[StJacques]

"This theory will NEVER be accepted by the already-hate-spewing venemous Anti-Microsoft crowd. . . ."

The greatest myth in the IT world is that Microsoft is some anti-free trade corporate conspiracy that is out to destroy the American way of business. The opposite is in fact true. And I know this first hand, since I'm an IT guy who specializes in cross-platform interoperable web applications -- primarily XML and XML Web Services -- which I have developed for deployment on three different operating systems: IBM's OS/400 (the AS/400 machine), Sun Microsystems' Solaris, and Microsoft's Windows 2003 Server (.NET). I will be doing my first Linux job in a few weeks from now.

In spite of all the propaganda and hype the "open source" crowd will spout, Microsoft is easily the most consumer-friendly IT company on planet earth. The key is Microsoft's "Universal Data Access" strategy of providing both its PC operating systems (Windows XP, etc.) and its server operating systems (Windows 2003 Server) with full connectivity capabilities for data and information access. For you IT guys it comes down to OLE DB and full XML capability. Microsoft seems to have this idea that if you buy a license to use an operating system you should be able to use it to connect to any database on the market and your access to XML functionality (which is the real independent and non-proprietary cross-platform technology) should be unlimited. IBM, Sun, Red Hat software (they did the most to develop Linux), and most of the rest differ in that they want data and information access controlled at the server end, which means that the "consumers of data," whether they are businesses or individuals, will have to pay the toll for the capability to access data, in addition to user rights of access. And they also want to limit XML Web Service functionality, and especially IBM in this instance, to "Remote Procedure Call" (RPC) types of applications as opposed to "Document Style" -- Microsoft is real big on the latter -- so that they can concentrate activity on servers rather than web clients, which raises the development costs for companies who provide the data, since RPC style web services are much more limited in their scope than Document Style, which are virtually unlimited. To put it all in one sentence, Microsoft will let you do what you want to do, IBM and the rest want to limit your choices to make certain those who control server technology will hold the keys to information access, regardless of the increase in costs that comes with it.

To anyone and everyone in the "open source" crowd who wants to spout that party line that they represent the "economically democratic" alternative to Microsoft, I have a response and a challenge, which follows. Until consumers of data are empowered to access information using connectivity capabilities to which they own licenses and when they are further empowered to share data on their own terms with other operating systems without paying the toll for connectivity, that the "open source standard as economic democracy" is a myth. The real test is "cross-platform interoperability" and the range of choices one can make in implementing it. Microsoft is light years ahead of the rest of the field in this respect.

[usgator]

Thanks for the post. I am a software developer myself and don't deal with the OS too much.

This should give me some ammo next time we get into another "Linux vs. Microsoft" discussion.

Of course, it won't make any difference. They love and worship Linux and facts have no place in the discussion.

The thing that amazes me is that I admit MS has faults ... they adamantly refuse to acccept that Linux may have any flaw at all, no matter how minor.

[rit]

I think it is fair to say that Microsoft has never been the bearer of gifts when it comes to interoperability with anything other than Microsoft products. They do what their customers request, but ensure a tie-in to the MS product line, which is fair since they are a business concern.

Without getting to technical, it is interesting to note that a MS rep has stated Microsoft will not provide support for HTTP bindings as described in the Web Service Description Language (WSDL) specification. Instead, they will only support SOAP which provides for Remote Procedure Call.

For non-tech people, WSDL is a industry standard specification released by the self appointed World Wide Web consortium (w3c). Vendors follow W3C recommendations to ensure interoperability. However, vendors like Microsoft have extended the standards and broken interoperability in many cases.

[antiRepublicrat]

and your access to XML functionality (which is the real independent and non-proprietary cross-platform technology) should be unlimited.

Except that in Office the XML format is proprietary. It is not totally open.

The real test is "cross-platform interoperability" and the range of choices one can make in implementing it. Microsoft is light years ahead of the rest of the field in this respect.

Are you kidding? One reason for the European anti-trust action was Microsoft making communication easy only between its own desktops and servers. That's why even here they're being forced to reveal their APIs and protocols.

[ImaGraftedBranch]

I agree with your post completely. Our company has a business process monitoring product that runs on Windows 2K/2003 servers. The reason? We need to access data from ANYWHERE -- mainframes, servers, networks, 3rd-party products, web, XML, etc. We have over 70 TYPES of datasources, and it is a breeze. Couldn't even fathom trying to get the same level of functionality under Unix, and I've got 20+ years in the arena.

Since Win2K, the servers don't crash. Period. It's a lot of old baggage from the NT days.

[Psycho_Bunny]

I would never hire someone who told me their platform of choice does everything.  Platforms are tools and like hammers and screwdrivers, they have their strengths and weaknesses.

The Nux uber alles crowd is just as stupid as the MS uber alles crowd.