Mandrakesoft’s MCS 3.0 ships with a typical range of open-source server software and a set of configuration tools that we found unusually approachable. However, MCS 3.0 faces stiff competition not only from its most direct rivals—RHEL and SLES—but also from less costly alternatives such as Debian and slicker-looking options such as Mac OS X Server. As such, MCS 3.0 will fit best at sites with a pre-existing Mandrake presence, sats eWeek.
Mandrakelinux Corporate Server 3.0
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“doesn’t share the same breadth of enterprise hardware and software support certifications of rival corporate-targeted distributions from Red Hat Inc. and Novell Inc. ”
Actually they are right , but its Novell and Red Hat who have to play catch up to MandrakeSoft. Mandrake lack visibility and direct manufacturers installing there software , but when it come to widest range of solution and the most certfication Mandrake CS3 is in a class of its own.
1) its Military certified in 15 Country ( Including the US ) , Novell and Red Hat are not there yet.
2) Its fully LSB certified , Again Novell and Red hat are not there.
3) Where mandrake is not “officially” certified is on commercial thing like ASP , Oracle and the others , where somehow they are leaving mandrake out , Personnaly I blame MandrakeSoft Management for there lack of vision on this one , there is always a lot of politics involved , But , Mandrake is Compatible with Red Hat and SuSe , and some people have reported no problem installing those software on Mandrake.
” Mandrakesoft’s Linux distributions are popular as desktop operating systems. ”
Yes , But wrong , ADVX is/whas in the top 10 server worldwide , closest rival Red Hat whas in the 15 , SUSE whas not even in the top 20 , Mandrake is Really good in everything that they are in and they are in a lot of stuff. They dont have the Market visibility others enjoy and a lot of people are making a lot of stupid assumptions.
“URPM (User RedHat Package Manager)”
Actually RPM , means Reusable Package Manager , thats one of the falacy of GNU/Linux , Because Red Hat whas among the first to really use this free software project and promoted it , it became Red Hat Package manager … Goes right there with apt , wich whas not a Debian Made product either. Apt existed before Debian whas created …
“maps so closely to RHEL and SLES pricing that companies that don’t have a pre-existing affinity for Mandrake won’t find much to recommend this Linux distribution over its higher-profile rivals.”
See what I mean by expertise , RHEL and SLES at those price dont come with the same numbers of software and the same level of support , do a Box to box comparaison and you have to get the higher priced offer from the other to begin to Match what MandrakeSoft offer.
“but are no more approachable or well-meshed than those in SLES.”
Wrong again , there is a lot more then what meets the eyes and a lot of server capacity is not there by default.
“a slimmer range of hardware support than is offered by Red Hat and SuSE, each of which also supports IBM’s PowerPC and mainframe platforms.”
IBM dont support Mandrake … They dont support Gnu/Linux on the desktop either. But then Again IBM is known for its stupidity on the desktop, after all they once add the best desktop solution but let it slide into oblivion , they Created Microsoft and sold it to Bill Gates , They Had the best notebook solution Thinkpad , but again let it slides into oblivion , they created OS/2 but they promoted more Windows on there own hardware and offer …
You know what would be fun ? a match up between Novell , Red Hat , Debian and MandrakeSoft where each send a team of expert to show those “reporter” whats availaible. Then they would see what most see , Mandrake Kick easily the others into the ground. Mandrake as a problem talking about its solution and keeping its documentation updated with whats availaible in there offer.
At least this release eWeek decide to report on them.
its Military certified in 15 Country ( Including the US ) , Novell and Red Hat are not there yet.
Just curious,what do you specefically mean with military certified?
No , Mandrake is EAL 5 by the way.
