Rockin' on without Microsoft

[laurentius]

Excatly Sir Ralph

[Asher]

Originally posted by Urban Ranger
AFAIK, no warning is necessary. They can just pop up at your doorstep one cheery morning.

Why don't you read the license then. I just told you it's in the license, and you seem to ignore that.

http://news.com.com/2100-1012_3-5050986.html

The company also expanded its product warranties for licensing customers from 90 days to a year and expanded the minimum notice given to customers regarding software audits from 15 days to 30 days.

[Asher]

Originally posted by laurentius
Um, why are you Microsoft-lovers always so bully. Clearly this guys knows his business better than you. you laugh at him because his not in the IT business.

I laugh at people in the IT business, actually. It's on the same lines as pump jockeys.

I laugh at him not because he's not in IT, but because he clearly didn't do it for the best interest of his company: He'd replace computers with an abacus if that's what it would take.

But suddenly it's a stunning endorsement that Linux is better than an abacus...

[Asher]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
If people like Asher ("Sweet, a guitar-stringe maker talking about computers.") or skywalker ("Wow, I'll listen to him about what software I use. Whew! A GUITAR-STRING MAKER! What a computer whiz!") talk disdainful about people in other branches, it's not only highly arrogant, it's like insulting their future customers. To despise his own customers is certainly not good for one's business.

It's not despising the customers, it's admitting that someone who makes guitar strings and admitted that he'd use an abacus instead of windows probably isn't the best example of someone switching to Linux.

It's not hating him, it's laughing at him for his stupid political agenda, just like McNealy. You need to get over that **** when you run a business and use what's best for you and your people.

I've nothing against the man, I just have to wonder what idiots look to him for computer advice.

I also fail to understand what IT to do with anything. I despise IT departments, too. They're usually filled with morons like Urban Ranger who think they're the sh*t, like Nick Burns from SNL...

Who would you think is more apt to discuss investing: Me, or an investment banker? Sure, I could talk about it and say how I made a few bucks off of buying MS stock, but that doesn't make me a model for everyone else, nor an expert that needs to be praised...

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Asher
It's not despising the customers, it's admitting that someone who makes guitar strings and admitted that he'd use an abacus instead of windows probably isn't the best example of someone switching to Linux.

Yet one more who wouldn't recognize an analogy even if it jump in his face. Ok, I explain his sentence slowly, for a concrete-headed MS fan: "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" is an exaggeration and means to his IT department, that he doesn't care what they buy (he has to rely on their knowledge anyway) just it shall be anything except Microsoft products.

It's not hating him, it's laughing at him for his stupid political agenda, just like McNealy. You need to get over that **** when you run a business and use what's best for you and your people.

You laugh at others, others laugh at you. And can you please prove that MS products are "the best for you and your people"?

I've nothing against the man, I just have to wonder what idiots look to him for computer advice.

Nobody asks him for advice what software to use. He's nothing but an example, that it is easily possible to run a Microsoft free business and even save lots of money. But a lot of things what he says, makes sense. For what does a secretary need a web browser? What does she need a new PC for, just because the new MS software needs again 300% more resources for 10% more features (which no one needs anyway, because MS Office is already bloated) and her old computer won't run with that monster? Who will pay the losses the company had while cleaning the latest email worm/virus/whatever? And so on.

Who would you think is more apt to discuss investing: Me, or an investment banker?

I would trust neither of them. The investment banker, because of his bias (most of them depend on a certain bank, they just don't admit it), and you because of your self admitted lack of knowledge.

[Asher]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Yet one more who wouldn't recognize an analogy even if it jump in his face. Ok, I explain his sentence slowly, for a concrete-headed MS fan: "I said, 'I don't care if we have to buy 10,000 abacuses,'" is an exaggeration and means to his IT department, that he doesn't care what they buy (he has to rely on their knowledge anyway) just it shall be anything except Microsoft products.

I obviously recognize the analogy, and it doesn't invalidate anything I've said. Maybe I will explain MY position slowly: When someone says that they won't judge applications based on their usefuless and productivity, but by who made them, it's not a very wise business decision.

You laugh at others, others laugh at you. And can you please prove that MS products are "the best for you and your people"?

Nope, but I've never asserted that either.
My point was, he didn't evaluate applications based on their merit, but who made them.
That's simply a dumb business move. He could've looked at the strengths and weaknesses, then chosen Linux, and it would've been a wise move -- but he's admitted himself that he didn't care, as long as it wasn't MS products. Stupid.

Nobody asks him for advice what software to use.

Are you kidding? Kids on Slashdot are saying he should run a consulting company on promoting people switching to Linux and helping them with it. He's willingly had his company and himself put on a frontpage of a major tech news site extolling virtues on what software to use, when he's clearly not qualified to make such a call. The least they could've done is talk to his CTO.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Asher
I obviously recognize the analogy, and it doesn't invalidate anything I've said. Maybe I will explain MY position slowly: When someone says that they won't judge applications based on their usefuless and productivity, but by who made them, it's not a very wise business decision.

Granted, but MS pissed him and he has every right to boycott them. If somebody treated me that way, he would be out of business for me too. And it looks as if he was successful.

Are you kidding? Kids on Slashdot are saying he should run a consulting company on promoting people switching to Linux and helping them with it. He's willingly had his company and himself put on a frontpage of a major tech news site extolling virtues on what software to use, when he's clearly not qualified to make such a call. The least they could've done is talk to his CTO.

