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Pluses and Minuses of Microsoft | |
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| Time: 12:27 EST/17:27 GMT | News Source: Associated Press | Posted By: Byron Hinson | ||
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Computer industry pundits and government lawyers don't get their exercise from jogging, they get it from kicking around Microsoft, the leading "evil empire" since the Soviet Union called it quits. And much of the abuse is richly deserved. Both the company and its products can be obtuse, unpredictable and enraging. If all the curses directed toward Microsoft over the years had been realized, Redmond, Wash., would be a parking lot of radioactive volcanic glass. But: If there had been no Microsoft, it's safe to say there would be today no personal computer hardware or software industry worldwide — or at least not in its present stage. | ||
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| #1 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 5/20/2002 2:05:32 PM |
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Sigh, it's so easy to forget history... These claims that had Microsoft not succeeded the world would be in better shape are utter fantasy.
AmigaDOS was really quite horrible. It was incredibly buggy, incredibly unstable and so forth. Commodore invented the BSOD, only it was called the Guru Meditation back then and it happened far more regularly and caused far more pain than I've ever seen on any Microsoft OS. I wonder if #4 has actually used any of those systems. I used to be an Amiga owner and I can assure you that it was never *far* better than Windows 3.1, much less 9x. Yes it had some nice features like multi-tasking, but without memory protection it crashed far more than Windows 3.x did. Later machines like the A3000 and 4000 had MMU's in them which allowed memory protection extensions, but they were clumsy and really only useful for developers. Windows XP is decades further than we would have been had we relied upon Commodore, Atari and Apple to build operating systems for us. Those companies would have never had the ambition to take on the mid-scale server market which has resulted in the technologies that exist in XP. Look at Apple's recent Mac Server entry... it doesn't even support RAID for christ sake. |
| #2 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 5/20/2002 2:27:04 PM |
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Ahh, found it...
http://groups.google.com/groups?q=g:thl678396593d&dq=&hl=en&lr=&ie=UTF8&oe=UTF8&selm=1992Jun20.145914.14059%40NeoSoft.com This was the end of the line for me and my Amiga, and shows why Microsoft has succeeded and companies like Commodore failed. Basic problem was Commodore "fixed" something in AmigaDOS 2.04 that caused applications which made certain assumptions under v1.3 to fail... resulting in a blue screen of death because of the lack of memory protection. This created major compatibility problems. A large number of users of older A500/1000/2000 machines were left with software that was critically broken and non-usable. Commodore's response... "Not our problem, the OS works fine, those apps were poorly written and that's why they are broken." Even though they knew the exact details of the problem and apparently had included a patch for the A600, they wouldn't make it available for the A500 and older machines. This problem was further complicated by the fact that the Amiga had *very* limited commercial support, and many of the existing applications out there were sold by companies that had gone bankrupt of abandoned the Amiga by 1992 leaving consumer out in the cold. That right there is why Microsoft has succeeded in this industry. Do some apps break when they have OS upgrades? Yes. But Microsoft makes a very impressive effort to insure backwards compatibility. It should be no surprise that many of the Commodore developers went on to work with Linux and BSD because they share a similar anti-consumer attitude. |
| #3 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 5/20/2002 4:38:57 PM |
| There you go again talking about stuff you don't know about, soda. Mac OS X has software RAID built in. They are building a 3U hardware RAID unit. They are offering BTO SCSI and UltraSCSI options. This is their first entry in the market, and they can beat Dell and Sun on price--something that isn't typical of Apple. |
| #4 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 5/20/2002 5:58:37 PM |
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sodajerk - Three things... Software RAID impacts performance, I know of no-one who uses it in a prod environ. The 3U RAID unit is if you need a lot of drive storage, when all I care about is simple failure recovery.
And lasty... when you compared Apple to Dell did you remember to add a warranty to the Mac Server? It's $950, otherwise you get a standard 90 days labor/1 year parts. |
| #5 By 2459 (66.25.124.8) at 5/20/2002 6:10:24 PM |
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#7 No one would be using OS/2 because Microsoft was one of the developers of OS/2.
