wants to go nor could they. But ERP with terminals - OH YEAH. |
| number6x Mar 21, 2006 12:39 PM EDT |
Tadelste, Good point about Dell. They will have trouble competing with generic white boxes from Chinese vendors. Big corporate accounts are Dell's bread and butter. Those white boxes are cheap enough for the vendors to just implement a return/replace policy and undercut Dell's support. Why spend hours on the phone with support techs at Dell? The white box vendor will just ship a replacement overnight, you ship back the original. If your corporate users are set up so their data is all on the lan, its almost a plug and play option. Dell sees this coming and they need to move up the enterprise stack or sell to a Chinese company and cash out. They could really do either. Share holders might be happy with a big one time payout from a Chinese buyer. I don't know if Michael Dell's ego would allow that, however. |
| tadelste Mar 21, 2006 12:50 PM EDT |
number6x: Michael is in India right now. He's setting up manufacturing facilities because he can't compete in Asia. If he get the Indians to manufacture Dell computers, he avoids taxes and tariffs and can compete. Right now, they ship fully assembled boxes and cannot compete. He's also hiring engineering and software talent. OK. They've never done that before. And who is the largest employer of India engineering and software talent? Oracle. Oh, Oracle. And how does Dell compete in India and China with other PC manufacturers in the consumer sector. They don't. So, why is he there again? |
| grouch Mar 21, 2006 2:03 PM EDT |
tadelste: First off, consider who is really playing "me too". Consider the direction MS Windows was taking, pre-Linux and compare it to MS Vista's alleged features. Even the pain MS went through with hotmail illustrates that they have to compete with what Linux enables people to do. They had no remote administration tools that did not depend on a GUI, for one thing. Remote terminals are just another "me too" feature they've crammed into the monolithic conglomeration of MS Windows. Second, big iron has been a province of Linux since at least 1999. Looks like another "me too" imitation by Microsoft but too little, too late. Cray uses Linux. IBM uses Linux. You may recall that SCOG is claiming that IBM does not have the right to improve Linux by incorporating UNIX "methods and concepts" into AIX to make Linux a substitute for big iron UNIX. IBM is doing just that. Sun uses Linux. They provide Linux on that new grid they very recently fired up. Microsoft has a lot of "me too" to do before catching up with Linux on big iron. Third, the core of Microsoft's monopoly is increasingly under threat by improvements to GNU/Linux in ease of use. This will accelerate as more people use it, because it does not prevent people from adapting their tools to suit themselves and to suit their neighbors. GNU/Linux placed core function first and convenience after. This is why it progressed from a hacker's hobby to world renown. It's not done yet; it's accelerating. MS's "me too" approach will not stop that growth. They were content to contrive more and more features to put into the same broken mess to use to force customers, by network trickle-down effects, to dump software that sort-of worked and buy the latest. GNU/Linux shortcuts that strategy and allows users to have a big influence on what happens. Since we're talking about history ("me too" implies following what has already occurred), look through the following and imagine an MS equivalent for that year: 1997 - 2003 - "The Stone SouperComputer ORNL's First Beowulf-Style Parallel Computer" (Be certain to note the extensive list of links and references at the bottom of that page). http://stonesoup.esd.ornl.gov/ 1999 - IBM uses off-the-shelf Red Hat to match a Cray record. http://www.cnn.com/TECH/computing/9903/16/super.idg/ 2000 - KLAT2 "Kentucky Linux Athlon Testbed 2 (KLAT2)" Record-setter. http://aggregate.org/KLAT2/ 2000 - "Antarctica, Sandia’s ‘garage-built’ supercomputer, may become 20th fastest in world" "The Compaq AlphaServer systems run a modified version of RedHat Linux plus the parallel systems software developed in the Cplant project." http://www.sandia.gov/media/NewsRel/NR2000/antarct.htm 2001 - "Entrum, which provides high-speed Internet access for 500,000 private and 70,000 corporate subscribers, said it has replaced 60 different Unix and Windows NT servers from different vendors with a single computer containing 500 virtual servers running Linux software installed by Red Hat and SuSE." http://thewhir.com/marketwatch/linux1012.cfm 2001 - 'But Hess also uses 300 Linux-based servers clustered together to create a supercomputing application for oil exploration, which is "a core, critical business application," says Jeff Davis, a Houston-based senior systems programmer. The supercluster helps create three- dimensional models of subsurface areas under the Gulf of Mexico, using enormous data sets that run into multiple terabytes.' http://www.cfo.com/article.cfm/3000685/2/c_3036032 2001 - "With more than 200 Linux desktops and 400 Linux servers, DreamWorks SKG is not only a leading producer of animated motion pictures but a major user of Linux as well. " http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/4803 2001 - "Test Plan Charlie Unplugged: An Interview with David Boyes" "Anyone who works with Linux on IBM's System/390 mainframes has certainly heard of David Boyes. He made history early in the project by running no less than 41,400 Linux images on a single mainframe, all of them doing real work under simulated load as web servers." http://www.linuxplanet.com/linuxplanet/print/3139/ 2001 - "Linux supercomputer to be used for drug research" http://www.networkworld.com/news/2001/0823supercomputer.html 2001 - "Why Linux Is Giving Microsoft a Migraine" ' If the words didn't send a chill down the spine of every Microsoft (MSFT ) shareholder, they should have. At a January investment conference, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer declared: "Linux is our enemy No. 1." A few weeks later, James Allchin, who oversaw the rollout of Microsoft's Windows 2000 software, went so far as to call Linux "a threat to the American way." ' http://www.businessweek.com/bwdaily/dnflash/feb2001/nf200102... 