Microsoft, Novell and Unintended Consequences

Nice article. I wish more analysts and pundits were this sensible.

Quoting:I wish more analysts and pundits were this sensible.

It is sensible alright, but the problem is that most enterprise IT organizations have CIOs who have no appreciation for sensible ideas. They are nothing but scared sh*tless bunch and MS knows that. It is going to take the rest of the world to move away from MS for us ( the US) to follow. MS can't claim patent infringement out side the US (well they can but no use), so the rest of the world has a much better environment for FOSS to flourish and the US will be left behind out sourcing IT jobs. I love this country!!!

microsoft is nothing but a chicken - nobody needs to do deals with them at all

if they come calling to your shop about a lawsuit because of the linux you run tell them their crap software will be out in the trash where it belongs before they file the papers.

who do they think they are thinking we need their software to run a business - they need to get their heads out of their you know what and start making a decent product.

they can kiss my big old you know what. we should be charging them for all the viruses and spyware we have to remove because of their defective product.

Quoting:we should be charging them for all the viruses and spyware we have to...

Go ahead, what is stopping you?!!!

Has the practice of tech-stoopid managers making important technical decisions always been a common practice? I'm just a dumb laypeople, and I know that Real Geeks often want cool stuff just because it's cool, not necessarily because it makes business sense, so you don't just give them a blank check. But come on, letting PHBs decide on computing infrastructure is like, um, well, I can't think of a word that conveys how stupid that sounds. :)

I see it happening every day at the company I work for. All application and infrastructure decisions are taken with an eye on the lowest short-term costs. Nobody is thinking about long term impact, maintenance, upgradability, etcetera.

> But come on, letting PHBs decide on computing infrastructure is like, um, well, I can't think of a word that conveys how stupid that sounds. :)

Management always makes the decisions. That's their job. The question is do they get adequate input from those qualified in the area before they do so? Good management does, bad management doesn't. Guess which category most managers fall into. Remember, just like every other profession, half of all managers graduated in the lower 50% of their class. :(

"we should be charging them for all the viruses and spyware we have to...

Go ahead, what is stopping you?!!!"

well first of all I don't use windows so it will be hard for me personally.

secondly I can't find a company who would pursue the idea.

you know the old just the cost of doing business excuse.

Management today is expected to be dynamic. An unfortunate consequence of that is that their memory leaks unless constantly refreshed. Microsoft is very skilled at pasting their message everywhere so it gets refreshed -- they've even got Linux Today serving up their toxic refreshments!