Ask Microsoft's Martin Taylor About Linux vs. Windows 1069
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.
Interoperability (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Interoperability (Score:5, Informative)
Competition and Interoperability (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Interoperability (Score:4, Funny)
Oh yeah, that's a great reason! I'm sure that Bill is terrified of RMS! :)
Re:Interoperability (Score:3, Funny)
Quality (Score:4, Interesting)
TWW
Wow (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Wow (Score:5, Insightful)
Question from a former microsoftie... (Score:5, Interesting)
One of the things that I found very troubling was the way in which people at Microsoft seemed to have blinders on regarding Linux. People seemed to think that Exchange Server and Sendmail were competitors, and that there was no economic basis for open source. Do you see yourself in conflict with this element of corporate culture? Do you seem yourself as breaking out of it? Or is that culture changing?
It's because... (WAS:Quality) (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Quality (Score:3, Interesting)
What is Microsoft's problem with fully supporting open standards? I mean, it's not like they have a really usable alternative to semi-transparent PNGs so why not just follow the standard?
Every time I think about how easy it would be to improve web sites with transparency I get worked up all over again.
From a similar viewpoint: (Score:4, Interesting)
* Warning, ugly site, good program.
Re:Quality (Score:4, Interesting)
Seriously... (Score:3, Funny)
Botox, maybe?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Which One? (Score:4, Interesting)
I'm not I Martin Taylor nor am I an MS advocate .. (Score:3, Insightful)
And this is a reasonable answer regardless of
whether one's affiliated with Microsoft or not.
The one true question... (Score:5, Funny)
Notepad or Wordpad? ;-)
Re:The one true question... (Score:3, Funny)
Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
On second thought, I do have some questions, which I can wrap into a single bundle:
"Is Microsoft going to pursue a Palladium philosophy in the next 5 years? And, if this the strategy, what guarantees will Microsoft make that protect Free Speech?"
Ratboy.
Re:Why? (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you view as Microsoft's responsibilities to their customers? In what ways do you believe Microsoft has/does/will fulfill these responsibilities better than other software developers?
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever used Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
following (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:following (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:following (Score:5, Interesting)
I honestly wish I had a dime for all the times I have seen Microsoft people start a holy war when you mention replacing one of their products with a non "Windows" option. I generally ask them the question above "What other products have you looked at or worked with?" I personally don't care who makes a product as long as it makes my life easier and lets me focus on the business, however I will say that I try and avoid companies that lock me in to their technology, so I find myself trying to avoid Microsoft in some ways...
and as I have always said, Once free software is "Good Enough" then the proprietary software vendor is going to be dead. It is almost impossible to compete with free when free is "Good Enough". You can do it but you won't have 50Billion in the bank and have one of the highest profit margins in the world.
Lastly, my question.
At what point in marketshare would Linux need on the client before Microsoft would start porting their applications over to it?
I ask this because it won't be long before the Linux client marketshare will be greater than the Macintosh...
Emerging Countries (Score:4, Interesting)
Regardless of the superiority or not (Score:3, Interesting)
-russ
Re:Regardless of the superiority or not (Score:5, Insightful)
The argument shouldn't be: Linux is better because it is free. It should be: Microsoft's higher price is not enough to justify the additional features one gets from it. If someone paid you a hundred dollars to use an operating system and it was really bad, most people probably wouldn't use it. The price, whether it be $-100, $0, $100, or $1000 is meaningless. However weighing that price to the given feature set is what is important.
Microsoft is completly capable of competing against Linux in the long term and writing them off as some ageing dinosaur is not accurate.
No I dont work for MS, Yes I'm running Linux on my laptop, m6811 fedora core 3... hot
Linux is doing something right (Score:3, Interesting)
Linux must be doing something right, if one of the largest software companies in the US is devoting money and energy to dismiss Linux. Why can't you be confident in your own product? If you were confident in Windows, you would let the Windows OS speak for itself. So are you making up for the failure of Windows by focusing attention on Linux?
