[Solar-general] FUD de MS: Salvando el orto (ultimo comentario mio). Advertencia: Texto en ingles.

Dom Mar 28 20:49:01 CEST 2004

En base a este comentario aparecido en Newsforge, me doy cuenta que me 
equivoqué un poco con mi primer comentario en esta lista. Básicamente en 
creer que el folleto original de MS (hecho en Mac) tenia por objetivo 
convencer a alguien.
Me parece muy importante que los que puedan leer en inglés lean esto, no 
creo todo lo que dice ahi, pero si el concepto mas importante: El 
folleto de MS no es para convencer a nadie, sino para que los gerentes 
y/o administradores puedan cubrirse el orto ante cualquier problema. No 
importa si mañana sale un virus que se coma todos los .doc o lo que sea, 
ellos (los que toman las decisiones) ya hicieron su trabajo de comparar 
las alternativas. Bueno, lean la nota que lo dice mucho mejor que yo (en 
especial a partir del 3er parrafo).

Recognize the articles for what they are (Score:1)
by Fonze (186447) on 2004.03.28 0:11 (#88921)
The Microsoft web site where the articles in question appear (there are 
more fud articles than just the Office suite article) was brought to my 
attention about a week ago. I think it was a Newsforge article that 
mentioned it earlier. I checked the other articles as well, and they 
also contain fud. But the Office article is Microsoft's response to 
their losing their shirt (and their 80% monopoly profit margin) due to 
their failure to compete with OpenOffice.org (hold your keyboards, 
Microsofties, we'll compare my claim over the next couple of quarters). 
I considered doing exactly what the author above did, taking apart their 
Office article line by line, paragraph by paragraph, simply because it 
was so easy. But I decided against it for two reasons. The first is that 
if this is the best they can do, why alert them? They are reading (and 
posting ala OS/2 wars style like they did on Compuserve and other boards 
during the OS/2 wars) Newforge and Slashdot regularly. They aren't just 
reading the sites, they are mirroring them internally so they can 
"study" us, to find the weaknesses and points of attack. So why point 
out the blatent errors in their articles, so they can make changes, 
enabling them to better withstand criticism?

The articles are a complete disaster, especially when they really stick 
their foot in their mouth about security. But it isn't just the security 
part. The article is bad all over. So why help them strengthen the 
article? Either they are totally unable to answer OpenOffice.org's 
threat, or the person(s) who put the article together are totally 
incompetent. Either way, it is a win for the GPL community.

The articles on that Microsoft page are not there to convince the 
converted. They are there so that CIOs and admins can have some 
documentation to cover their asses in their decision to sign that 
multi-year contract with Microsoft. That's what a large part of the 
community forgets. Most of the studies put out by 
Microsoft/Enderle/Didio/IDC/Gartner/Yankee are put out so that the suits 
can justify their decisions, and cover their asses. They already have 
their minds made up about what they are going to do. But along with 
choices, come chances. Why risk you job over a decision that can 
materially affect the company? Get the studies, stack the paperwork, and 
blame the studies and analysts when the next worm wipes out several 
million dollars of productivity and document reconstruction costs, and 
when the BSA comes a knockin'. The experts said to jump, we jumped!

A company that has already made the decision to go with OpenOffice.org 
on Linux is a company that Microsoft is no longer interested in. Ask 
Largo. Microsoft (or was it Sun prior to their rebranding Linux as 
Java?) went sniffing around, and they didn't bother making an offer when 
they saw the setup. Didn't even bother to make an offer.

Microsoft's intent with the articles are for the suits who need to cover 
their asses over their decisions, and for the suits who don't have a 
clue. I'm still running into small business people who don't know what 
Linux is (they heard the name Linux, but that's about it) and their 
reaction when I tell them that Linux doesn't have a virus problem like 
Windows is disbelief. Then the next reaction is "gimme" when I offer 
them a Knoppix CD. So Microsoft's hope is to continue picking off suits 
who don't have a clue, and therefore have no knowledge to refute the 
claims made in the paper. And their hope, and tactic, is to bury them in 
studies, and to gloss over the competitive facts, and to change the 
subject to their strengths, while avoiding like the plague the 
weaknesses in their comparisons. So if someone brings up, "well, I heard 
this, I read this", the sales force comes back with, "well, we have this 
study that shows this, and this other study that shows what I was 
talking about earlier, and this other study..." and the point the suit 
was making is already three points removed in about ten seconds. And 
there are studies to prove it. And the second salesman moves on to 
another area, to further move away from the weaknesses.

