Billwg wrote:
> Rex Ballard wrote:
>
> > Most customers don't ever get the opportunity to make an informed
> > choice.
>
> That is being awfully arrogant, rex!
Not at all. What's arrogant is Microsoft's assumption that OEMs should
not be able to let users compare operating systems. What's arrogant is
Microsoft's demand that they must give prior written permission before
any "benchmark" is published. What's arrogant is Microsoft's demand
that Microsoft logos can't be used in any publication or web site that
makes disparaging remarks about Microsoft.
These are all ways to keep people from getting the information they
need to make an informed decisions.
> Do you think that you are so much
> more intelligent than the average person?
No, I'm just better informed. But I had to do some real digging to get
the information, I had to have someone else provide information to get
me started in the first place. I had first seen Linux back in February
of 1992. It was "cute", but I wasn't ready to give up Windows or
Interactive Unix for it. It was TAMU, just one floppy that booted the
kernel, and another floppy that had the applications.
In 1993, Mike Bird (who later was hired by Microsoft), started
downloading floppies of Linux. He started installing it on his
machine, but didn't have the space. We were able to literally fish a
machine out of the dumpster, and install Linux on it. It was an
80386/16 with 8 meg of RAM. At the time, I could have purchased it
used for about $50 to $100. It had an 80 megabyte drive, and we
installed as much as we could, including X11. It looked, acted, and
ran, almost exactly like the $25,000 Sun workstation in the cube to my
right, or the $30,000 HP workstation in the cube to my right. The
display wasn't as big, the resolution wasn't as high, and it took a
little longer for the applications to start, but when my boss saw it,
he wanted to know how the hell I managed to get a Sun workstation
without his signature.
When I showed him the 80386/16 box, he chuckled. When I showed him
that I could support BOTH the HP AND the SUN, running applications on
both machines, he started to get very impressed. The HP couldn't run
Sun applications, and the Sun couldn't run HP applications, but I could
run applications from both machines at the same time.
> I doubt that very much.
Keep in mind that I am stating the need to make INFORMED decisions.
If a user is able to walk into a room, look at a Linux machine, fully
and properly configured, with all of it's compatible software properly
installed and configured, and properly displayed, and next to that he
has a Windows XP machine, also properly installed, configured, and
displayed, with all of the included applications properly configured
and displayed, and the price tags for each machine are prominantly
displayed, and the user THEN chooses to use Windows instead of Linux,
after 4-6 hours of "test drives" over 6-8 visits to his computer store
or the display area, then I salute him. It's his choice, based on his
needs and preferences, and based on his budget, and his actual or
percieved needs.
If on the other hand, a CIO or CTO decides to lay off 20% of the IT
staff, to fund the upgrades to Windows Vista, without even giving each
employee the option of putting his hat in the pool to be cut if he
wants Vista, or being assured of his job if he chooses Linux, I don't
respect that. This is when someone spends "someone elses money" on
"what they want" because they don't have to pay for it.
When an OEM installs Windows, only Windows, and nothing but Windows,
and makes no provision to display,boot, or view a machine that runs
Linux, this is another example of someone making a choice based on his
ability to spend "someone else's money".
You know where Linux really sells well? Where you will find huge
populations of Linux users? Among people who have to pay full price
for every piece of software on their computer, who have to pay for the
computer, and have to do this out of their own personal accounts. This
is especially true of kids in Jr High, High School, and College, who
are paying for these products with minimum wage earnings. When they
have the choice of a copy of Micrososft Office or an LCD monitor, the
monitor usually wins.
I also have no respect for those who STEAL software. This is just
another version of using someones else's money (in this case property)
to get/do what you want, without paying for it. If someone wants to
use Windows XP Professional, MS-Office, Visio, and Project on their
computer which was sold with Home Edition, then they should pay the
$1200 to put it on their $350 computer. The problem is that they steal
the software, then try to insist that others steal their software
because they will only accept documents in this $1200 format. Do you
really want to trust someone who is not only willing to steal $1200
worth of software, but also wants to intice others into stealing as
well. I have very little respect for a teacher or college who insists
that "Only Microsoft Oiffice documents will be accepted" when they have
made no provision for the students to legally aquire the software as
part of their total tuition package. Let's face it, if the college had
to charge students an extra $1500 per year to use Microsoft software,
and another school, of equal or better reputation and quality did not
require this expense (after all the other financing has already been
exhausted), there might be more students going to the school that
didn't pull the "last minute surprise".
> I think your arrogance stems from some belief that you have specialized
> knowledge of the nitty-gritty of computer systems and so you can judge
> better than the political science major who sells insurance policies,
Not at all. If the guy is selling insurance policies, and his company
is giving him the ability to make a completely informed choice between
the two systems, either of which will be deducted from his paycheck or
commissions over a brief period, the young man may legitimately want to
ask, "what advantages does the $3500 system give me that the $1200
system doesn't. If the company says, "well the $3500 system will run
our lead finder system that will give you 200 highly qualified leads
every week, and the $1200 system will only give you 20 poorly qualified
leads a week, this might be a legitimate INFORMED decision.
