Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

[News] Op-ed: MCSE Skills Lose Value, Microsoft Server 2008 Loses Appeal

  • Subject: [News] Op-ed: MCSE Skills Lose Value, Microsoft Server 2008 Loses Appeal
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Wed, 05 Mar 2008 07:46:16 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Advice for the MCSE: go back to school

,----[ Quote ]
| Number one on that list is a simple reality: everything changes, and by 
| betting against industry wide change you’re leaving yourself, your family, 
| and even your community hostage to Microsoft’s continuing commercial success.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| Not many people like Microsoft - and there are better alternatives: Linux on 
| the server side, MacOS X on the user side. 
| 
| Is it going to happen tomorrow? Probably not, but it will - and when it does 
| a lot of today’s MCSEs will be caught out: essentially unemployable in 
| comparable professional roles without significant, unanticipated, and 
| uprooting personal change.   
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=1081

The meaning of Microsoft Server 2008

,----[ Quote ]
| Server 2008 looks like a bit of an odd duck - it doesn’t meet the promises 
| made for “Longhorn” and “Blackcombe”, it’s probably neither more reliable nor 
| more efficient than its 64 bit 2003/XP based predecessors, and unlike Vista 
| (with which it shares some code) the kernel changes amount to rather more 
| than just another point release in the NT schedule.    
| 
| [...]
| 
| And that, I think, reflects Microsoft’s other strategic concern: that MacOS X 
| and Linux bracket Microsoft’s market and are both reaching out to the people 
| in the middle - the managers and MCSE decision makers who now consider Apple 
| too consumer oriented and Linux too technical.   
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/Murphy/?p=1082

Just days ago it turned out that open source developers earn 40% more. No
surprise really.


Related:

Macs on the network: Time to panic?

,----[ Quote ]
| The facts reveal a coming resurgence. Apple sold 36% more Macs in the second 
| quarter than the same quarter last year.  
| 
| [...]
| 
| or the most part, connecting a Mac to a corporate LAN doesn't have a 
| world-shattering effect on performance or support. According to William 
| Green, director of networking at the University of Texas in Austin, the Mac 
| has had a minimal impact on the school's infrastructure.   
| "All OSs behave differently; if you have a multivendor environment, you have 
| to deal with the differences," said Green. "There have not been any special 
| problems related to Macs."  
`----

http://www.computerworld.com/action/article.do?command=viewArticleBasic&articleId=9035318&intsrc=hm_ts_head


,----[ Quote ]
| The Scary World of Linux Computers.
| 
| Dunkelberger likely wasn't intending to suggest that the iPhone was
| running Linux, but instead that it is a full computing environment
| with multiple vectors for potential exploits to attack. It is
| interesting that he brought up Linux however, because it is a scary
| subject for IT staff beholden to Microsoft.
| 
| The majority of Microsoft oriented corporate IT staff I've worked with
| have a sort of reverential fear of Linux. They like to talk about it
| in a respectful sort of way, but they are often afraid to actually use
| it. Deploying a Linux server without an outside support agreement is a
| very scary task to users who have felt safe for years in their
| codependent relationship with Microsoft.
| 
| After investing tens of thousands of dollars into their troubled
| relationship, after spending sleepless nights nursing NT servers back
| to health after they fall off the wagon to binge on worms and the
| other malware they have a genetic propensity to be addicted to, after
| growing dependent upon calling up the Redmond Father's TechNet for
| advice on how to deal with the regular schizoid mania and subsequent
| crashing of Windows, it's difficult to start over with something
| entirely new.
| 
| IT managers are a whipped bunch. Linux is an allure associated with
| danger, like a pretty girl on the bus who smiles at the haggard,
| middle aged family man. She's just being friendly, not inviting him
| into a blissful world. He knows he has to think about his commitments
| to Microsoft, all of the fighting that would have been for nothing,
| all of the holding back of hair that he's already dealt with and wants
| to use as credit toward an established relationship. It's too much
| starting over, too late in the game.
| 
| Today's adherents of Microsoft are like the COBOL programmers in the
| 90s: too old to learn new tricks, and too tired to even want to try.
| They are dinosaurs, dependent upon resisting change to maintain their
| proprietary world.
| 
| Change isn't resisted successfully for long, but holdout adherents can
| oppose progress and tenaciously hold things up for longer periods of
| time than one might imagine possible.
| 
| Is Linux Really a Problem?
| Of course, there are lots of phones that run Linux already--far more
| than run Windows Mobile--and they are not plagued by security
| problems.
| 
| There are also tens of millions of embedded routers and phone systems
| running Linux or its BSD cousin, and none have suffered a scourge of
| security rashes anything remotely like Microsoft's Windows. Perhaps
| security isn't just a product of being powerful or having market
| share.
| 
| Why would the iPhone's closed BSD environment be a special security
| risk? Hackers working on the iPhone have to build and install their
| own shell before they can even control it in ideal settings in a lab.
| 
| If iPhone enthusiasts can't hack their own phones without first
| manually installing their own root access and shell environment, why
| are pundits distributing scary stories about the potential for iPhones
| to turn on their human masters and form a rebellion mechanical army of
| robot terrorists?
| 
| Why didn't these flacks ever tell us about their brainstorming efforts
| to imagine security problems for Windows Mobile devices?
`----

http://www.roughlydrafted.com/RD/RDM.Tech.Q3.07/8E67109A-41FD-4CB1-B92A-4B038428FAA2.html

[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index