Ask Microsoft's Martin Taylor About Linux vs. Windows

Martin Taylor is Microsoft's global general manager of platform strategy, but he's best-known as the man the company trots out to refute claims of Linux superiority. Here are links to several interviews he's done in the past two years: vnunet.com; CMP; Computerworld; and one on Microsoft's own site. As usual, please submit one question per post. We'll present 10 - 12 of the highest-moderated questions to Mr. Taylor about 24 hours after this post appears, and we expect to publish his answers within the next week.

Re:Interoperability

[JessLeah]

Firstly, CygWin doesn't run Linux binaries. One could theoretically build a Linux emulation core around it-- something like WINE, where Linux system calls are actually caught by the middleware and passed along to a rather heavily modified CygWin (which implements many Un*xlike system calls) to execute... However, this would no longer be Cygwin, but a whole new beast.

Secondly, they'd have to release the source to any changes back to the community (presuming they actually wanted to release this "Linux emulation layer" feature ;) ). I doubt they'd do this.

Thirdly, this would raise a big stink. RMS himself might step out to chastize MS if they did something like this.

Fourthly, they'd never do something like this. They already have the (backwardsly-named) MS Services for Unix, and they'll likely stick doggedly to it.


By the way, "i.e." means "that is"; "e.g." means "for example". I think you meant "e.g." (which would also have made "for instance" redundant).

Re:TCO of Windows vs. Linux

[Experiment 626]

I see Microsoft ads in magazines claiming that the TCO a business using Windows is significantly less than using Linux. How can this be?

These studies typically assume that the status quo is Windows, the workforce is already skilled with Windows but not Linux, Windows is currently installed on the machines, etc. and what is being compared is the cost of sticking with Windows vs. switching operating systems, retraining the workforce, and similar expenses. These transition costs make Linux appear more expensive than Windows, even when the Linux solution itself is cheaper to run.

So, to make this into a question for Mr. Taylor, is this an accurate summary of the studies, and can you point to any that are conducted from a more neutral perspective, without making assumptions of one OS or the other enjoying a comfortable incumbent position?

Re:Has Microsoft considered

[Anonymous Coward]

I remember reading about this recently. The early Netscape engine was known as Mozilla, long before the Mozilla project. During the time of rapidly chainging web standards, Netscape supported a lot of new, fancy formatting that nobody else did yet. Pages were written to look for "Mozilla" in the browser string, and feed it the formatted page. When IE implemented those features, the fastest way to put them in use was to add "Mozilla" to their browser string so that all the existing pages would suddenly work.

This explanation is now totally obsolete, but that often isn't sufficient reason for change. It does give a possible non-evil explanation.

Re:Licensing for Technicians

[musikit]

i never really looked at the details however i heard from someone that MCSE got a subscription to the MSDN as long as they remained licensed. which AFAIK requires a test every year or so.

those MSDN subscription should allow you to install Windows on as many machines as you want for dev/testing purposes.

Re:Interoperability

[CableModemSniper]

http://www.microsoft.com/windows/sfu/

Re:TCO of Windows vs. Linux (more detailed questio

[burnsy]

You really need to understand academic volume licensing better. Microsoft only charges $3 for a server CAL and $55 for the server software. MS offers a Microsoft School Agreement Estimated Retail Price Calculator you can find here.

http://www.microsoft.com/education/default.asp?I D=SACalculator#Estimate

The estimated retail price for your School Agreement coverage is below (USD).

PRODUCT SELECTION ESTIMATED PRICE PER UNIT TOTAL ESTIMATED RETAIL PRICE
Windows Server CAL $3.00 $1,050.00
Windows Server Standard Edition $55.00 $55.00
Estimated Total $1,105.00