The military in many country dont use anything that did not pass there certification first. MandrakeSoft got lucky on this one they had some country military who where Mandrake fans who got them accepted and to that quality level because they wanted to get rid of Windows. The Israëlite have a portable comm system based of Mandrake.MandrakeSoft also happen to be French , and the French Military prefer to rely on made at home technology , one of the biggest MandrakeLinux proponent in France is/whas one of there army General he got them on the easy track for the certification , giving them a good idea of what they wanted, Mandrake is also very good and respected as a cluster solution , cluster solution are used in the military to make makeup scenario and calculate all sort of things , weather , nuclear scenario , biochimic scenario , etc … In Afghanistan they have some maill and web server set up too, for military and civilian service , Mandrake make a good easy to use portable internet cafe too … There are also private radio systems to transmit music to the troop …
”
IBM dont support Mandrake … They dont support Gnu/Linux on the desktop either. But then Again IBM is known for its stupidity on the desktop, after all they once add the best desktop solution but let it slide into oblivion , they Created Microsoft and sold it to Bill Gates , They Had the best notebook solution Thinkpad , but again let it slides into oblivion , they created OS/2 but they promoted more Windows on there own hardware and offer …
”
Don’t know what you’re smoking but Bill Gates founded Microsoft, which later formed a partnership with IBM so IBM could ship MS-DOS on their desktop computers.
I , unlike you dont take any kind of drug
Bill Gates and Paul Allen Founded Micro-soft , which later on became Microsoft.
I said IBM created Microsoft , I did not meant it in the sense that they created the company , I meant in the sense that IBM could have easyly killed Microsoft and Dos in the past but they acted as if the OS did not mather. IBM is responsible for choosing them as there OS on the first personnal computer, and many other errors which enabled Microsoft to take
Not my fault that you where so much on drug during those years and that you missed the impact IBM add on Microsoft good fortune. If you ever sobber up from your evident high dosage of drug use , you can go read all about it by searching for books on IBM , books on Microsoft , books on Bill Gates , all the details of IBM mistake are all detailed in there. But then again you would have to learn how to read and understand english words first … some words have more then one meaning.
My company has use Mandrake as our main server platform for several years. While we will likely to be continuing doing so. I personally feel Mandrake is kind of weak in a few area.
First come the Oracle certification, while yes true, you can get oracle to run on Mandrake with even fewer modification than those you would otherwise do on RHEL or SLES, (basically just replace the /etc/redhat-release header). However, when it come to protecting asses, suits are likely to go for SLES or RHEL. SLES even ship with a startup script for oracle. Suits will always goes for certified product, especially in bigger organization.
Another thing that I am a little disapointed with mandrake is, there are no drbd like SLES 9. (I have no have the oppurtunity to try MCS, but doesn´t seems like it from the website), and no other HA tools like RHELś cluster that I can tell. Even though these things can be easily implmented, but for a company that came out with a HPC cluster, this is a bit disappointing.
One thing about Novell is, it has been around for a very long time with global reach. Novellś local office here often have promotion that make sles 9 hell a lot cheaper than any other offering. At the price Mandrake is offering, I can see there will not be much demand in developing countries.
Recent Corporate Desktop roll out is also a little disappointing when compare with the competition. I know it is a corporate slim down desktop and cannot be compare with Power Pack+. However, for a company that shiped Kolab as the e-mail groupware solution, they left out Kontact in their corporate Desktop edition? Strange…. NLD at least ship with both.
Just hope mandrakesoft take note of all these. In fact, I used to be a all mandrake shop but right now have to accomodate SLES for more than a few reason. Although Mandrakeś approach to things still make it my favourite distro.
I said IBM created Microsoft , I did not meant it in the sense that they created the company , I meant in the sense that IBM could have easyly killed Microsoft and Dos in the past but they acted as if the OS did not mather. IBM is responsible for choosing them as there OS on the first personnal computer, and many other errors which enabled Microsoft to take
True,it happened all long before even 40 MB was considered a novelty harddisk space.IBM had the biggest hardware share of everything and contributed mainly to the MS growth.Although i wish they hadn’t.
I take it you know about the PSMP program for volume licensing, right? I don’t know the details of how that works and what discounts you get, I just hope you’re not paying shelf price from the Mandrakestore for everything
Yupe, know about this one. what I am saying is Mandrake lack multi-tier pricing when come to international market. 99 euro isn’t a lot of money but in some country that is a lot of money. This is more of a constructive criticism that I hope they can take into account some day.
Most software companies have something like this for developing nations. Including Oracle, Microsoft and Novell.