2001 - "A Grid of Supercomputers" "Globus will provide the backbone that makes the processor sharing possible. The IBM servers will run Linux. Although it will also incorporate IBM's Blue Hammer supercomputing software, the TerraGrid is based on the open source development model, meaning no one will own the software it develops." http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,45977,00.html 2002 - "Out the Windows" (U.S. News and World Report) "In the past two years, consumer versions of Linux have come a long way, with a simplified look and refined programs that can accomplish most of what home users want--to browse the Web, send E-mail, and handle spreadsheets and word processing--while easily swapping files with computers running Windows." http://www.usnews.com/usnews/culture/articles/020114/archive... 2002 - "Secure Linux desktop begins shipping to UK police force" http://www.newsforge.com/os/02/10/19/1518241.shtml?tid=23 2002 - "It's Linux for IBM supercomputer project" http://news.zdnet.com/2100-3513_22-963285.html 2003 - "Unilever, a $52 billion consumer products giant, is switching to Linux to run its businesses around the world." (Note: the article is predominately about challenges IT managers face in version control). http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/story/0,10801... 2003 - Computer Aid ships thousands of recycled PCs with Linux to "developing" countries. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/2960018.stm 2003 - PeopleSoft to port 170 applications to Linux due to customer demand. ""Now, customers are telling us they want to run enterprise applications [on Linux-based systems]," [David Sayed, technology product marketing manager] said. http://www.computerworld.com/softwaretopics/os/linux/story/0... 2003 - "SuSE To Power Fastest U.S. Supercomputer". Cray chose SuSE. http://www.newsfactor.com/perl/story/21799.html 2003 - " The PNNL system is the world’s fastest supercomputer based on the Linux operating system and is the largest machine ever built using Intel’s 64-bit architecture." http://www.pnl.gov/news/2003/03-33.htm 2003 - Environment Canada chooses Linux, saves over $4 million. http://www.newsforge.com/trends/03/10/16/1914221.shtml 2003 - "Breakthrough Results with SGI Altix at NASA Ames" running Linux. http://lwn.net/Articles/54822/ 2003 - "Lining up for Linux" "It is well-known that a handful of early adopters like Burlington Coat Factory, Amazon and Google run key back-end systems on the open-source platform." '"In 1996 or '97, we saw that Linux was here to stay, and by about 1999, it became apparent that it would be a significant force in the industry," [Ricis CTO Gregg Rosenberg] says.' http://www.varbusiness.com/sections/customer/customer.jhtml;... 2003 - " The BMW Williams Formula 1 (F1) team has dramatically improved its high-resolution aerodynamic modelling of team cars by introducing an HP Linux supercomputer cluster." http://www.cfdreview.com/article.pl?sid=03/10/13/191253 2004 - As it did in Norway, Catalonia and other places, Microsoft follows Linux lead in providing support for Welsh. http://icwales.icnetwork.co.uk/0100news/0200wales/content_ob... 2004 - "Defense Department buys Linux cluster" http://www.washingtontechnology.com/news/1_1/daily_news/2278... 2004 - Some people are so determined to have Linux, they install it between bouts of "massive gunfire and streetfights". http://www.linuxjournal.com/article/7748 2004 - "One Giant Leap How NASA, SGI and Intel managed to build and deploy history's most powerful supercomputer in 15 blistering weeks." (10,240 processors, Linux) http://www.sgi.com/features/2004/oct/columbia/ 2005 - "More telling, in terms of a clear enthusiasm for Open Source are countries where a stated policy of a 'preference' for Open Source has been declared. Countries where this is the case, in some areas of government IT use, include: Bahrain, Belgium, China and Hong Kong, Costa Rica, France, Germany, Iceland, Israel, Italy, Malaysia, Poland, Portugal, Philippines and South Africa." http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/01/07/gov_open_source_dyna... Now, who's trying to catch up with whom? Show me some MS clusters, Beowulf-style supercomputers, s/390 port of MS Windows, grids, 10,000+ processor MS Windows computers, and evidence of MS Windows enthusiasts installing it in spite of real warfare around them. GNU/Linux has been leading MS in most areas of computing for 6 - 8 years. It lags only in rapidly supporting hardware, which is a side-effect of the monopoly pressures, vulnerabilities, users, and certain niche applications, for example, DVD ripping, authoring and playback. |
| tadelste Mar 21, 2006 3:38 PM EDT |
