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Technology news and Jobs 
The Linux distillery Microsoft arguments against Linux are bollocks
The Linux distillery Microsoft arguments against Linux are bollocks | Microsoft arguments against Linux are bollocks |
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| by David M Williams | |
| Monday, 28 April 2008 | |
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Page 2 of 3 The quote is attributed to the Technical Director of HiChina Web Solutions. A link leads to the full case study. Yet, for those who don’t follow the link, you’d assume the sound bite captures the essence. Basically, it promises, HiChina have chosen Windows Server 2008 with an increase in reliability and thus a direct increase in their capacity to offer services and hence profitability.After all, the wording is “Why are customers choosing Windows Server 2008 over Linux” and “Using Windows ... we will be able to increase overall reliability ...” What other conclusion do Microsoft want you to get out of it? Fortunately, iTWire readers are an astute bunch and won’t settle for reading a headline alone. Clicking the link leads to a dedicated page which tells more about HiChina’s business. It expounds on the gains they made through Windows Server 2008 – increased performance, reduced costs, increased flexibility – but still gives no real detail. There is a hint in a sentence which reads, “HiChina had been using Web server computers based on both UNIX and the Windows Server, but began experiencing performance and reliability issues.” Hang on! Did that just say the existing infrastructure was based on UNIX and Windows? Immediately, thinking people will grasp that any performance gain can’t be said to have come about purely as a result of a Windows vs Linux battle. It’s not like HiChina had a Linux infrastructure and replaced the whole lot with Windows Server 2008 as similarly as possible and found they had 20% more uptime, 20% less failures. You don’t get anything more on this page though; to read further you have to click a third link, this being the case study itself in .doc format. By now, many readers will have gathered the conclusions they seek and not progress further. The Microsoft spin will have spread. Before we delve into the bowels of this Word document, let me point out this case study page is explicitly headlined with the word “compare.” There can be no mistaking that the intention of these case studies is to put forward the message that Windows will come up trumps in a direct head-to-head comparison against Linux. The message Microsoft want you to get is that businesses running Linux or UNIX based systems have revolted and switched camps to Redmond and have found massive improvements. It is not the case that a bunch of generic Windows case studies have been gathered together and somehow inadvertently found themselves linked from a new Microsoft “get the facts” site whether or not that was the original intention of the study. There can be no doubting that these case studies are all stamped with the “compare” branding, permeating every well-crafted sentence. Well, what does the actual case study itself say? We’ve gone from “Get the facts” to Windows Server 2008’s home page, with a case study headline, to a more detailed page about the company involved but with no greater substance, leading to a Word document. Let’s don our personal protective equipment and click the link. Please read on. CONTINUED |
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