I could see this

Story: Microsoft Has Stopped Competing with LinuxTotal Replies: 18
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jsusanka

Mar 22, 2006
4:41 AM EDT
I could see microsoft becoming an IBM. Maybe they are throwing in the towel on the desktop and admitting they can't make a solid, stable, desktop and the desktop will become a commodity and so linux will eventually fill the bill. it makes sense to me and would give companies a lot more flexibility on the desktop in creating end to end applications.

maybe they become a solutions provider utilizing whatever they plan on doing with linux on the desktop. granted this would be a while and a sort of an evolution -

but I heard on the radio just today that vista is going to be delayed till after the holiday season.

but no matter how you look at it linux on the business desktop makes a whole lot better business case than having a proprietary desktop. businesses aren't about innovation they are about stability and the ability to push their own proprietary applications to their employees. And linux give them the ability to do that with the licensing cost.

tadelste

Mar 22, 2006
4:46 AM EDT
I think it was interesting that Ballmer left Accenture's Board of Directors..

BTW, IBM dosn't break out income in their outside financial reports. They lose money on hardware except for the mainframe. The make almost all their profits in services e.g., IBM Global Services (IGS). They make money on the mainframe because they have like no competition.
jsusanka

Mar 22, 2006
5:55 AM EDT
Linux also has some very innovative features - like in the future I could the see enterprises making their own live distribution for their workers on a cd - then all the worker needs is a cdrom on their computer. the computer wouldn't even need a hard drive.

then the worker could go home and boot their computer with it and it would have all the proprietary ras stuff to connect to work with a vpn and the worker could work at home just like if they were at work.

they could freshen the cd every quarter, month, semi-annually, or whatever and also have copy protection on it somehow so the employees cannot make copies of the cd.

just a thought - but to say linux is a me-too technology is not giving it it's just rewards. there is a lot of innovation going on in open source that windows could only dream of.

we just don't have the chair throwing ballmers associated with us.
tadelste

Mar 22, 2006
9:06 AM EDT
Have you heard of the Linux thin client solution? Everyone believes it is just going great guns and knocking people out of the water. Nope. Barely any business there.

I'm not playing devils advocate or being negative. I just want you to know what you're up against. Companies are more likely to get a Live Windows CD and put it in their CD Roms or solid state devices that go into a 5 1/2" bay.
jsusanka

Mar 22, 2006
11:59 AM EDT
"Have you heard of the Linux thin client solution? Everyone believes it is just going great guns and knocking people out of the water. Nope. Barely any business there.

I'm not playing devils advocate or being negative. I just want you to know what you're up against. Companies are more likely to get a Live Windows CD and put it in their CD Roms or solid state devices that go into a 5 1/2" bay."

yes I have heard about it - I was just throwing some ideas off the top of my head.

Live windows cd - is there such a thing - if so where? I have never heard of such a thing.

this was one my points was linux has had a live cd for a long time and I still don't know of a windows live cd. in this case windows is the me-too technology if there is such a thing.
jdixon

Mar 22, 2006
12:08 PM EDT
> Live windows cd - is there such a thing - if so where?

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ http://www.ubcd4win.com/
jsusanka

Mar 22, 2006
12:15 PM EDT
"[HYPERLINK@www.nu2.nu] [HYPERLINK@www.ubcd4win.com"

okay - just looking at those links - those are more rescue cd's and not a true running windows os. yes they could look like windows but where is the browser the office application.

this is where windows is the me-too technology

I can run knoppix, ubuntu, mepis and actually do some work off the cd and save the work on my usb pen drive.
tadelste

Mar 22, 2006
12:18 PM EDT
What is BartPE and PE Builder?

Bart's PE Builder helps you build a "BartPE" (Bart Preinstalled Environment) bootable Windows CD-Rom or DVD from the original Windows XP or Windows Server 2003 installation/setup CD, very suitable for PC maintenance tasks.

It will give you a complete Win32 environment with network support, a graphical user interface (800x600) and FAT/NTFS/CDFS filesystem support. Very handy for burn-in testing systems with no OS, rescuing files to a network share, virus scan and so on. This will replace any Dos bootdisk in no time!
jdixon

Mar 22, 2006
12:18 PM EDT
> where is the browser the office application.

UCBD4Win includes Firefox. It might be possible to add OpenOffice to the CD, though I've never tried.
tadelste

Mar 22, 2006
12:22 PM EDT
I was just making nice and showing what the guy, Bart, claimed.
jdixon

Mar 22, 2006
12:35 PM EDT
Tom:

Bart's PE is a barebones boot disk with few features. It gives you complete access to the hardware and filesystem, including network access, but that's pretty much it. UBCD4Win is an supercharged upgrade to Bart's PE which includes a whole bunch of free software on the CD. Most important, from a Windows perspective, are virus scanning and spyware removal tools :), but it includes a web browser, email client, disk imaging software, CD burner, disk defragmenter, pdf viewer, registry tools, etc.

I've used it here at work, and it's an extremely nice tool if you're stuck in a Windows environment. Linux live CD's are better, but for Windows it's pretty good.
jdixon

Mar 22, 2006
12:42 PM EDT
Oh, and I should mention that to legally use either, you have to have a valid XP license which is not being used at the same time as the CD, and that Microsoft frowns upon it's use.
tadelste

Mar 22, 2006
12:57 PM EDT
jd: I was aware that UBCD4Win built on Barts. Like I said, just trying to redeem myself (only slightly) by making nice. :)
jdixon

Mar 22, 2006
1:42 PM EDT
Tom:

I'm not surprised that you knew. I thought it worth adding for any others who might not be aware that such tools existed for Windows. Sort of like having an extra screwdriver in the toolchest.
tadelste

Mar 22, 2006
7:07 PM EDT
Fjdixon: thanks. I smiled :-D
jsusanka

Mar 23, 2006
3:55 AM EDT
can any of them run on a usb stick too?

guess windows can be considered a me-too technology there too since they don't even have that.

you can run linux on a 64 and 128 meg usb stick.

can windows do that? uh? uh? uh?

ha ha just kidding - in some ways linux is me too but it is in the mundane task like open office web browsing email but how innovative can you get with word processing, email etc - with that said windows is also a me-too technology in a lot of ways to linux. just examples are the usb stick and the live cdrom - I know linux live cd was way before any of those examples you gave above - so there too windows was a me-too techology.
tadelste

Mar 23, 2006
4:59 AM EDT
Windows is a copy of lots of other people's technology. Technological prowess isn't the issue. I was strictly dealing with market perception and who buys what.
jdixon

Mar 23, 2006
5:04 AM EDT
> can any of them run on a usb stick too?

There's no technical reason I know of they couldn't, but I don't know of anyone who's done so. As long as the hardware supports booting from the usb device, any bootable OS which fits on the usb drive should work. Note, I'm not denying that Linux is better, merely trying to give the Windows hackers their due.
jdixon

Mar 23, 2006
5:07 AM EDT
> Windows is a copy of lots of other people's technology.

In many cases stolen technology, unfortuantely.

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