IBM and Linux our biggest threats - Microsoft (Register) [LWN.net]

The Register reports on comments made by Microsoft executives regarding the threat of Linux and IBM. "Paul Flessner, senior vice president .NET enterprise servers, called IBM and Linux a "formidable" challenge. "It's not just IBM alone, it's not just Linux alone," he said.

This interesting point was also mentioned: "We need to build a vibrant and healthy developer community. That's the lesson Linux has taught us. Having people to help. Knowing where to get questions answered," Rudder said.

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IBM and Linux our biggest threats - Microsoft (Register)

Posted Jul 26, 2002 17:50 UTC (Fri) by DeletedUser1247 ((unknown), #1247) [Link] (1 responses)

They are right, they need to form a good developer community to succeed in the long term. Where they fail is that they still think strong arm tactics and control of information (as opposed to cooperation and sharing of information) is the road they must follow.

That's the fundamental concept a lot of companies have forgotten. This country was built on the hard work of others, sharing their knowlege and experience along the way. Hoarding it and trying to control it has only ever worked in the short term.

/me sighs...

IBM and Linux our biggest threats - Microsoft (Register)

Posted Jul 26, 2002 20:03 UTC (Fri) by Manny_Calavera (guest, #2846) [Link]

The funny thing is:
An argument for using Microsoft was »hey guys, those open source geeks claiming for free software won't give you any support«. The text shows the fact that the open cummunity support (»Knowing where to get questions answered«)is much better than Microsofts one, although it's not free.
What do we learn? They are about to disprove their own former arguments.
Why should anybody provide free support when Microsoft earns money with the product?

see you,
- Manny -

What, they don't fire MVPs any more? (-:

Posted Jul 28, 2002 7:19 UTC (Sun) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

I guess that means no more firing of their Most Valued Professionals? (-:

Subject: [HATT] OT: Tech Writer Times Extra: MVP Mishap

The latest from the Tech Writer Times and Picayune

San Diego--Ehelp corporation, in a move that simultaneously outraged and perplexed help authors everywhere, announced today that they were firing all of their MVPs because they failed to live up to the name. "When we started the Most Valuable Puppet program," the ehelp spokesperson said, "we expected people would say whatever we told them to. We were most disappointed to find that these people actually had minds of their own and we had no choice but to dismiss them immediately."

David Knopf, the most recently fired MVP, said he misunderstood the agreement not realizing that he in fact was supposed act as a puppet for the ehelp corporation party line. "I thought I could say what I believed," Knopf said, "but apparently I was supposed to say what ehelp believed. My mistake."

HAPPE (Help Authors Perpetually Perplexed by ehelp) spokesperson Ron Miller said, "I don't care how many beers these people buy me (referring to ehelp's earlier program to buy all help authors a drink), this is despicable."

A recent survey commissioned by HAPPE found that only one person out of 2000 respondents intended to buy an ehelp product in the next year. When told of this, an ehelp spokesperson replied, "Good, we don't want these negative people as customers anyway." ehelp also announced massive layoffs today, but insisted they were unrelated to their recent battle with the help authoring community.

HAPPE spokesperson Ron Miller said, "I guess somebody's chickens are coming home to roost."

In a related story, although sales of ehelp's flagship product RoboHelp have come to virtual standstill, ehelp reported that copies of RoboMyOpinion continue to fly off the shelves. "We can't understand it, but we can't keep up with demand," an ehelp spokesperson replied. "It's our best selling product ever."

IBM and Linux our biggest threats - Microsoft (Register)

Posted Jul 29, 2002 8:04 UTC (Mon) by beejaybee (guest, #1581) [Link]

Terrific.

Not only do M$ acknowledge that the OS movement provides better support than their commercial system, they now want us to provide support for them.

Guess where the dollars they save by abolishing their "support" department will end up?