The offensive Microsoft anti-Linux netbook offensive

David M Williams
Tuesday, 21 April 2009 20:52

Business IT - Technology

It’s one thing to know I can’t upgrade my 32-bit computer beyond 4GB of RAM because there is a genuine hardware limitation. It’s another to be told you can have a product at a reduced price but it’s really, really going to suck.

So it is with SBS. No (rational) server admin would choose SBS over the full Windows Server line of products if price wasn’t an issue. You’d go with Windows Server, Exchange Server, SQL Server and the others.

Maybe SBS adds a bit of wizard functionality (but if you depend on that then you probably shouldn’t be setting up servers) but there is no technical superiority in SBS. Instead it’s the Windows Server you run when you can’t afford Windows Server.

To make sure you realise you’re paying less Microsoft cripple SBS in many ways. Windows networks with an SBS server have restrictions imposed on them. Your total user count is slashed. Oh, they want you to remember every single day that there’s something better out there and if only you spent more money you could have the real product and not this watered-down piece of tosh.

In the same way, Microsoft wants netbook users to know they’re paying less for the operating system than the “real” product. This is why Windows 7: Starter Edition limits you to a mere, paltry three apps at once.

Do you really want to be told that if you use a netbook you’re a clueless newbie who can’t be trusted to do four things at a time?

Forget it. Pay even less and go with Linux. On April 23rd Ubuntu 9.04 Netbook Remix is released as a free operating system.

It costs nothing to buy, it costs nothing to license. It's totally unrestricted. You can do as much with it as you would on a laptop, a desktop or a server, subject only to your hardware and imagination and not any artificial enforced restriction.

It won’t cost you your productivity, it won’t cost you the ability to run as many programs as you want and need.

It won’t make pithy assumptions about your level of computer expertise and it won’t do everything it can to remind you that the vendor would really prefer you spent more money with them.