It is really interesting to see what eWeek is doing right in the middle of its presentation on the new Microsoft Vista – it is offering a Dave Letterman-like Top Ten List on what Linux Should Do to get Bigger. Now why in the hell would eWeek do a thing like that ? Redmond surely is not amused. Here are my conjectures.
1)eWeek is trying to head off the legion of Linux-philes that are sure to inundate them with emails and missives saying that a)eWeek does not understand Linux and b)eWeek gives too much attention and support to Microsoft OS and Vista. So beat them to the punch with this advisory that kills two birds with one stone.
2)eWeek is doing the commiseration piece – we feel your pain. This is sort of like the recent review I read in Information Week on IE7. Everybody cited in the article acknowledged Firefox was better than IE and gee they sure wished that FireFox would stay out their fighting; but they …. they were going to stick with the inferior brand because they committed too much to the proprietary IE coding practices and they could not afford to make the move. And all they got from Microsoft for an unbelievable 5 year hiatus on IE development was a)no explanation for its rationale whatsoever, b) “mea culpa” and like Porky Pig “thats all folks” from Big Bill, and c) an IE7 that still does not meet its CSS, JavaScript, HTML and DOM committments from 1997. But best of luck to Mozilla from all the corporates and organizations who have become dependent on IE. Ditto for Window Vista users who had hoped to see Windows Bloat, Clot and Rot eliminated. This awaits the next version and lets hope Enterprise Linux survives long enough to keep the pressure on Redmond.
3)eWeek is doing a cover-your-ass piece. They have seen what the arrogance of President Bush and the Republicans bought for themselves on November 7th … and eWeek certainly knows that Vista is nothing to write home about from an organization that should be working triple overtime and for free with all players to clean up their Security Iraq. But instead its stay the ultra competitive course, try to make big bucks off the Security and next-gen OS platform market (average price of Vista is up, way up), and treat one time partners like Symantec, MacAfee, and many others who saved your bacon with competitive contempt as Redmond bring the dual sledge hammers of OS market dominance and billions in cash to bear on any who stand in their way.
eWeek knows the arrogant handwriting is on the wall with Vista – where promises for security and trustworthy computing reach year 5 with ActiveX and COM still alive; rationalization and exorcision of Windows Bloat, Clot and Rot left undone; introduction of new WinFS data storage system delayed yet again; and the general disappointment that is a 3D highly proprietary GUI and Vista, IE and Office going ever more tightly coupled – all of these are far far from being a clearly winning upgrade. Just like President Bushs claim to be “a uniter and not a divider” and then for 6 years serving up the diametric opposite, Redmond is advertising their software to be “people ready” and then trying to pawn off huge GUI and usage changes in Vista, Office, IE and other applications as the price of progress. So the problem for eWeek is they cannot read the handwriting nor dare they declare that for big segments of the computing population – Linux is a much better proposition.
4)eWeek knows better to declare anything like this because Oracle and Microsoft have just emerged in an unholy alliance to cut-off the oxygen of support revenue streams from RedHat plus redirect business with Windows connections to Redhats rival, Novell/Suse. And with Redhat toppled or crippled each will be able to feast in its own ways on the leavings.
So eWeek does 1) 2) and 3) above. And although the recommendations on Linux are good, I am left with a very bad taste in my mouth.
(c)JBSurveyer 2006