[Sussex] Some more thoughts on the Microsoft/Novel deal

[Steven Dobson]

Desmond

On Sun, 2006-11-19 at 22:06 +0000, Desmond Armstrong wrote:
> Certainly the better systems were already available but, with the slick 
> advertising and pressure of MS people kept, and keep, with the crude 
> system.

I don't think you can boil down why people stick with Windows to just
one or two points.  Certainly slick advertising has an effect, but so
does the fact that people don't like change and Windows is the safe
option.

> The starting point here is speculation on what MS will do with the 
> Novell partnership. If it means an advertising pressure to help people 
> away from Windows to Linux then maybe we will see improvement.

I really can't see Microsoft advertising Linux.  If a client is asking
for Linux compatibility then Microsoft is much more likely to say that
SUSE is the only distro that is supported - which is no doubt what
Novell wants from the deal.

One think I noticed from the partnership announcement was Ballmer's
repeated statement that is his (and Microsoft's) eyes the answer to all
your computing needs was "Microsoft, Microsoft, Microsoft".  Personally
I think the days of a one-stop shop are over.

Back in the 60s & 70s, when the mainframe was king, you did only buy one
solution, because one mainframe was all you could afford to buy.  Now
things are different.  You buy one set of computers to act as your
e-mail servers, another to handle DNS, a third set to file server, ...
Computers are now cheap!  And with different computers for each business
function one can consider getting the best system to do that particular
task.

> Now I wholeheartedly agree, the worst danger is actually the user who 
> has total admin rights and naively installs a mischeivous program.
> 
> The problem with the old machines is that there are millions where the 
> owners will not justify investment (time, money or both) in security.
> 
> (On a phish, I was with somebody last night who naively filled is such a 
> phish. They realized their mistake, went in and changed their password 
> but the 3 minuites or so was enough to have £1500 stolen. (They were 
> reimbursed by the bank.))

I don't see this changing.  We are all naive at times.  I know that
there are good reasons for spreading my money around when I buy my
groceries - but I don't; it's just too convenient to do it all in one
big superstore.

> So lets be positive on the speculation and hope for improvement.

I hope I am.  Most of the time anyway.  What is important is that we
pick our battles carefully.

Steve

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