VanLUG Email Archive
1. Thanks for all your submissions regarding Linux in the workplace.
Please keep those stories coming.
a. If you don't want to identify the company or organization by
name, please tell me what the company does. E.g., Safeway -> a
major grocery chain or The Bank of Montreal -> a major Canadian
chartered bank.
b. The stories about Linux servers are wonderful. I would also like to
hear about companies who are using Linux for software development.
2. Here's a draft of the first of four stories which I'm preparing for
our media kit. I'm including it because non-UNIX types will be
interested in knowing where MS stands on the UNIX and Linux issue.
If you have any comments or suggestions, please let me know.
3. The Linux in B.C., Linux - General Information, and Linux Installfest
stories are next. If you would like to help, please let me know.
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(The references that I've appended are for the benefit of the editors
who want to verify the facts, figures, and quotations in the story.)
MICROSOFT: DEMAND FOR UNIX WILL NOT GO AWAY
(from industry sources)
The popularity of the UNIX family of operating systems amongst
programmers and other technical professionals has not been lost on
Microsoft. The Redmond software giant, which once dismissed UNIX (and
which is still trying to position its own Windows NT operating system
as a replacement), has been forced to admit that demand for UNIX
amongst its customers, and even its own developers, will not go away.
According to Ramesh Parameswaran, manager of the Microsoft team
developing UNIX versions of Microsoft internet applications such as
the Internet Explorer web browser, "There are a bunch of customers,
Fortune 500 companies, who will not allow the browser on Windows
unless they have the browser on UNIX." According to him, the most
important thing his group is doing now is promoting the IE browser and
Outlook e-mail client on UNIX.
The extent to which many developers at the home of DOS and Windows use
and prefer UNIX-based tools was once one of the best-kept secrets at
Microsoft. Now, in an apparent effort to help recruit the best
software developers, Microsoft is starting to brag about it on their
web site. At the site, Microsoft developer David Dawson explains, "The
things people like about UNIX are more things that appeal to
programmers, in terms of the programming environment." Microsoft
developer Randy Chapman, who has used Linux since 1993, says flatly,
"There are definitely a lot of people here [at Microsoft] who use
Linux."
Most telling is the fact that Microsoft is actually releasing Linux
versions of some of its new products. Microsoft has just relesed a
Linux client for NetShow, a tool for distributing audio, video,
illustrated audio, animations, and other multimedia types over
networks. And a Linux version of Microsoft Media Player, a tool for
providing convenient access to most local and streamed multimedia file
types including WAV, AVI, QuickTime, and RealAudio 4.0 and RealVideo
4.0. is due to be released shortly.
For all of Microsoft's talk about their new found love for UNIX, many
of their software development and marketing practices are still an
anathema to the UNIX community. And, as the minimum hardware
requirements for Windows NT 5.0 continue to rise (Microsoft and Intel
are currently recommending that one plan to run NT Server 5.0 on a 400
MHz Pentium II with at least 128 Megabytes of RAM) and the scheduled
release date slips, one is reminded of Henry Spencer's observation
that, "Those who don't understand UNIX are condemned to reinvent it -
poorly".
References:
Microsoft: UNIX Powerhouse?
http://www.sunworld.com/sunworldonline/swol-04-1998/swol-04-microunix.html
Getting UNIX Out the Microsoft Door
http://www.microsoft.com/ie/unix/?/ie/unix/devs.htm
NetShow Streaming Media Services
http://www.microsoft.com/ntserver/netshow/about.htm
Media Player for Unix
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/mediaplayer/download/unix.htm
Hardware Design Guide Version 2.0 for Windows NT* Server
http://www.intel.com/design/servers/desguide/
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