But even in the case above, the company is still providing the
preferential support, for a decision that is ultimately funded by the
end-user. Another case of spending other people's money to make them
do what you want.
If on the other hand, the $3500 computer had applications and features
built in, which meant that the qualified lead system could serve more
users, search more efficiently, and could cache and syncronize the
leads more effectively, and the $1200 machine required complex manual
programming, large and complex applications which were difficult to
upgrade, and exposed the company's leads database to poaching by
competitors through easily planted malware, then both the company and
the sales person are making a legitimate informed choice based on
actual needs and based on expenses and consequences of the system.
At this point, some Linux users are probably chuckling, because Linux
does what teh $3500 computer does, and Windows does what the $1200
computer does, and if all users were able to make informed choices,
that is probably how the pricing would ultimately go.
> but you are not thinking very clearly. One can judge what is superior
> on a lot of different sets of criteria and everyone has their own
> standards that guide their choices.
Absolutely. Again, if someone wants to spend $3,000 out of their own
pocket to buy Windows, Office, Visio, and Project - even if it's just
because they like the pretty butterfly and the fischer price icons on
the screen, then I wholeheartedly endorse his decision. He is making
his own decision as to how he will spend his own money.
If he's buying the $3000 package because "uncle sam's paying for half",
that's another example of spending someone elses money for his personal
preferences. Why should I pay higher taxes because he wants a $1500
refund. If it's going to increase his income by $6,000 and will
therefore increase his total taxes by $3000, then more power to him.
> You think they are fools, but they think you are warped. Are you both
> correct? Maybe you are wrong and only they are correct.
Nope. People aren't fools. Most people understand the concept of
choices, and consequences. If someone commits a crime, they know there
is a risk of going to jail. They may try to minimize the risk, they
may try to minimize the consequences if they are caught, but they
understand that there is a risk, and that there are consequences if
things don't go their way.
I used to love it when a senior manager would insist on using Windows
NT 4.0 instead of Solaris or AIX or Linux. Because I knew that I was
going to make a fortune helping him mitigate the consequences of that
choice. I would advise against it, and do everything I could to
mitigate the risk, and mitigate the damage, but I knew that there was a
90% chance that the project would cost 5 times more than using UNIX,
and take 3 times longer, assuming that everyone was working 12 hour
days, and 6 day weeks. The only problem was, there were a lot of
people who were working all of that overtime, while getting paid a
salary based on a 40 hour week. And of course, since the project was
over budget and late, there wouldn't be bonuses or raises.
Oops, I guess that's another case of a senior manager spending other
people's money to do what they want, based on a LACK of information.
If he, and his advisors, had been able to get actual project costs from
actual projects, he might have thought twice before trying to replace
10 Sun machines with 20 Windows machines. In 18 months, the company
was up to 3600 machines - which did the work of those 10 sun machines,
and not very reliably.
Eventually, all but the "fringe" interfaces were moved to 1 mainframe
(actually 1/10th of a mainframe), and 3 new Sun boxes.
> > What is the actual percentage of people who pay full retail price for
> > Windows?
> > I would guess that's it's about 90% LESS than the number who BUY Linux.
> >
> You would have to qualify that condition, rex. You can buy Windows at
> retail in a number of places, for example Costco and BestBuy.
I CAN, but how many people actually pay even the discounted price for
the FULL version of Windows XP professional?
> You can't buy linux there at all, at least in the stores that I looked in
> recently. That would indicate that you are full of crap.
Actually, I have been able to buy SUSE and Linspire at CompUSA,
BestBuy, and I've even purchased them at staples.
Thanks to broadband, I can also download a DVD ISO image for SUSE or a
CD ISO image of Linspire. The DVD takes about an hour, the CD takes
about 10 minutes. If the OEM threw in a copy with the PC, I wouldn't
have to buy it from the retailer.
Of course, each of these distributions has a support option. And the
support option adds a lot of value. I can get better software, get
better drivers, get the latest updates and bug fixes, and get all of
the security patches - same as with Windows. If I only replace my
Windows machine once every 4 years, I'll save money buying Windows with
Office, but I'll be out of date rather quickly, the security updates
may come out after the horse has left the barn, and I may end up having
to purchase an upgrade in 2 years anyway.
> > Yes, there are people who buy a PC with Windows preinstalled,
> > they don't count.
> >
> Maybe they don't matter to you, rex, but their wives and families
> certainly care about them and the OEMs care about them and count them
> carefully. Bill Gates counts them, too, for they are his customers.