Re:Linux is doing something right (Score:3, Insightful)
You ARE aware that linux zealots are probably the noisiest faction in the IT world, right? You're also aware that a vast, vast majority of that noise is focused as an anti-Microsoft beam, right?
So, as an obvious linux zealot yourself, why don't you answer the question? Why doesn't linux just speak for itself instead of relying upon a few thousand nasal whines?
Questions (Score:5, Interesting)
Does Microsoft feel that Linux has any place at all in the IT industry? If so, where?
Paint me cynical (Score:3, Interesting)
This guys is there to refute the claims. I honestly do not expect him to say anything that we haven't heard before.
I would still like to ask "How is using a proprietary
Honest question about FUD (Score:5, Interesting)
I would put this akin to Chevrolet SUV commercials touting a much lower flip-over rate than Ford SUVs equiped with Firestone tires. If you believe this an unfair comparisson, please explain why. (Keep in mind that buggy/compromised software could present a risk to human life.)
Re:Paint me cynical (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, the question is misleading. The .doc
file format is documented on MSDN[1], and is just
as open as PDF. The two also serve different needs.
PDF is effectively a page description language,
albeit one with some nice interactivity features
like forms and even animations (although few
people use them). The .doc format is intented
for editable documents, and stores various metadata along with the content. PDF is not and
doesn't.
But it does lead nicely to another file format related question. Last week, Bill Gates claimed [microsoft.com]:
Common file formats are the contract by which office applications can exchange data with each other. Given Bill's commitment to interoperability, when can we expect the Visio file format to be documented so that other diagram editors such as Dia of Kivio can interoperate with Visio, as Bill desires?
Similarly, the Exchange wire protocol is the contract by which mail clients communicate and exchange data with the MS Exchange mail server. I take it that we can look forward to documentation for that, too, so that the myriad email clients in use today can talk to an Exchange server?
Another example would be the W3C standards, the contract by which a web developer sends markup information to an end user for viewing in a browser. The rest of the world is happily using CSS to provide rich presentation of information to end users. Yet as developers, we are forced to break that contract because Microsoft's IE browser doesn't honour the contract, and our web sites don't display in the intended manner. Will MS commit to bringing IE up to scratch so that it interoperates with the rest of the world?
Will MS start making versions of Word that use standard UTF-8 character encoding, rather than a Microsoft specific one that produces output that doesn't interoperate [fourmilab.ch] with non-Microsoft platforms (and even, as we found out this week, with newer versions of IE, which correctly ignore the MS character set!)
Or was he merely referring to making Microsoft applications interoperable with each other, a move which reduces customer choice, and prevents them from picking the best solution available for the task because it may not interoperate correctly with existing Microsoft products?
[1] At least, it was. I don't know if that documentation has been kept up to date with the latest versions of .doc
Interoperability... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Interoperability... (Score:5, Interesting)
Does Microsoft consider open standards, intended to facilitate interoperability, to be beneficial or detrimental to overall system security?
e.g. Closed vs open product development models.
Protection against malware (Score:5, Interesting)
Code Review (Score:5, Interesting)
Plain speech (Score:5, Funny)
I have read a couple of your interviews and I would like to ask you to answer to this one in plain English. Please! Could you avoid silly metaphors (try not to mention ballpark for instance) or sentences such as "So someone asks 'Hey can you guys
It's painful to read and hardly understandable. Thanks in advance.
Fear? (Score:4, Interesting)
Do you read Slashdot? (Score:5, Interesting)
Q. Do you frequent Slashdot and the other Linux boards to say what your competition's saying about you?
How can you take seriously the "Lower TCO" claim? (Score:5, Interesting)
- How Linux admins can easily administrate more machines per person-hour, due to the nature of Unix/Linux's remote administration (and don't even get me started on VNC or Terminal Services; they aren't scriptable, they aren't as bandwidth-effective, etc. etc. etc...), than Windows admins?