What a waste of great talent. You write so eloquently in the comment section. What's that about? From the article I wrote: "Unlike the UNIX threat in the early to late 1990's, Linux represents what Microsoft now sees as a "me too" platform with little innovation". "Linux advocates have focused on getting the desktop on par with Windows. That's a 'me too' strategy". OK. So, Microshaft sees their desktop as untouchable today because IT managers are less worried about costs. That's true. Microsohaft is also willing to concede the mid-level desktop and content to let Linux occupy the space that UNIX once had. That's also true. I didn't say Linux didn't innovate on the server side. I didn't say they failed in the device market. But, on the desktop. I am not convinced that we're still a "me too" product and we cannot innovate because we're so busy trying to catch up and catch Microshaft. Notice that in kernel 2.6.12 the desktop was practically ignored again. Linux was bust incorporating Oracle's clustering technology. Now, write articles and help Lxer pay these hard working editors. |
| tuxtom Mar 22, 2006 2:04 AM EDT |
Grouch: If you ever leave, I'm gonna leave. Powa from down Unda. Thanks! And Thank You, Tom! ALL well put. |
| tadelste Mar 22, 2006 4:44 AM EDT |
Don't u leaf. Itz so not OK. You stole one of my considered handles. So, you stick with us. A grouch is a grouch - only kidding. What a cool handle. Grouch has already divulged his age and he can relate to the term cool. But he's so not with the jargon of today. On second thought, well, maybe with the daughter and all. I'm sure she's said "we're so over" to a boy friend or two and you heard that (daddy-o). |
| tuxtom Mar 22, 2006 12:13 PM EDT |
Word. |
| tadelste Mar 22, 2006 12:14 PM EDT |
Huh? |
| tuxtom Mar 24, 2006 10:59 AM EDT |
http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Word |
| grouch Mar 24, 2006 12:08 PM EDT |
Y'all ain't frum 'rounchere, air ye? |
| ABCC Mar 28, 2006 11:05 AM EDT |
I've been mulling this over for a while and I must say I disagree. I think MS haven't stopped competing with Linux, far from it. This is throwing down the gauntlet. MS will know that a company that starts a linux server trial will more than likely start using it for all their new departments. Also, when its time to upgrade pc's, it's quite likely that theyll chuck windows out of the server room. This they don't want, so they start banging their drum about how IBM is their enemy and that they're going to focus on making ERP services. You can bet they'll spend a good chunk of change on this too, since locking them in is the only way they can retain their customers. Problem is, there are some very big companies competing in that area, well known enough that they don't need to be recommended by IBM for people to trust their products. This is more a last whimper than a chest-beating "hurrah! those linux losers are finished" cheer. |
| helios Mar 28, 2006 1:49 PM EDT |
And Microsoft has spent millions on developing and running a Linux Lab for what purpose? |
| ABCC Mar 29, 2006 9:03 PM EDT |
to learn how to make an OS?? To figure out what makes Linux/FOSS so good and how to emulate the development process probably. |
| tadelste Mar 30, 2006 3:35 AM EDT |
I encourage disagreement and appreciate every perspective. I'm not hard and fast on my perspective. I think at a time, Ballmer and Gates didn't understand free software. From what I gather, they now think they understand it and have formulated ways to keep free software at bay. I hope they believe it. Still, I don't think we can compete with them yet. But soon. |
| ABCC Mar 30, 2006 9:26 AM EDT |
I agree with you that FLOSS can't compete with MS on their turf. I don't think Linux on the consumer desktop is realistic in the near future. However I think MS have by no means sensed that they've beaten Linux. There are a few areas in which theyre competing directly, not just the enterprise space. Mobile telephony looks a good bet for Linux, as does the embedded device market. For phones the trick is to get them to play nice with a windows PC, which is doable. Embedded devices should go LInux' way aswell, from what I've seen of devices running MS embedded its awful (nice to see the ol' BSOD every now and again though) What MS is trying to achieve with the media center edition is ground that has to a large extent been covered by Linux already, and in a format that the consumer is already familiar with (TV set top box/Tivo). Placing a $600 PC in the living room just to watch tv on doesn't make any sense, nor does expecting a Joe 6-Pack to lay a network in his house. Which brings us to the this thread, MS announcing that Linux isn't a threat and saying theyre going to invest heavily in the enterprise application space. In my view it would be too costly for them to compete directly, i.e. create a better server OS. A rational consumer making a decision on technical merit alone would then choose Linux every time, excluding other factors of course. In the past MS had the advantage that many commercial enterprise apps would only run on their servers. This is changing quickly, so it becomes more likely that customers can make the decisin on merit, given that their app of choice will run on and is support on both platforms. So, customers can start leaking form MS to FLOSS, which increases the likelihood of discovering that it can also run the rest of their network etc. etc. In other words, a major headache for MS. So, what would the rational decision be, given that the enterprise ISVs are offering their products on both platforms and thus making the OS a commodity? As Bill might have said to Steve: "same thing we do every year old boy, let's lock 'em in' In other words, let's make some enterprise apps that only work on our servers yet are 'unmissable' and sell them to top execs. If they don't, they're screwed. I'm surprised they haven't announced this sooner. Oh, and Bill, good luck competing against the likes of Siebel, CA, IBM and such, you're going to need it. |
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