No, they aren't his custotmers. The OEMs are his customers. This is
stated in the license, it's stated in statements made to the press. If
I asked Microsoft for a full refund on an OEM copy of Windows, they
would tell me to talk to my OEM about returning the whole computer.
If I purchase the computer without an operating system (a "White Box"),
I then have the choice of purchasing a copy of Windows XP (professional
in my case), or Linux. Let's assume that I see the value in having
supported software. So I now have the option of a $299 copy of
Windows, or a $69 copy of SUSE Linux.
But here's the thing. I could (and do) make the informed decision to
buy BOTH!.
I'm not happy about that $250-$300 price tag for Windows, but at least
I'm buying it legally. The $70 price tag for SUSE is less of a
problem. I usually get a new version about once per year per machine.
Then I can put Linux in there with it. I can run Linux as the primary
OS and Windows as the client, or vice versa.
On the other hand, not all of the machines run Windows. I have several
machines that run ONLY Linux. The irony is that they are IBM desktop
machines, so I should be able to legally transfer the licenses to other
machines, but the license says I can't.
The point is that I was willing and able to take the time to get the
information to make an informed decision. I was able to make the
informed decision. And I was willing to be responsible for the
consequences (and benefits) of my decision.
Microsoft has just tipped the balance in favor of more Linux and less
Windows. If Microsoft is going to charge a substantially higher price
for Vista, and won't let me install Windows as a VM Client unless pay
even MORE for Vista, I have to start thinking about the consequences.
Who will have to deal with the consequences of a choice to use Vista.
At this point, if I can get the same result with Win4Lin or crossover,
or my existing Windows 2000, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows XP licenses,
then I'm probably not going to pay anything extra for Windows.
Furthermore, I will expect the OEM to provide installation media which
will work with Vista as a client to Xen and/or VMWare. If it doesn't
work, I'll be requesting a refund and sending the box back.
It would be amusing if I started showing up at client sites with a Mac
instead of a Thinkpad.
Probably won't do it, but it's very tempting.
> > What we are talking about is the total number of people who purchase a
> > copy of Windows XP Professional - full edition, for the purpose of
> > installing on a machine that has never run Windows before.
> >
> Why would you talk about that, rex. No one would ever do that.
> Everyone is much smarter than that, so why suggest it?
But I am talking about the people who are making an informed choice,
for themselves, and being responsible for the consequences of those
choices. The OEM chooses to preinstall install windows, and 10 million
Linux users have to pay for Licenses which are either useless, or need
to be upgraded.
I can't give the license to someone who wants it. I can't put the
license on another machine, and I can't put the license on a new and
cheap "white box" machine, so the OEM can't claim that it's "free".
One can only assume that the OEM has paid some price, perhaps somewhere
between $30 and $60 per unit, which has been included into the total
cost of the system.
One hot little indicator though. If I want a Thinkpad Z60p, I might
have to accept delivery of the OS, but I'm not going to be buying
copies of Office, Visio, and Project as part of that purchase. This is
a pretty good indicator to the OEM that I'm buying that box for the
purpose of running Linux as my primary operating system. It would be
nice if they would install it for me (in addition to Windows). It
would be nice if they would at least send me a "supported" copy so that
I don't have to void my warranty when I install it. And by the way,
I'll probably ask if it voids the warranty to install Linux. If so,
what's the point of buying an extended warranty?
> > There is a pretty good case that about around 100-150 million users,
> > about 15% of the total installed base, are part-time Linux users.
> > These people consider Linux a "value add" to Windows, rather than a
> > "replacement" for Windows.
> >
> Maybe, maybe not, rex. I don't have any reason to believe that,
> certainly that is a much, much higher percentage of people who use
> computers than the ones I know.
True. There industry average is about 100 million computers sold per
year. Computers that are leased and returned are often refurbished and
shipped to other countries who can use them for several more years. A
computer sold in late 1996 would have easily be capable of running
Linux with minimal effort. It might not be doing everything that SUSE
supports, and it may not do it as fast as a Dual-core 64 bit chip with
dual 3 Ghz cores, but it could certainly be functional enough for
people who would have to work 16 hours/day for a year to earn enough to
pay for one brand-new OEM computer capable of running XP and Office
2003.
> > The irony is that many of the most popular web sites, such as Google
> > and Yahoo, are based on Linux or BSD Unix, and lots of OSS. Nearly 1
> > billion users "use" Linux or OSS in some form, even though they don't
> > really know they are using Linux.
> >
> Google may platform on linux, rex, but that is a far cry from "based".
> Google is its own thing and not OSS either.
Partially true. Look at WAIS, HTDig, Apache, and PHP. There are lots
of OSS components in these sites, along with proprietary software such
as DB2 or Oracle and WebSphere or WebLogic..
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