Microsoft loses showdown in Houston

First, if you're not using your NT server as a public web server, I don't think security issues are that much of a concern. I would suggest you simply convert your public web server to Linux and stick with what you have in-house. You can use the Sybase module of the Perl DBI to connect seamlessly between Linux perl scripts (often used on web servers) to a Microsoft SQL server. I do this at my company and it works great.

Microsoft is not going to change unless people like you and me make them. In my case, any new server deployments in my company will be Linux, and I don't plan to upgrade any of my Windows software unless there are truly compelling reasons to do so. At the time I would need to upgrade, I will seriously consider alternatives such as Linux and MacOS X.

Hope that helps.

D

Do you really have to upgrade? As a business manager I see cost but no benefit.

You can protect against security holes by add on software, add on hardware, or by having a firewall PC running linux that isolates your network.

That said, my company is at Office 2000 and Windows 2000 and will probably NEVER upgrade. We'll go to Linux instead. We're a BIG company--we have 40,000+ desktops.

Figure out that license bill.

Sounds like Houston made a purchasing decision based mostly on price. The usual marketplace forces at work. Microsoft's arrogance probably sealed the deal. Score one for Houston.

But Houston has simply traded one proprietary single-source software vendor for another... hope SimDesk is up to the support tasks. And what does SimDesk run on? It's just an office suite. So Houston's Windows desktops aren't going away, and Microsoft can probably still pull a Windows audit when/if it wants to. And in three years those desktops will be three years older, and when ya run MS ya gotta stay supported with Service Packs and Security Updates... So it's not like Microsoft is being run out of town here.

Good luck, Houston.

Sounds like another Anti-Microsoft choice...like Apple.

Ask the boobs in Marin what their favorite OS is and they say Apple is because its not MS...

Seems like a dumb reason to choose somthing .... because it isn't somthing else...

A couple of weeks ago, Apple introduced the Safari web browser and Keynote presentation software. Most everyone who has tried those two programs say they are much better than Internet Explorer and PowerPoint.

There are numerous reports that Apple is ramping up more software development to compete directly against Microsoft - especially for office productivity software. Apple certainly has the ability to produce a better word processor and spreadsheet than Microsoft Office.

Best of all, Apple won't have to use extortion tactics like Microsoft does to pursuade customers to buy them. Customers wil buy them because they will be superior quality products at more economical prices.

Do you really have to upgrade?

Unfortunately, yes, at least on the servers. There have been so many security holes in NT/IIS in the past that we can't take the risk of MS not coming out with patches to plug the as-yet-undiscovered holes. If I were a cracker, and I new MS was going to terminate support in June, and I discovered a new vulnerability, I'd hold onto it until July, just so I could inflict the most damage.

Unfortunately, firewalls can only do so much. Microsoft's vulnerabilities are largely not "blockable" by the firewall.

Yes, I could only upgrade the machines that are exposed, that would cut down on some of the cost with minimal risk.

Its just annoying. I don't like purchasing decisions driven by vendors. That's a bass-ackwards way to run any part of the business. And sure, we knew this was coming, but that doesn't make it any more palatable.

As to Linux, its almost possible to completely eliminate MS at the server level. Unfortunately, I have a single application that requires MSSQL, so I would have had to keep one Win2k box. However, using Samba, you can even keep the Windows domain structure if you want. There's a product by SUSE that completely replaces Exchange server.

By the next round of MS forced upgrades, Linux is going to be an easy sell on the server side, and even better on the desktop side - right now I'd be hesitant to convert the desktops, only because of the training issues involved. I don't think that will be an issue in a couple years - I'm expecting that migration will be the way to go, so we're planning for it now.

I have been using Microsoft Word, Excell and Access since they came out. I currently have MS Office 2000. I quit using it in favor of OpenOffice for two reasons. First it is free and I haven't found anything that I want that it won't do. Second and most important I don't have to get Microsoft's permission to make changes to my computer. The latest was when I put in a new hard drive and had to call to get permission from MS to use their program on my new hard drive. This has happened too many times when I make hardware changes or upgrade to a new operating system.

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