Linked by Thom Holwerda on Sun 1st Apr 2007 15:02 UTC, submitted by WillM
"The server operating system wars never seem to slow down. Last week it was Red Hat's turn with the announcement of Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, which incorporates the Xen open source hypervisor. Naturally there's also the endless market speculation about the final feature set and likely arrival date of Windows Server 2007. And then there's Solaris, which with its nice value-add features like DTrace and its new status as open source software is making something of a comeback, it seems."
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RE[3]: Really Meaningless
by kaiwai on Mon 2nd Apr 2007 13:44
in reply to "RE[2]: Really Meaningless "
Member since:2005-07-06
I'm not so sure that's the main reason people turn to MS or Oracle products. I think the main reason companies turn to these products is simply because they base their marketing on:
a) compatibility, and
b) support.
While I’m not denying that other solutions are just as valid as MS / Oracle - when you have trained consultants, dedicated forums and hundreds of publications dedicated to the set up, maintenance and debugging of these systems, it does ease corporate minds that their product wont (shouldn't) fail, regardless of how good they are in a market comparison.
a) compatibility, and
b) support.
While I’m not denying that other solutions are just as valid as MS / Oracle - when you have trained consultants, dedicated forums and hundreds of publications dedicated to the set up, maintenance and debugging of these systems, it does ease corporate minds that their product wont (shouldn't) fail, regardless of how good they are in a market comparison.
True, but at the same time, alot of it is cluelessness; for example, I deployed a fleet of computers for a highschool; FreeBSD + GNOME + OpenOffice.org running ontop.
Skeptical at first, but once I set a mock up desktop, they moved around, loaded up OpenOffice.org, they realised they could do everything they needed, and it wouldn't require them shelling out large amounts of cash for licences.
I think the issue is that management should be less quick to judge alternatives out there; and if there is an alternative, for christ sake, don't use a consultancy firm, get your IS/IT staff to investigate, get the company to send out a free trial version, setup a stand alone server, and test it to see how successful it is.
Having seen some of the stupid things I've see management spend money on in the past - first class plane trips, expensive food and so forth, all on the company card, its a small price to pay to be a little more open minded on managements part.
RE[4]: Really Meaningless
by Laurence on Mon 2nd Apr 2007 14:22
in reply to "RE[3]: Really Meaningless "
Member since:2007-03-26
True, but at the same time, alot of it is cluelessness
Maybe, but if you know you have a massive resource base (expensive or not) to rely upon during setup or in case the worst happens - then it makes sense to go with that company. After all, a payroll server (for example) crashing could prove very very damaging to a company if no-one is there with specialise knowlage to suport the system.
for example, I deployed a fleet of computers for a highschool; FreeBSD + GNOME + OpenOffice.org running ontop.
I appretiate your example, but my comments were more directed at companies that offer top-end solutions for business critical systems. While I agree in princible with what you've achieved, it wouldn't (in my opinion) be as practical to set up a payroll server (to use a previous example) "just to see what happens".
We use Oracle for our HR and payroll systems and while I don't particularly like the application itself, the support level for their systems is superb.
News
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/25/13 0:45 UTC
"So in summary... Google has pulled the plug on support on a protocol they've helped popularize, after years of promising interoperability, for reasons that are dubious at best, and in a way that leaves people who don't jump to the new Hangouts app unable to talk to their contacts without any feedback that their IMs aren't getting through... And they've done that with no warning to anyone. I imagine there's a bunch of people out there wondering where some of their buddies have gone, or why their messages aren't getting responses, because this isn't documented anywhere." Google really messed this up. Such a dick move.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 23:59 UTC
The Tizen Greek Community has some screenshots of a very recent build of Tizen running on a Samsung GT-i8800. It looks wholly unremarkable.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 22:33 UTC
Joint statement to The Next Web from Microsoft and Google: "Microsoft and YouTube are working together to update the new YouTube for Windows Phone app to enable compliance with YouTube's API terms of service, including enabling ads, in the coming weeks. Microsoft will replace the existing YouTube app in Windows Phone Store with the previous version during this time." Good to know these children stopped acting like little pricks. Can we have full Google support in Windows 8 now, please?
Linked by Howard Fosdick on 05/24/13 21:41 UTC
Yahoo is acquiring Tumblr, the microblogging and social networking website, for $1.1 billion USD. Tumblr offers little revenue but lots of eyeballs if Yahoo can monetarize them. Now Yahoo is bidding for Hulu, the streaming video service. After years of ineffective responses while Google, Facebook, and others took large chunks of the online advertising market, Yahoo is fighting back. Can Yahoo reignite the momentum it had at the turn of the century? What do you think?
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/24/13 14:44 UTC
"Sources have described iOS 7 as 'black, white, and flat all over'. This refers to the dropping of heavy textures and the addition of several new black and white user interface elements." I couldn't be happier.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 23:22 UTC
"Ilja van Sprundel, a security researcher with IOActive, has discovered a large number of issues in the way various X client libraries handle the responses they receive from servers, and has worked with X.Org's security team to analyze, confirm, and fix these issues."
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:04 UTC
"Google is facing a new antitrust probe by the U.S. Federal Trade Commission into whether the company is using its leadership in the online display-advertising market to illegally curb competition, people familiar with the matter said." Sucks to be Google today, apparently.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 22:01 UTC
"In the midst of the major press blitz surrounding its annual I/O Conference, Google dropped some unfortunate news about its instant messaging plans. In several places around the web, the company is replacing the existing 'Talk' platform with a new one called 'Hangouts' that sharply diminishes support for the open messaging protocol known as XMPP (or sometimes informally Jabber), and also removes the option to disable the archiving of all chat communications. These changes represent a switch from open protocols to proprietary ones, and a clear step backward for many users." That's why I always say: only suckers trust companies.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/23/13 17:52 UTC
"The wave of departures is a sign of internal struggle, but amidst all the bad news, there is a glimmer of hope. According to an anonymous HTC executive cited by WSJ, the crucial HTC One is selling 'pretty good so far'. The executive revealed that HTC sold about five million One units since launch, a performance that is deemed encouraging. However, sales have been limited by the persisting supply issues that still plague the production of the HTC One." Finally some good news for HTC. Five million units amidst supply constraints is very impressive.
Linked by Thom Holwerda on 05/22/13 22:23 UTC
"Sony gave the PS4 50% more raw shader performance, plain and simple (768 SPs @ 800MHz vs. 1152 SPs & 800MHz). Unlike last generation, you don't need to be some sort of Jedi to extract the PS4's potential here. The Xbox One and PS4 architectures are quite similar, Sony just has more hardware under the hood. We’ll have to wait and see how this hardware delta gets exposed in games over time, but the gap is definitely there. The funny thing about game consoles is that it’s usually the lowest common denominator that determines the bulk of the experience across all platforms. On the plus side, the Xbox One should enjoy better power/thermal characteristics compared to the PlayStation 4. Even compared to the Xbox 360 we should see improvement in many use cases thanks to modern power management techniques." AnandTech does its usual in-depth thing.More News »
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Member since:
2007-03-26
I'm not so sure that's the main reason people turn to MS or Oracle products. I think the main reason companies turn to these products is simply because they base their marketing on:
a) compatibility, and
b) support.
While I’m not denying that other solutions are just as valid as MS / Oracle - when you have trained consultants, dedicated forums and hundreds of publications dedicated to the set up, maintenance and debugging of these systems, it does ease corporate minds that their product wont (shouldn't) fail, regardless of how good they are in a market comparison.