- The "hidden" costs of lost time due to (A) protecting against adware/spyware/malware/viruses/pop-ups, or (B) actually disinfecting machines that got infected anyhow.
- The "hidden" costs of downtime due to buggy MS software. Sure, F/OSS stuff has bugs too, but when it does, at least the admin can try to fix them. When MS software is buggy, the admin is 100% at MS's mercy to fix the bug (since, being closed source, MS software is often 100% unfixable to anyone outside MS...)
- The "hidden" costs of dealing with "hacked" IIS servers (vs. Apache).
And a further question: Do Linux geeks really pull in that much more money salary-wise than Windows geeks!? find this claim hard to swallow, especially in today's economy. I call BS. Show some proof.Competition (Score:4, Interesting)
Is there any real, actual reason why you (Microsoft) feel a need to use less than independant reviews and tests to attempt to establish Windows superiority? Would it really be so bad for you to let your products stand (or fall) on their own?
3 areas (Score:5, Interesting)
3 areas (re-phrase) (Score:5, Interesting)
Open Source Applications Helping Windows Compete? (Score:5, Interesting)
.NET Platform Portability (Score:5, Interesting)
My question is does Microsoft have any intentions of implementing a CLR and BCL for any other non Microsoft platforms where applications built under one would be (relatively) easily used under another (provided the application does not rely on P/Invokes of course)? If not... why?
Future... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Future... (Score:3, Interesting)
When Mono is 'ready', and MS Office is ported to C#, do you foresee marketing GNU/Linux binaries of Word/Excel/PowerPoint/Access/Visio/Project?
My suspicion is, sure, for MS has always favored profit over prophesy.
Domo.
Skills of the responsible administrator (Score:3, Interesting)
Mr Taylor,
I myself am convinced that neither Windows nor Linux are superior solutions if one's to have an objective view. In my humble opinion, the "superiority" of a system lies in the hands of the administrator responsible for said system and not with the type of software used, in this case. For example, a good Window system administrator with some good experience and the right tools can easily maintain a server just like a well trained and experienced Linux system administrator can maintain his servers. Quite a few people agree on this and recognize the fact that the skills of the responsible administrator are more significant then the software platform used.
The question is, what is your position on this? Do you agree with the aforementioned idea about system administrator capabilities being more important? Or are you convinced that the software platform used is more important?
Re:Skills of the responsible administrator (Score:3, Insightful)
Windows TCO vs. Linux TCO (Score:5, Interesting)
Especially when the costs of upgrading is recurring.
"Platform" (Score:5, Interesting)
.NET platform strategy (Score:3, Interesting)
One of the most vital part of any platforms eco-systems are the developers for your platform. Two of the more popular enterprise level platforms currently for show are probably
With the current fight for brain-share among developers with these two platforms, the main focus appear to be on easy of use/integration (where Visual Studio currently leads) and maturity (where I think Java has a head-start).
How do you convince (1) the developers and (2) managers to put their faith in Windows and the
How do you plan to convince potential customers to use your
Free version (Score:5, Interesting)
What is Linux doing right? (Score:5, Interesting)
less is more (Score:4, Interesting)
I fail to see why anyone would opt to have to have a Windows gui with IE, Outlook Express, Freecel, Media Player, etc. running on a their server.
Will Microsoft ever become truly serious in the server market and offer an OS that doesn't have all this crap installed by default?
G
big difference (Score:3, Interesting)
How about allowing multiple home installs? (Score:5, Interesting)
Unix Kernel for Windows? (Score:4, Interesting)
Competition (Score:3)
In what ways could Microsoft see Linux working with windows (or for that matter with other MS products) as opposed to being a competing product.
Microsoft - breaking it's own software (Score:5, Insightful)
Aren't you worried that this continual (and increasingly intrusive) process of deliberately breaking and/or crippling your own software is going to alienate some your customers and make them feel like criminals, particularly since the makers of the 'free software' operating systems that you're now competing against have no need of any of it and can concentrate all of their resources on trying to make their software work?