Kids on Slashdot are ... well ... kids on slashdot. I wouldn't take them any serious, even if I were you. In fact, I even ceased to read Slashdot regularly for that reason. But again, if he steps on the table and yells "Look at me, I did it", and there are people who listen to him, it's his damn right to do so and their right to listen to him or not. Do you deem Bill Gates himself "qualified to make such a call"? He may be a business genius, but he's an absolute embryo when it comes to programming. The only thing he's perfectly able to do is to fill his own pocket. Why, pray tell, should I listen to him?

[Verto]

And people say MS has a monopoly...

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Sir Ralph
Granted, but MS pissed him and he has every right to boycott them. If somebody treated me that way, he would be out of business for me too. And it looks as if he was successful.

No one said he didn't have the right; we just said he was stupid.

[JohnT]

I'm not too sure why this guy is necessarily being considered a "bad businessman" by a few in this thread. While his decision was likely hasty and made without a full analysis of the facts, there is nothing "unbusinesslike" about suddenly canceling ones license(s) or orders just because one company does not care for the practices of another - that's part of the self-regulating feature of capitalism that we Righties are always trumpeting, is it not?

Asher, if a trade organization (one, apparently, with the ability to levy fines on non-member organizations) caused me $60,000 in extra costs, you can damn sure I would never deal with the principal members of that organization if I had a choice about it. For example, if the Automobile Allegience Bureau (made up agency), backed heavily by the Ford Motor Company slapped me with a $2,500 "fine" for not paying the "Used Car Licensing Fee" for buying a 1997 F-150, you can bet your ass that I'm not buying Ford products anymore, especially when I buy my next new car.

While I support intellectual rights in theory, the creaking edifice that we have left over from the Era of Paper will have to be amended to make sense of new realities - for example, software companies are going to have to get off their high horse regarding the "one license per machine" idea. Profitable in theory, but in the long run I think it very detrimental to the goodwill of the public towards the enforcing company, which will have even a greater negative impact on sales and margins.

[JohnT]

One of the problems is that the software concerns are using publishing models to control sales of their products, but they are not using publishing pricing models to ease the pain of that control.

For example, I had need a year or so ago to price a extra licenses for FoxPro v2.5, a 1992 DOS based database app. that my parents company was dependent upon to run a couple of crucial processes in the corporation.

$300. $300!!!! For a SINGLE license to an 11 year old program written for an OS that was definitely obsolete a mere 7 years ago and probably obsolete 15 years ago! The same damn price they were selling them when they first got the license (I checked accounting records).

Can you imagine if books never went down from their hardback costs, regardless of how little read or old the book is? What if the books were only printed in the original language, never to be translated*? What if others were forbidden to tack on commentary and notes to the books? If this were to be the case, the only copies of the Canterbury Tales you would be able to fine were non-annotated, leather bound copies in the original Old English that cost about $49.95 (or higher, if you want to adjust for inflation since the Middle Ages).

The above sort of situation is about where the software industry is now. Unfortunately for the entertainment industry, they are undergoing the painful realization that they are not just in the entertainment industry, but in the software industry as well. But that's a topic for another thread.

*Yes, XP can "do" DOS, but one still has to learn DOS as well as XP.

[Mr. Nice Guy]

Originally posted by JohnT
I'm not too sure why this guy is necessarily being considered a "bad businessman" by a few in this thread. While his decision was likely hasty and made without a full analysis of the facts, there is nothing "unbusinesslike" about suddenly canceling ones license(s) or orders just because one company does not care for the practices of another - that's part of the self-regulating feature of capitalism that we Righties are always trumpeting, is it not?

Asher, if a trade organization (one, apparently, with the ability to levy fines on non-member organizations) caused me $60,000 in extra costs, you can damn sure I would never deal with the principal members of that organization if I had a choice about it. For example, if the Automobile Allegience Bureau (made up agency), backed heavily by the Ford Motor Company slapped me with a $2,500 "fine" for not paying the "Used Car Licensing Fee" for buying a 1997 F-150, you can bet your ass that I'm not buying Ford products anymore, especially when I buy my next new car.

While I support intellectual rights in theory, the creaking edifice that we have left over from the Era of Paper will have to be amended to make sense of new realities - for example, software companies are going to have to get off their high horse regarding the "one license per machine" idea. Profitable in theory, but in the long run I think it very detrimental to the goodwill of the public towards the enforcing company, which will have even a greater negative impact on sales and margins.

I second that.

[Asher]

While his decision was likely hasty and made without a full analysis of the facts, there is nothing "unbusinesslike"

"unbusinesslike" does not equate to "bad businessman".

The decision was brash and uneducated.

And it's not "60,000 in extra costs" -- it's 60,000 in costs he tried to get out of.

[JohnT]

"The decision was brash and uneducated."

You do not know that. You only know that you opine that the decision was "brash and uneducated." There is nothing in the article that states that he got pissed at MS on day 1, ripped out his servers on day 2, and then started looking for alternatives. That would be brash... but supporting an alternative that will eliminate the worry and hassle of such bullshiite practices as software audits, fines, and the publication of such audits and fines in a demeaning manner is not brash.

[Asher]

Originally posted by JohnT
You do not know that.

Someone says he'll deal with anything as long as it's not made by a certain company is acting brashly, particularly when it's not his field. I thought that's why he had a CTO.

It is absolutely brash -- if he looked into alternatives, did a study on TCO and productivity with the alternatives, then it would not be.

But that's not what happened -- he got busted and publically tarred & feathered for pirating software (which happens to be illegal), and suddenly demands that within six months, there's no Microsoft software on any of his systems.

Brash is undoubtedly fitting, knee-jerk reaction from a business owner who got where they are by simply making good products, but not necessarily being good at running their business.