Re: Intel vs Sparc

rs_arwar_at_hotmail.com (Rauf Sarwar) wrote in message

> Well... Pardon me for being very blunt, If you think M$ is on more
> then 80% of desktops in the world by "only" being a "good" OS... then
> I think you just landed from Mars. It proves the point that with
> enough Money ,Marketing and some "arm twisting"... you can shove any
> product down consumers throats.

Please point me to a better alternative desktop o/s. Mac OS/9 or Mac OS/X? Linux? OS/2? What?

As for pushing the product down anyone's throat. Desktop users WANT to use Windows. And I'm one of them (even though I ran Linux as my desktop o/s in the office, it is not a platform which I can use to play my games and sims at home)

The fact is that there are no other desktop o/s that can provide the hardware support and volume of 3rd party software than Microsoft Windows.

How did Microsoft get there? I agree that they dominated using their marketing strenghts.

Even so. The bottomline is that there are *no* viable alternatives in the desktop o/s market. The only possible contender in a few years time, could be Linux.. and that is pushing reality very hard.

> I think you are one of those few "die hard Linux" fans that I
> mentioned in my post.

I am? And this after you accused me of also saying that MS Windows is a good desktop o/s?

Are you not maybe a tad confused?

> Linux's share is still very small.

But growing. Last year some bigshot marketing research company concluded with their research and stats that Linux server market is in fact growing faster than the Windows server market. Granted, stats is stats is stats. However, if you bother to read what Microsoft's Halloween memos say - Microsoft acknowledges the fact that Linux is the biggest threat to the their WindowsXP Server market.

> so far I have come across two customers who purchased Linux. Most go with
> either Sun, HP or M$. This does not mean that Linux is not good. It's
> just that it's too new for companies to invest money into to run their
> business critical applications on.

You are confusing business perceptions with technical capability.

Business choose HP/Sun over Linux not because the former are technically better. Or that the latter is incapable of running business critical systems. They choose the former because they view the latter as a business risk. They do not understand the Open Source concept. They want to deal with a single entity that is responsible for the platform and o/s. They want to deal with a single entity that can be hold accountable for the platform and o/s.

At the same time it is worth to note that many others are not as conservative in their thinking. Many governments are using Linux and standardising on Open Source. So are more than just a few companies.

> What I meant by that is software development companies to develop for
> Linux. You still have to search the internet to look for
> software/drivers compatable with Linux. List is growing but it will
> take some time.

There is an important issue with this that you need to understand. On the Windows platform, the OEM develops the driver. On Linux, this often falls on the Open Source community (especially in the past) as the OEM does not (or did not) provide drivers.

However, more and more OEMs are realising that they also stand to gain sales in the Linux environment, if they can offer off-the-shelve OEM drivers for their hardware. And this is exactly what more and more OEMs are doing. Look at nVidia for example.

The driver issue is becoming less and less of an issue in the Linux environment. Especially on the server side.

> Companies want to invest in solutions... Yes... But CEO/CFO's also
> look for a market pattern when time comes to buy expensive
> hardware/software. Try selling a new brand name to IT managers
> specially when it comes to hardware/software that business
> applications run on. To them.. Linux is still young... "Let the other
> guy around the block buy it and I'll see how it performs" is a common
> attitude. I guess to them it still comes across as some sort of
> "freeware" or a "shareware" that you can download from tucows.com.

Valid points all. However, when the choice is between paying $40 million US for 10,000 Microsoft back-end licenses (software only), then Linux is a very powerful adversary.. where less than 10% of that will give you the same server-side capability (with better and more robust security) and buy you at the same time 24x7 dedicated on-site support.

Conservatism in business is a liability. More and more CEOs are realising that.

> And what do you think is a "solution". In this day and age it's the
> total package. Why do you think Oracle goes out of it's way to promote
> Sun as it's premier platform?

The solution is that what best meet the majority of that business' unique requirements.

It is not a specific hardware platform. Or a specific o/s. Or only Oracle. It is what works for the business. In some cases it is Linux. In some cases its HP or Sun. Or even Microsoft.

> For that Linux would have to compete with the heavy weights like Sun,
> HP and IBM.

Oh, you mean something like this?

Number 5 on the Top500 SuperComputer list:  

Linux NetworX
MCR Linux Cluster Xeon 2.4 GHz - Quadrics/ 2304 Rmax GFlops/ 5694.00 Rpeak GFlops
11060.00 Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory USA/2002 Number 46 on the list:
Linux NetworX
LCRC Xeon 2.4 GHz - Myrinet/
361 Rmax GFlops/ 1007.00 Rpeak GFlops
1732.00 Argonne National Laboratory
USA/2002
> Linux can run on your ordinary desktop PC and that I think
> makes it a player in the PC market. Companies like RedHat etc would be
> more then happy to see M$ users jump ship and start using Linux as
> their primary platform.

What you think and what you think RedHat wants, are irrelevant when it comes to the realities of the desktop market.

Anyone that think they can go head-to-head with Microsoft in the desktop market is an idiot.

To battle Microsoft in that market, you need to borrow from von Clausewitz's warfare strategy.

> > I fail to see a competition here that is like a 100m or 1500km race, where
> > the race is over after a specific distance and a winner declare at the end.
>
> Comon now.... Don't shoot down the free enterprise/market system. It's
> all about competition. Competition to be the dominant player in the
> market for as long as time permits, which in turn means $$$. Whether
> it's between Larry's Network PC's vs M$ desktop PC's or Linux vs M$ or
> Netscape vs IE.

You are missing what I am saying.

I am talking about the bloodsport urges of people wanting to see Linux and Windows slugging it out in a ring, where at the end one of them lays a bloody heap, defeated, in the centre of the ring.

That viewpoint is stupid and silly and ignoring the realities of market.. or free enterprise as you call it.

There is a need in the business for *both* platforms. If you can not see that.. well, that's your problem and I'm glad you're not the one making the purchasing decisions here.

> You have made some valid points but you fail to look at the reality on
> the ground. Linux so far is what it is.. an open source platform which
> is pretty good but has not really cut thru the server market to make a
> solid name for itself.

Prove that statement. I would like to see who (except Microsoft and their lackies) say that Linux is not a viable server platform. Not making inroads into the server market. Not making a good name for itself. So backup that statement of yours with some hard facts and evidence.

Or do you think the fact that Linux features in the top 5 supercomputers in the world as a freaky accident?

Do you think that governments (like Germany, South Africa and many others) deciding on Linux platforms, irrelevant?

Do you think the fact that Linux is the most widely used operating system on the Internet, not applicable?

--
Billy