#4 MacOS was nowhere near being a truly fantastic OS compared to Windows 3.x, and especially not compared to Windows 9x (You totally forgot to include NT). MacOS, for over 10 years, had more problems and less flexibillity than Windows. One of their largest deficiencies was their handling of memory (especially virtual memory). There were/are Mac users running OS 9 and below with over a gig of memory that still get out of memory errors. Virtual memory handling was so bad that most Mac users turned it off, and wondered if they should do the same when OS X came around. Then there was the lack of protected memory, multitasking, multithreading, etc until OS 8. When OS 8/9 were released, I had a music teacher that was so giddy, he gave the class a full demo of all that was new in the OSes. The whole time I was thinking to myself, "Gee, that's been in Windows for XX years." Apple has been trying to catch up with Windows technology for some time, and still haven't caught them. Then you have the limited upgradability of the platform that no one but extreme Macheads completely accepts. The higher price of the systems is explained away as Apple's use of quality components, even though it has been shown in the past that Apple takes shortcuts or uses less than high quality components, but still charges more. These days when perusing Mac sites, you have to wonder about some of the user's devotion to the platform. You would think that all Mac users would want to help Apple stay in business, but their users talk about warezing software for the platform (especially the OS) as much as PC users. Without MS, I have no doubt the industry would be behind where it is today, based upon what was available from other companies in the past and today. As much as others claim other platforms to be better, no other platform includes many technology advances Windows includes. And while the other platforms look at Windows to see what they should next include in their OSes. MS pushes ahead, implementing new technologies and furthering their platform. |
| #6 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 5/20/2002 6:27:59 PM |
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soda, you said "it doesn't even support RAID for christ's sake." NOT software RAID is slower (Veritas seems to be selling quite a bit of their software by the way), their RAID option is a larger capacity then my piddly ass can handle, or that you can BTO whatever you want but I'm ignoring that. What I was pointing out was that you were either talking out of your @ss or lying--take your pick. Also note that Apple preannounced other modules besides the RAID unit (dual gigabit ethernet and fiber channel) and that the ATA drives each have their own controller allowing for greater bandwidth.
Yes, I did consider a service plan. How 'bout you? Are you going to be purchasing an OS for your server? Per user or per processor? How 'bout the db server and such? Please, you think you got anything on me when it comes to hidden costs when what you are offering is tied to several thousand dollars worth of software? Ha! |
| #7 By 135 (209.180.28.6) at 5/20/2002 7:55:41 PM |
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sodajerk - Bah, I meant to say hardware RAID and you know it. It's pathetic it's not even an option on a server that costs more than $3k.
As to price... Whatever configuration you pick, the same server from Dell can be had for at least $1,000 less and that includes a Windows 2000 license. Considering you buy 1U models to build clusters with, $1k per machine adds up to some real money when you have a rack full of them. The Apple server is a nice solution for people who are bound and determined to buy Mac's, but it's certainly not a competitive entry in the overall marketplace. I supposed maybe if you wanted to stream porn over Quicktime, but then they'd call it the XXXserve. This post was edited by sodablue on Monday, May 20, 2002 at 19:56. |
| #8 By 3339 (65.198.47.10) at 5/20/2002 8:20:11 PM |
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Soda, what specs you looking at? The comparable Dell I'm looking at is more expensive, doesn't include a license, has SDRAM, and P3s. I include 2 quotesbecause the first has ridiculous HDs (although cheaper) and the second is just slightly beefier.
Xserve, Apple, 1-1GHz PPC, 256 MB, 60(ATA), 0/2 (Ethernet 100/1000), MacOSX Server, $2999 PowerEdge 1650, Dell 1-1.4GHz PIII, 256 MB, 18GB(SCSI), 0/2 (Ethernet 100/1000), None, $2474 PowerEdge 1650, Dell, 1-1.4GHz PIII, 256 MB, 72.4GB(SCSI), 0/2 (Ethernet 100/1000), None, $3123 As I said, it can be custom configured however you want it so it does support RAID and it is an option. Also Apple is claiming that the independent ATA controllers in conjunction with their RAID and mirroring software provides higher bandwidth/transfers than SCSI and fully provides for your failure recovery issue. Admit it--you were lying or didn't know what you were talking about, AND you clearly picked a horrible example for your point. |
| #9 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 5/20/2002 11:02:09 PM |
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Heh... I'm sorry I mentioned Apple. Didn't realize the Mac-roaches would come out of the woodwork.
sodajerk - you forgot to add the $950 Apple warranty charge. Also if I didn't care about dual processor or SCSI, I could configure a Dell Poweredge 350 for about $1400... |
| #10 By 135 (208.50.201.48) at 5/21/2002 1:20:54 AM |
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#16 - Can I today purchase an XServe with a RAID card installed to mirror the internal drives?
Until you answer yes, my statement is correct. Since I've already clarified what I meant, I don't understand why you keep harping on this. Makes me think you forgot to take your ex-lax again today. Anyway, that's the last I mention Apple for this week. Considering Jobs last week came out and admitted OS X has been a complete failure, I don't see this company offering anything worth mentioning. |
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