From: Adam Flinton 

Joe Barr wrote:
> The official Microsoft position paper:
>
> http://www.grayonline.id.au/gallery/WhyLinuxSux
>
>
>
Having just ploughed my way through....

A) They are taking Linux v.v. seriously. B) They are v.v. worried about NT4
migration paths.....time after time it's saying (roughly) "for G*d's
sake make sure any NT4 machines are updated to Win2K+"
C) It swings between factually accurate & plain wrong in the weirdest
ways. E.g. the bit re Linux & Db'es (SQL Server) is a laugh & I
just have to suppose that in reality they're relying on the "Db
choices don't change so long as the orig db choice does the job"
because anyone with an ounce of DB knowledge (esp about
Db2/Oracle/PGSQL/MySQL) would chuckle at some of the assertions.
D) The "talking about Linux" section is really amusing.
"Don't say nasty unfounded FUD'y things re Linux...instead change the
subject to so wider thing such as "Would you like fluffy clouds on
your default desktop"". BTW they say "use high quality
quality research like this IDC TCO study".....
E) The office 97 stickees worry them too as O97 EOL date is somewhere in
jan 2004 & a lot of peopel are quite happy with what O97 gives
em....& StarOffice is targeting that.
F) In the middleware & server section they are really trying to push
.Net against J2EE & LAMP.

All in all an interesting document. Pity I can't DL the hole thing in one
zip package though.

Having been at the other end of one of these (MS tried to persuade us to
support Win2K as well as *ix & then even to move to SQLServer when we
said we were going for j2EE db/OS independance....& then have you
considered .Net....) it is enteratining to see the script laid out. It is
always quite humorous to play the ingenue wrt (at the time) ".Net
Servers" & feign confusion just to see how well they can divert
from the script on the basis of their own knowledge....

e.g.:
"So is Windows a .Net Server?" &
"We've moved our triggers from PL/SQL to Java & you say .Net will
support our Java investment...so will SQL Server support our Java Triggers
because both Oracle & DB2 will....?" & "If the .Net
runtime is portable as you say & all these .Net Servers are .Net
servers then will we see the whole range of .Net Servers on platforms other
than Windows...?" etc. etc.


Normal reaction is a brief look of fear & then a "I will have to
ask our experts on that...can I get back to you...?" & then on
with the script.


Adam

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