Related link: http://www.microsoft.com/mscorp/facts/default.asp
Microsoft has launched a “Get the Facts” media campaign. Ads are to direct folks to the Get the Facts website here. Give it the smell test.
This should be interesting as MS has a history of funding independent studies and industry case studies. Frankly, if you want to find the truth, ignore all biased opinion, including mine, and go find someone who has actually used or is using both and try to find just one person that tells you “I love Microsoft products”. I’ll concede that gamers will might tell you that, 50/50. But other than that…. It’s not going to happen.
Really, when anything has to rely solely on marketing for good word of mouth it’s not a good sign. Yes, those Linux commercials from IBM are kinda cool, but those are really marketing for IBM not Linux. You can’t get most linux people to shutup about it.
I wonder if this would be GhandiCon 3 1/2. Fighting, but feebly.
Smell ya later.
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Personally, I feel that it's not so much that no one likes Microsoft's products, it's that no one likes Microsoft's IMPLEMENTATION of their products.
For instance: Project Server, SharePoint Server, SQL Server, Exchange Server, etc. are great products (or product ideas)...they just run on a crappy platform is all.
Oh well. Hey does anyone know of a Project Server equivalent for Linux? Just curious...
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You have a good point, but Microsoft's (non-OS) server software is far from perfect: I've heard unpleasant stories about all the above bar "sharepoint server", mostly from hard-core microsoft users. Microsoft makes extremely *impressive* software, unquestionably, but people - particularly business users - tend to judge software by how often (and how badly) it goes wrong, and that's where MSFT falls over.
That's also why there's currently no free (or Free) OS with a really strong hold on the desktop market: not because there are none better than MSFT's efforts, but because people perceive any feature present in their current software and not in the alternative as being a *failure* in the alternative.
Half truths
"WinTel Server 10 Times Less Expensive to Operate
Than Linux Mainframe"
Gee, that's great! But that's a hardware comparison not a software one. I bet a LinTel server is 10 times less expensive than a Linux mainframe too. I've seen a number of reports of folks switching away from "proprietary hardware" to save money.
"Microsoft .NET Development Platform Delivers 25% Lower Development and Support Costs Than J2EE/Linux."
from the linked PDF: "The primary sources of Microsoft's cost advantages are:
1. The J2EE application server and Unix-based database software used in the Linux development and deployment stack drive up product costs and development complexity relative to the comparable Microsoft products.
2. Microsoft's tools simplify development of applications like those profiled in the study when compared to the J2EE/Linux products in the study. This simplification tranlsates into lower labor costs for development and administration of custom applications and a faster time to deployment."
Both sample organizations used Oracle (even though the medium size sample stared with MySQL). Would not other databases (especially PostreSQL & MySQL) have been cheaper? They also bought commercial J2EE servers. The report concedes that "non J2EE development environments . . . are likely to be less expensive."
As for #2 I don't doubt that J2EE is more expensive than .NET in development costs. Sun is aware of the complexity and working on the problem.
Obviously J2EE is not the only choice on Linux. There are loads of other, cheaper, choices.
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Oh doubtless; how many Office security flaws were there??? Outlook Express, anyone? Hehe I think my main point is that Microsoft software is well *intentioned*, but not executed (pardon the pun) well.
You also have an excellent point when it comes to the "any feature present in their current software and not in the alternative as being a *failure* in the alternative." - however, lack of a spell-checker in that OpenOffice release was kind of lame...
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Oh doubtless; how many Office security flaws were there??? Outlook Express, anyone? Hehe I think my main point is that Microsoft software is well *intentioned*, but not executed (pardon the pun) well.
You also have an excellent point when it comes to the "any feature present in their current software and not in the alternative as being a *failure* in the alternative." - however, lack of a spell-checker in that OpenOffice release was kind of lame...