On Sun, Oct 24, 2010 at 07:51:49AM -0400, Roy wrote:
> they [MS] do not have to defeat us to win, only keep users away and they know
> that. Desktop Linux has stalled. We are growing on the server side but so is
> MS. Unix is losing ground there.
Way back when, when I got my MCSE (yup, I confess, I am one, as well as
a couple of other MS certs) for Windows NT4, there was a lot of emphasis
on migrating from Unix. At that time, there were actually cost
advantages in some cases--as well as migrating from Novell Netware.
Back then, MS was more concerned about being able to integrate with
Unix. Through some clever marketing, offering products that had
advantages in many ways (Windows isn't all bad), and of course, some
evil skulduggery, they've changed the picture.
Now, I think the shoe is on the other foot--probably the majority of us
who work (as opposed to students) and aren't self-employed, use Active
Directory domains. (I sure hope Jeff is an exception.) There's more
need for Linux to be compatible with MS than vice versa. Like it or
not, MS is, in many cases, the de facto standard. Yes, we can argue how
they violate standards, but in this world, at present, they set the
standard for the vast majority, and a client doesn't want to hear,
"You're using MS, which violates standards." (Unless, of course, you're
a monopoly or have your clients locked in some other way.)
So, that's part of the problem. MS can set the standard, and OO, for
example, has to be able to adjust. While in some cases, they've driven
away customers--such as the guitar string manufacturer that was fined
for some unintentional license violations, most companies have to offer
MS compatibility to deal with their customers.
> The most interesting case is OOO. I want to see where that
> goes because MS has had one court case go against it for its own office
> suite, so they must be feeling some fear as MSOffice is their cash cow.
Of course, now there's the OOffice Oracle debacle. Silly of Oracle,
who dislikes MS, to give them more ammunition. (Sure, you can use
OpenOffice, but have you seen that it's now forked because of Oracle's
decisions? You better stay with us, you know that we're not going to do
that.)
--
Scott Robbins
PGP keyID EB3467D6
( 1B48 077D 66F6 9DB0 FDC2 A409 FA54 EB34 67D6 )
gpg --keyserver pgp.mit.edu --recv-keys EB3467D6
Cordelia: Hi! You having fun?
Angel: Sure. This is, uh...
Cordelia: Your idea of hell.
Angel: Actually, in hell you tend to know a lot of the people
No comments:
Post a Comment