When will MS products be "fit for any purpose"? (Score:5, Insightful)
So what's up with that?
Open source licenses usually have the same thing, but those are generally free products. You guys have taken in a couple hundred billion. Plus, we can use the code as we like. So you can't claim any kind of equivalence.
Licensing for Technicians (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm an independant contractor with an MCSE that supports a small customer base of companies that mostly run Windows software. I have four development and testing computers at my house, all of which run Linux and free software solutions, this is because I cannot afford to buy Windows 2003 server, Office 2003, dev studio and a lot of other recent releases.
With my cost free Open Source testing platform I have designed and implemented quite a few solutions with software such as Open Office, Open Exchange, Samba etc.
With online activation and licensing restrictions I am not able to run any Microsoft software in a test environment to ensure it is adequately tested and ensure I am able to support it.
This is driving my skill set and support abilities away from Microsoft and squarely into the arms of the Open Source camp. What (if anything) is Microsoft doing to combat this and ensure that the professionals in the field that sell and support your software have access to the resources they require?
Thanks
John the Kiwi
Re:Licensing for Technicians (Score:3, Informative)
those MSDN subscription should allow you to install Windows on as many machines as you want for dev/testing purposes.
If you could eliminate one (Score:3, Interesting)
Open standards (Score:5, Insightful)
Windows 64 Bit? (Score:5, Interesting)
What do you want that Linux has? (Score:5, Interesting)
What I don't see is the other side - specifically, what does Microsoft see in Linux? What does Linux offer that Windows does not, and what does Linux offer that Windows doesn't do as well, from a Microsoft point of view? Just as important, where is Microsoft headed to close those gaps?
Unavailability of dual boot Windows/Linux computer (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet, while there are a couple of PC manufacturers that sell a version of their computer with either Linux or Windows, there is none who does sell a single computer with both operating systems? Is there any financial or legal stimulus by Microsoft that prevents PC manufacturers from offering these attractive dual boot computers?
Bert
product or service ? (Score:5, Interesting)
Is there any particular type of software ( op sysems/enterprise apps/utilities/research software/etc ) that should be open source ? why ?
Release timing (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that Enterprise customers prefer large updates on a long timetable, but consumers tend to want new features now - I don't want to wait three years for a feature that Gnome, KDE or Apple has to show up in Windows. How do you plan on preventing the Windows brand from becoming "stale" when viewed in relation to a community with a much more rapid and dynamic release schedule?
"Get the facts" campaign (Score:5, Insightful)
I recall reading the details of one from the downloadable report on the Microsoft web site [microsoft.com] recently that compared the throughput of Windows + IIS to Linux + Apache for serving static web pages. The figures showed Windows in a clear lead, yet on closer examination it appears that the Windows installation had been thoroughly optimised (by, e.g., turning off the collection of last access information on the file system and increasing the default filesystem block size, see pages 30 & 33 of the document linked) whereas similar optimisations had not been applied to the Linux system for the test (with default configurations suggested by the distribution installer accepted for filesystem parameters, see pages 30 - 32 of the document).
How would you answer those who are concerned that by presenting these "independent" tests where the testers have followed precise instructions from Microsoft on how to optimise their products but have not (apparently) consulted Linux experts on how to optimise Linux systems as authoritative that you are unfairly distorting the truth and painting a poor picture of Linux? Is it just that you're doing your job the only way you can, because on a level playing field Linux would win? Or is the picture of these reports as unfair to Linux in some way wrong?
OSS Contributions (Score:5, Interesting)
Many major companies such as IBM and Apple have learned that they can benefit from OSS software by taking an existing OSS product, refining it to fit their needs, and then redistributing the finished product and giving some source back to the community. In this manner, for instance, Apple was able to produce Safari, which is IMO a high-quality and stable web browser, that was produced much faster than it would have taken Apple to write an equivilent product from scratch.
