How Linux Saved Amazon

CNet.com ^ | October 30, 2001, 5:20 p.m. PT | Stephen Shankland, Margaret Kane, and Robert Lemos

[Bush2000]

Yeah, now you have to buy 5 seats for your 300 seat company instead of one.

Check. Mate.

[ColdSteelTalon]

Of course folks the most Bulletproof operating system in the world is of course OS/400. Which by the way can run LINUX in its partitions.
The IBM Eserver Iseries running OS/400. In 90 percent of the Fortune 500 companies. Uptime of 99.99 percrent.

[Leroy S. Mort]

I know this isn't PC, but face it people; windows is for dumb folks, linux isn't.

Windows has 84% of the desktop market and Linux isn't even on the radar screen.

"God must have loved the common man, he made so many of them" - Abe Lincoln

[11Bush]

And here I thought this would be an article on how Lucy's brother saved the rain forest. My mistake.

[AgThorn]

I know this isn't PC, but face it people; windows is for dumb folks, linux isn't. It's like everything else in this world; things are tailored and marketed for different markets. That's it.

Windows is to Linux as
AOL is to the Internet! right?

< looking for the back door .... >

[AgThorn]

And here I thought this would be an article on how Lucy's brother saved the rain forest. My mistake.

Ha!! Heah, I can see how you could make that mistake! ;-)

[Joe_October]

Let me get this straight. The company is having trouble with money so they buy new equipment? And then claim they saved money.

This article does not pass the smell test. They saved money by getting rid of hardware and getting new telecom services. If they were running Windows, they wouldn't have had to buy anything. Just tighten the belt and make due. Same is true is they were running Linux before. Anyone with a yearly license is going to be hurt by Linux.

Also, how does a company like Amazon not make a freakin' fortune? They don't discount much and they don't have the costs of the bookstore in my local mall. They have name brand recognition and they're having trouble?

Yea, I want to follow them with my business decisions.

[gore3000]

Nobody used OS/2, not even IBM which developed it and never supported it. Linux is alive and well and giving MS a run for their money.

You keep pooh-pooing companies going over to Linux but you don't see any companies going from Linux to MS.

[wireplay]

Your lack of understanding that XP is not a server OS and then that idiotic statement about Windows being for dumb folks forces a response.

I've been in this industry for over 20 years from MVS to Unix to Windows. Such immature statements like the one you just made is amazing. THIS is why I don't ask zealots for their take on what systems to install.

If I have a customer who needs absolute uptime and security, OS/390 in a parallel sysplex is tough to beat. If I have a customer who needs massive data throughput and parallel tasking, Unix is tough to beat. If I have a customer who needs an easy to administer system, Windows 2000 Server is tough to beat. Get some experience before you indicate the lack of it with your statements.

[wireplay]

One example:

Published: May 2001 Switching from Linux and Apache to Microsoft® Windows® 2000 enabled Hard Rock Cafe to easily build a sophisticated and full-featured intranet, which the company is using to facilitate all areas of its business. In the year since the switch, the powerful tools provided with the Microsoft platform have enabled the company to develop a wide range of useful applications with just two developers, resulting in lower internal costs and improving the company's ability to communicate with employees across its 50+ corporate-owned cafes. Every Hard Rock Café employee using the intranet now enjoys a customized start page, providing easy access to the relevant tools and information needed to do their jobs.

[Leroy S. Mort]

You keep pooh-pooing companies going over to Linux but you don't see any companies going from Linux to MS.

Scuse me, but the only thing I pooh-poohed was your assertion that the entire NYSE was switching to Linux. I just assumed you were as unknowledgable about that as you were about OS/2 and decided to set you straight on both.

Both Windows and Linux have cut into the Unix market, but Windows has cut quite a bit deeper. I showed that statistically quite a few posts back.

[gore3000]

Windows may still have a bigger market share than Linux in the server market, but Linux is catching up - and the way people count this stuff is subject to debate. However, MS still keeps putting out crappy, insecure products. One of the "big things" in XP is supposed to be Passport which MS is pushing very hard. Well, XP has not been out a week and it has already been cracked. See the link below: Stealing Passoport's Wallet

[Leroy S. Mort]

I think the latest projections I saw said Linux server "might" catch MS around 2005. Linux desktop hasn't got a chance of catching Windows based on its currently miniscule penetration.

When "200 million" users log in to a product like Passport (as your quoted article somewhat questionably claims) hackers and crackers are gonna target it. Fact is, no one needs to run Passport to run any MS operating system, even XP. It ain't a requirement.

[gore3000]

Excuses, excuses. No noone needs to use passport. No one needs to use Outlook. No one needs to use Microsoft products. When a company pushes an insecure system on people where their credit card information is subject to theft, I call that very irresponsible. It is just one more example of Microsoft irresponsibility.

[Leroy S. Mort]

It's obvious that logic and the facts have no impression on you, so this "debate" is at an end.