Microsoft knows that admins and CIOs need studies to back up their 
decisions, and Microsoft is happily providing the studies for them? Are 
they flawed? You bet. Will the CEOs and CFOs know they are flawed, and 
that the CIOs and admins shouldn't have used them to begin with, or was 
using them to cover their asses? Fat chance. Especially when buried in 
so many other studies that the CEOs and CFOs will never lift a finger to 
read. They are providing excuses for the CIOs, for the admins, for the 
Microsoft salesforce, and the salesforces of their VARs. That's it. It 
really is that simple.

IBM, Novell, Red Hat, and others in the market would be wise to sit up 
and take notice. And start sponsoring their own biased articles and 
studies. The problem IBM, Red Hat, and others are going to run into, is 
that the geeks will tear them apart if they start putting out garbage 
like Microsoft is doing. But that's good, because it will force them to 
strengthen the argument. And this can only be a winning position, 
because on the merits, the GPL conquers all (sorry BSD, you had what? 
10+ years to breakout, and you failed, no flame war intended).

Bill and Steve identified Linux as their number one threat years ago. 
The actual threat is the GPL license, not Linux, because it is the GPL 
that has prevented them from 1. buying out Linux, and 2. incorporating 
the code, like they were able to do with BSD. But they have identified 
one of the tools that the GPL is using to tear them a new asshole, 
Linux. The question for IBM, Red Hat, and other wannabees becomes, are 
you willing to step into the fire, and fight fire with fire? Are you 
willing to open the pocket books, and get the studies out there, the 
real world cases that other CIOs can point to, to justify moving a 
Fortune 1000 company to GNU/Linux, desktop and all?

Big Blue made a lot of noise about spending a billion dollars on Linux a 
few years ago. Lately, there has been a big void in the case studies 
that should be put out to justify the moves. I have yet to see studies 
that document how much it costs to keep track of licenses. How much per 
hour/per employee virus downtime costs. How much virus re-imaging costs. 
How much windows reboots cost. How much a BSA audit threat costs in 
bringing everything into compliance suddenly, within the time period 
allowed by the BSA audit letter, and within the time period stated in 
the Microsoft and other proprietary licenses. Has IBM made any 
conversions from Windows to Linux, including desktops? What are the cost 
savings? Hardware? Viruses? Everything else outlined here?

The only reports I've seen are one report from a company in Italy that 
replaced all Windows and went 100% GNU/Linux, and quantified the virus 
savings and reboot costs, and hardware savings costs, and saved 
tremendously. And this was for less than a thousand seats, possibly a 
couple hundred iirc, and the savings were in the hundreds of thousands, 
starting from the very first year. Don't remember where I saw the story, 
maybe here on Newforge, maybe someone who remembers what I'm talking 
about can provide a link. I'm sure I archived it, but I won't be able to 
find it for quite a while. Sun also put out another study having to do 
with server downtime, to sell their grossly overpriced servers. They 
justified their ridiculous pricing by getting lucky on an installation, 
where Sun stayed up a little longer, and the downtime costs were over 
$100,000 an hour (minute?), and therefore, taking into consideration 
downtime, their ridiculously priced servers came out cheaper. The point 
is, where are IBM's studies on what I've outlined? IBM still afraid of 
stepping on Bill's toes? Where are Red Hat's studies then? Oh, I forgot, 
RHAS has the same audit sledgehammer, so that's out. Someone else? 
Anyone? Anyone willing to spend the money? Release the data? Risk 
offending Microsoft for telling the truth? Anyone?

IBM, if you haven't figured it out yet, Microsoft is dead in a couple of 
years. They'll still make some money, but what happens to a company that 
suddenly turns into a "shrink" company, instead of a growth company? Oh 
yeah, this [reuters.com]. And then this [house.gov] And then this [sec.gov]

Don't forget that brokers still had buy ratings on companies 
[securitiesfraudfyi.com] the same week they filed for bankruptcy 
[fraud911.com]. The same will be true for Microsoft. First will come the 
stock collapse. Then the investigations. Then the charges. Then the 
settlements without admitting guilt. And the retail investors, like 
moths to a flame, will yell bloody murder, will demand restitution, and 
will be left holding the bag. As they should.