Why has Microsoft not taken similar approaches to software development? I guess that in the past, OSS code has been used in Windows (TCP stack, for starters), but why does Microsoft insist on resisting innovation rather than contributing to it?
Why? (Score:3, Interesting)
Small Business Servers (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems apparent to me that Windows Server 2003 and SQL Server are propped up by third party ISVs. For example, I've done work with small credit unions which use a software system that will only interact with SQL Server, requiring of course, a Windows Server OS as well.
In this situation the software costs for a new server far exceed the hardware costs. Most of these applications have no need for anything beyond a basic SQL db server, yet were written before MySQL, Postrgres, and other OSS db's became viable alternatives to SQL Server. ISVs typically refuse to incur the costs of re-writing their software to no longer use specific SQL Server hooks. This gives Microsoft a huge inertia advantage over other platforms as far as small businesses go. I've spoken with many small business owners and the ISVs and generally speaking they agree that using a cheaper GNU/Linux solution would be preferable.
Given that such flagship products as Windows Server 2003 Small Business and SQL Server 2000 compete with Linux not on it's own merits, but on what ISVs allow you to choose, how do you expect to compete with OSS once the ISVs begin to change their strategy?
Are google morons? (Score:5, Interesting)
They use a LOT of computers, and TCO has got to be important in that enviroment.
[1] See MS advertising and "Get the Facts" literature.
Why should I come back (Score:4, Insightful)
What's wrong with Linux OTD? (Score:5, Interesting)
This guy is nothing more than a paid spin doctor (Score:5, Interesting)
Given that, here is my question:
How does your background make you an authoritative source on IT matters? Give me a few reasons why I would want to ask you a question and value your answer?
(Sorry that's harsh, but I honestly want to know!)
Martin, (Score:5, Interesting)
Breaking standards to prevent interoperability (Score:5, Interesting)
Why does Microsoft persist in breaking standards just to lock the competition out? Is it that you are too scared to compete on the merits of your products, the fact that this behaviour has become institutionalised, or some other reason?
When will Microsoft Office be availible on Linux? (Score:5, Interesting)
linux, and the only reason I use Windows is to work
with documents from Microsoft Office. Will Microsoft release a version of Office for linux,
and if not, why not? It seems to me a major opportunity for consumer choice was lost when Microsoft was not broken up into independent OS and Applications companies.
Moving to Apple and Linux... (Score:3, Interesting)
What would you say to stop me from migrating off of my current Windows solution in this environment?
Whose voice? (Score:3, Funny)
Mr. Taylor,
Will you be answering all of these questions by yourself, or will Bill Gates have his hand up your ass making your mouth work?
please don't refute the claims (Score:5, Interesting)
- What are the advantages that gnu/linux has over Windows for the typical user / software developer / corporation?
- Why is gnu/linux better suited for open standards than a proprietary operating system?
- Why would you recommend using gnu/linux for publicly funded government projects?
- What are the best advantages of using Free Software (read: GPL) in third world countries?
- What aspects of Free Software licenses do you feel are particularly well suited to speed up scientific discovery, program development, teaching etc. in an academic environment?
- How do you feel that Free Software can benefit mankind as a whole?
- Finally, please list any advantages proprietary licenses have over Free Software licenses.
Feel free to keep the answers short as some of them are quite obvious to someone well versed in how Free Software works. Thanks!Market penetration vs. Office port (Score:4, Interesting)
A simple, honest question that I care about a lot.
Is there a point in marketshare that Microsoft will consider porting their Office suite to Linux, possibly starting from their Mac OS X codebase?
Can you give us any hints about where that point is?
You've got a hard job. Best of luck with it.
-- Morgan Schweers, CyberFOX!
Lack of command-line functionality? (Score:5, Interesting)
Many times while attempting to connect to a wireless network I have wished for the simplicity of iwconfig.
