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1. Comment - Microsoft Details Vista Upgrade Paths

   (Aug 2, 2006 - 2:04 PM)

   "For the most part, my comments revolve around corporate implementations, and I just cannot see a cost-benefit to switching over to an unsupported system that involves a *huge* learning curve and new tools for just about everything they do."
   
   The learning curve is larger for enterprises without any UNIX experience, but for us, having UNIX knowledge on hand, migrating to Linux has been no trouble. We also pay Novell/IBM for support on mission-critical servers.
   
   We were pretty angry with Microsoft for ending support on VB, and instead of moving to .NET, which would forever lock our IP into a single vendor, we decided to go to Java, which is about as difficult for a VB programmer to learn as VB.NET or C#.
   
   "I'd say they're more worried about MacOS than Linux"
   
   I think Microsoft is worried about Apple's iTunes as a content-distribution platform, but Macs don't really compete with PCs as one is closed and the other is open.
   
   "The CD's I have are simply an experiment based on my own morbid curiosity."
   
   What's so morbid about Linux? It's getting successfully deployed to a greater and greater extent every year. I would say there is a lot of life in that OS.
   
   I take it, though, that you agree Linux as a competitor to MS is causing that company to wake up and improve its products. What's funny, is that the ill-named "Get the Facts" campaign is what orignally perked my company's interest in Linux, since we wondered why Microsoft would be so apparently worried about this operating system. We did some trials and found out.
   
   "Get a hold os a copy of ESX Server, and you will never go back"
   
   Since Microsoft is offering to support SUSE Linux on Virtual PC, we'll probably go with that solution for virtualization in that direction, but more often than not, we'll probably be virtualizing Windows on Linux, so for that we'll use Xen, I'm sure.
   
   "My linux use dates back to 1994"
   
   Interesting. We didn't find out about Linux until recently, and have been quite impressed. We're grateful to beta testers like you who have really broken new ground for open operating sytems. It seems all computing infrastructure follows this basic pattern, first with open network standards, then the open x86 architecture, and now open operating systems. It's quite an interesting pattern. I suspect the next iteration (after the open OS cycle is complete) will be open data standards, such as ODF and RDF (semantic web).

2. Comment - Microsoft Details Vista Upgrade Paths

   (Aug 1, 2006 - 9:56 PM)

   "Another duh. this is true of any company void of competition."
   "No need to. I was there."
   
   I felt you were trying to make the argument that Microsoft's solutions should be the only ones considered because there was no viable competition, and that customers had chosen MS products completely on their merit. In response, I was making the point that because there is now competition, Microsoft has to improve their products, where previously they were poor. Are you agreeing then that open source is a viable competitor to MS? If so, why limit your implemention to only Microsoft?
   
   "I'd love to see the numbers on support, purchasing, and maintenance of your implementation."
   
   Hmm, I don't think I'm allowed to provide those to you, but we don't have a higher IT budget because of this "exotic beast", as you call it. In fact, the more open source we gradually phase in, the lower our budget gets! While Linux admins are more expensive, in my experience they do a much better job and also can admin more systems than a Windows admin, mostly because they are able to script a lot of repetitive tasks in Perl, Python, or Bash. So we don't need to hire that many of them. We have a lot of UNIX admins on hand anyways, because of a lot of AIX and some HP-UX in the company.
   
   We've been phasing out ActiveDirectory in favor of PHP-based Wikis as well as Zope. We've also been phasing out the running of our Java appservers on Windows boxes in favor of Linux boxes, and that likewise has saved us quite a bit, especially by getting SUSE preinstalled!
   
   Everyone is still running Windows on laptops, though. Linux just isn't ready for our desktop yet because of several legacy applications, but we hope to phase dependency off of these before support ends for XP. By that point, we should be running only Linux desktops/laptops -- sooner if we can create an effective Citrix solution in the meantime.
   
   In the long run, then, we know we will save a LOT of money thanks to getting off the Microsoft treadmill of upgrades.
   
   All in all, integrating these environments is not that difficult thanks to a service oriented architecture. Also, I'm eager to find out what virtualization can do for us -- we've been reluctant to go with VMWare's solution, but Xen and Virtual PC both have us considering it.
   
   What industry do you consulting for? Is it a specific industry, I guess I should ask. Because it seems to me that the open source phenonemon hits one industry at a time: government, telecom, banking, education, health care, etc.
   
   "I've been pushing Ubuntu since the drake betas. I have 45 CDs (Well, 37 now) on my desk for folks to take at their whim. 14 Edubuntu, 10 Kubuntu, and 13 Ubuntu. Take that how you will."
   
   I'm glad to hear that you've started looking into Linux! It is great indeed that MS has some viable competition nowadays, so there is more choice and better quality available to end users.

3. Comment - Microsoft Details Vista Upgrade Paths

   (Aug 1, 2006 - 5:40 PM)

   Settle down, now, heheh. I don't think MS is going anywhere, so you won't lose your job -- but it is good that there are finally options, such as open source. The point I was making above was that when MS didn't feel the heat of competition, their products sucked bad. I would rather gouge my eyes out with a spoon than be forced to use Visual Studio 2000 again. Well, Eclipse has come along, and now apparently VS2005 ain't half bad.
   
