Date: Mon, 29 Jul 1996 12:07:32 -0700 From: Jake Hamby <hamby@aris.jpl.nasa.gov> To: chat@freebsd.org Subject: "UNIX doesn't run on PCs." Message-ID: <31FD0BF4.33A6@aris.jpl.nasa.gov>
next in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
This is a multi-part message in MIME format. --------------72DD206317C4 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Saw this on comp.sys.linux.advocacy. Seems that Steve Ballmer thinks that "UNIX doesn't run on PCs." Well, he tries to clarify that, but anyway read the attachment for yourself, the original poster makes some good points, esp. about Microsoft's opinion and advertising spin about UNIX lately, e.g. claiming that Visual Basic is "Not some proprietary language" when in fact that's _exactly_ what all of their products are. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ |Jake Hamby| Ask me about Unix, FreeBSD, Solaris, The Tick, BeBox, or NT, eh?| ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "This space intentionally left blank." --------------72DD206317C4 Content-Type: message/rfc822 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Content-Disposition: inline Path: llyene!wlbr!europa.chnt.gtegsc.com!usenet.eel.ufl.edu!spool.mu.edu!daily-planet.execpc.com!newspump.sol.net!newsfeeder.sdsu.edu!nntp.primenet.com!news.primenet.com!jstern From: jstern@Primenet.Com (Josh Stern) Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy Subject: Re: Microsoft says Linux's X is incomplete? Valid? Date: 26 Jul 1996 04:38:01 -0700 Organization: Primenet Services for the Internet Lines: 105 Message-ID: <4taamp$25o@nnrp1.news.primenet.com> References: <jeffgus.838223585@ingleside> <wpafwnfi5n.fsf@krait.es.ele.tue.nl> X-Posted-By: jstern@usr08.primenet.com Raymond Nijssen <raymond@krait.es.ele.tue.nl> wrote: >You can safely expect that EI for X will depend on otherwise unnecesary >M$-proprietary X-extensions which other X-vendors will have to pay for. My expectation is that MS would port IE using one of those tools that automagically generates Motif source from Windows source. Then the Unix versions of IE will be bloated and inefficient, giving MS an opportunity to run comparison adds showing better performance with NT. Btw - has everyone noticed Microsoft's new marketing strategy of claiming that they are open standards and Unix solutions are proprietary? In every interview I read from some Microsoft rep these days, something along these lines is always mentioned. For instance, look at the interview with Steve Ballmer in the latest Information Week (www.informationweek.com) He basically says that Unix doesn't 'really' run on Intel machines and that developers can choose between NT or Unix on "proprietary" RISC platforms (as if Intel is non-proprietary). Here is the relevant portion of the interview: IW: What about the question of NT's market versus Novell Directory Services versus UNIX? BALLMER: Well, when you look at it, it's just weird. NetWare has pigeonholed itself by saying they don't want to be a general-purpose application server, which is just unusual. I think it's not a winning proposition for them, long-term. Certainly not in the InformationWeek accounts. Maybe it'll work in smaller businesses but it isn't going to work in InformationWeek accounts. People want to run applications and they don't really want to have to learn two administrative models, two scripting models, two directory models, two of everything. This is my view of the world. I think they've made a mistake. And maybe they feel very good about the decisions they've made. I say again, I think they've made a mistake. Certainly, it feels like it's allowing us to build share. Now, if people just want to do file and print service, I think there's some advantages to what we have. There are some nice things that are in NDS. We're rolling out our directory stuff. We have this big design preview coming later this year. I think November [is when] we've said that thing will be where we kind of show the whole gauntlet of things that we'll have for, not only directory but for distributed services, how it builds on the directory that we already have built into Exchange. We talked about it some on our intranet day. But Novell is so behind the eight-ball because they've said they're not an applications server. UNIX's big problem--or our big opportunity--is that UNIX doesn't run on PCs. I mean, it does but it doesn't, in the sense that there is no bigtime, powerful, exciting, dynamic vendor who you can count on being around pushing UNIX on the PC. I mean, Sun's not really doing that with Solaris. SCO (the Santa Cruz Operation) is a fine company, of which we own 15%, but I don't believe you could say that they are a big, dynamic, name brand [thatıs] going to be around a long time. And I think everybody accepts that the PC is the deployment platform of the future. People tell you, we're going to have our mainframes for 20 years. People tell you this, they'll tell you that, they'll tell you the other thing. But there's nobody who won't tell you, "Hey, if I have to start a new application tomorrow, it's either going to be on a RISC UNIX system or it's going to be on a PC. I'd like it to be on a PC, but I'll just have to make sure that it's scaleable enough." That's the discussion, and believe me, the PC just got a lot better in the last few months, when Oracle said that NT would be treated as a product development platform with UNIX. What did that do? That put more pressure on other platforms, because it means that Oracle is going to do their best work not only on the proprietary, higher-end hardware but also on PCs with NT. So, I think that nobody's serious about putting UNIX on a PC means that it is in trouble. It seems a simple formula: Be a file server, be a Web server, be an apps server, run on a PC. Does that sound like such a magical formula? It doesn't to me. It sounds like, at this stage in the game, a pretty obvious product definition. But the only product that passes that test today really is NT, and that's really allowing us to ramp our business. Fair warning: this part is buried within pages and pages of other drivel. There is also another long interview with another Microsoft rep in the same issue online. This comes one week after this publication ran the "NT Reality Check" story. - Josh -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- jstern jstern@primenet.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- --------------72DD206317C4--
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?31FD0BF4.33A6>