This makes Windows much less attractive than Linux from a "power user" standpoint; it is easier for me to type a few commands than to go fishing in menus to find what I want.
Does Microsoft have any plans to modernize the command-line support in Windows?
A question, on Microsoft and Linux, if you please. (Score:4, Interesting)
If the marketshare of Linux doubles every year, and many Linux users dual-boot both Windows and Linux, wouldn't it make sense to support Linux instead of bashing it? It would, after all, allow Microsoft to sell two copies of MS-Office, etc for both platforms.
more humor: objective preference confirmation (Score:4, Insightful)
plz/thnx
Oh, a real question while I'm at it:
Of the Linux distributions you've extensively tested, assuming that you have so that your arguments are based on information rather than conjecture, which do you feel is the most desktop-ready?
Re:TCO of Windows vs. Linux (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:TCO of Windows vs. Linux (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:TCO of Windows vs. Linux (Score:5, Interesting)
One way to look at this is to say that Windows is more compatible with Windows than Linux, and therefore a better choice. Another way of looking at it is that Microsoft is exceedingly successful at locking in its customers, and that (as a customer) it is best to get out as soon as possible because it will only get worse.
Do you worry that people will take this second point of view rather than the first, and that the campaign might backfire?
Re:TCO of Windows vs. Linux (Score:5, Informative)
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?
TCO of Windows vs. Linux (more detailed question) (Score:5, Insightful)
We're looking at migrating off our aging NT servers to new backend logon and file servers. We already have several linux 'edge' or special purpose servers; firewalls, backup, web, email, pxe+dhcp, dns etc, and we have a decent amount of in-house experience in both windows and linux.
Given our desktops must remain on windows because of office and windows-only education software we priced up both windows server 2003 and linux replacements. Sticking to the same hardware for both costings, we came to some worrying conclusions.
Redhat Enterprise ES would set us back £700 a server, with free client access and 3 years of upgrades, and we've also got the option of a completely free system like debian. We'd use samba+ldap to largely replicate our existing setup, but with beefier hardware and security updates.
Windows 2003, at £30 a seat for new Client Access Licences, would set us back nearly £22,000 for current and next year projected licence requirements, just for authentication and file sharing, with extra costs in the thousands for every extra server we might add later.
Given that implementation will be done in-house regardless of our chosen solution, I'd like to know if:
a) I'm missing something obvious with regards the licensing costs for windows server 2003?
b) If I'm not, whether you expect such a large mismatch on up-front costs to seriously impact on Microsoft's server business in the education and other cash-strapped areas?
Even assuming the windows implementation is more efficient and quicker to deploy in itself, the linux system would be far simpler to integrate our existing single-purpose servers with (direct access to the ldap user database, for a start). With the CAL licencing savings alone, we could buy an extra server and 20 workstations.
Re:TCO of Windows vs. Linux (Score:4, Insightful)
Since trojan/virus/spyware cause a news-worthy quoted figure of billions of dollars in damage/productivity, when will a study come out that properly reflects this risk as part of the TCO vs. a similar Linux solution?
Re:Reviews (Score:5, Insightful)
questions should be genuine. it shouldn't be used to prove a point, or lack of a point, or to push an agenda or to reinforce what we already know. nor should questions be used to try to push the answerer into a corner to "admit" something. we know it won't happen, it's self-serving and frankly, useless.
Re:Reviews (Score:3, Insightful)
For the first time, I wish I had mod points. I've never used any before. I would rate this insightful.
To the person who posed the original question, I ask, "A colleague of mine told me that you're mean-sp
Re:Web Development (Score:3, Insightful)
Apache and Php were largely written and optimized for (GNU/Li|U)nix. (I can't say, but I expect the same for MySql but would have to see benchmarks.) This makes sense, as there are still more LAMP than WAMP users.
Were they written with Windows in mind and ported to Linux, you would likely see the same result.