   It's also good that MS is being forced to open up its server protocols, so that Linux clients can connect to Exchange servers, for instance, without having to rely on reverse-engineering. This will help to provide a choice that's been basically non-existant for years: start buying MS, and you have to buy more and more and more of the stuff.
   
   What's ironic, though, is that open source is about the only other option, because MS can't use its regular tactics of outspending or cutting off air supply on open source like they could on regular companies (such as what they did to Netscape by releasing IE free).
   
   No doubt MS products *work*. Extremely well together? Well, of course, in comparison to everything else, because everything else relies on reverse-engineering to interoperate. This is a result of MS using their desktop monopoly as leverage into a server monopoly. With open protocols, however, this will soon no longer be a concern, and MS will have to compete on the merit of the design and implementation, rather than simply on the fact that they're the only method of interoperating.
   
   I think the consumer economy can't take care of itself as easily when it comes to technology because the majority of consumers who buy Microsoft products don't even realize the difference between the operating system and the computer. They take what's on the PC by default. You can research the underhanded tactics MS used to unfairly beat other OS companies in the 90s through preinstallation deals.
   
   As far as Linux goes, you might want to look into it, because of developments such as standardizing on the Gnome desktop, the Portland Project, Linux Standard Base 3.0, Xen, WINE, ODF, etc., it has become a viable option for companies, and heterogeneous Windows/Linux environments are likely the next big thing. Though they wouldn't admit it, Microsoft seems to agree, as they are including virtualization support for Xen-based Linux OSes in Longhorn Server.
   
   I don't think Microsoft's monopoly is going to hold out much longer, however -- maybe in the established markets, but those are pretty much saturated. Most Linux PC growth will probably come from Europe, South America, and Asia. If American companies eventually switch, it'll be a collateral effect from those markets. These kinds of developments are usually not to be found on general PC news sites like these, though. If Linux is sorely behind MS on anything, it's PR.
   
   If you want to try out Linux and see where it's currently at in terms of usability, try Ubuntu, SUSE, or Fedora.
   
   Try not to think in terms of "Microsoft" and "everyone else", but just consider them all tools.
   
   The company I work for is extremely sensitive to vendor lock-in, so we try to use a mixture of Windows, UNIX, and Linux. Most of our apps we're moving to Java or Mozilla-based HTML clients, so we can be assured our software will run on any operating system in the future. We're about a 6,000 person company.

4. Comment - Microsoft Details Vista Upgrade Paths

   (Aug 1, 2006 - 4:40 PM)

   He's got a right to complain: have you taken a look at MS's margins? Damn, they're sucking cash from the industry. And most people buy MS stuff not because it's a superior product, but because it's necessary in order to interoperate smoothly with more MS stuff.

5. Comment - Microsoft Details Vista Upgrade Paths

   (Aug 1, 2006 - 4:06 PM)

   Fear of Linux and open source software has definitely lit a fire under MS's a$$ this time around ... we should actually be in for a decent OS, unlike that crap we got with the pre-SP2 XP or Windows ME -- both of which came out when MS had essentially no competitors.
   
   But now I read that the Windows kernel has finally gotten an overhaul, and they've made it modular like the Linux kernel. In addition, system restarts won't be necessary as often. I'm just a little worried about them scrapping the TCP stack they took from BSD in favor of their own new virgin TCP stack -- those take years to harden. The backwards-compatibility shims and DRM code also smell of potential exploit holes to me -- I especially forsee a lot in the hacker community using DRM in exploits both because the malware will be extra-difficult to remove, and to also make a statement. Yeah, DRM is about as smart an idea as rootkits.
   
   It's a shame MS didn't trust its engineers as much as its PHBs, marketers, and lawyers to beat competition throughout the years like bTRON, BeOS, Go, or the UNIX desktops (though all those stupid UNIX fiefdoms really just beat themselves, didn't they, haha). But now with open source as a real competitor to the MS-branded world of computer science, we may finally start to see some decent products from the company.
   
   By all accounts, lately their products don't suck like they did around 1999 - 2002 (when Sun and Novell were dead and Linux was nascent). Unfortuanately, though, Windows still operates with a HUGE software footprint -- and more software layers always means more security holes, since software by its very nature of being human-written is full of errors (see: http://blogs.zdnet.com/threatchaos/?p=311)
   
   I sincerely hope Vista will reverse the trend in adding layer upon layer of software complexity in the hopes of providing a veneer of simplicity. The My Documents folder comes to mind: on my XP box, I navigate to "C:\Documents and Settings\alucinor\My Documents" but on my Linux box I navigate to "/home/alucinor". Why does Media Player *insist* I keep my music library in "C:\Documents and Settings\alucinor\My Documents\My Music"? On Linux, I keep my collection in /garage/mus and link it to /home/alucinor/Desktop/Music. Voila.
   
   Small things, but it's death by a thousand papercuts in your daily routine.
   
   One more thing: WinFX -- not a good idea. GUIs don't need to be fancy, swirling, bubbling things that sparkle. That was fun on Geocities, but what business is going to waste time with this? And if that's the case, then what's the real point of XAML then as a pretty toy? No, I think GUIs are headed in the Google direction: minimalistic, out of your way, allowing you to get your work done with as little visual intrusion as possible. GUI metaphors can become self-serving after a certain point; there is no desktop, Neo.
   
   I _am_ looking forward to Monad/Powershell. But I would probably just prefer IronPython.