Here are some interesting things I have found that OTHER people have to say about Microsoft, their products, and actions.  With references!  My comments are in this type face.

From Dr. Dobb's Journal, August 1998, page 16:

Putting Your Money Where Your Mouth Is:

According to a recently published report in the San Francisco Chronicle, the pro-Microsoft web site called "The Committee for the Moral Defense of Microsoft" runs on the freely available Linux operating system and Apache web server -- not, as you might expect, Windows NT. 'Nuff said.
                              --Jonathan Erickson
 
Oh really?  Well, if you got a message you want to get out, you need a reliable media.  The Committee's web site can be found at http://www.moral-defense.org/home.html.  I understand that at least at one point, at the same time as Microsoft was advertising their web solution as the ultimate web server (that was several versions ago), they used Sun Microsystems for their own web servers.  Don't know if that is still true.
Update 1-19-2000: While checking links for my new location here, I discovered they moved from http://www.moral-defense.org to http://www.moraldefense.com.  According to Netcraft.com's site identifier, moraldefense.com is running now on NT.  For the moment.   Or it might have crashed.

From Network Magazine, November 1998, page 32:

Windows NT: The Unknown Equation

    "There is no such thing as a high-availablity Windows NT system," says Jim Johnson, president of the Standish Group (Dennis, MA).  He gets rather riled up when people put mission critical applications on Windows NT simply because they think it is fashionable -- "Like the idiot who convinced the U.S. Navy to base its 'smart ship' [the Yorktown] on NT," he says.  "The ship has already been towed into port five times, according to reports in Federal Computer Week and The Wall Street Journal.  Each time it fell victim to NT's 'blue screen of death,' silencing its engines and navigation systems, in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean."
     The Yorktown, an Aegis Missile Cruiser, is run completely by computer, and Johnson can't help but wonder: "If this was wartime, would you want to bet your son's or daughter's life on NT?  Look at the cost of towing in that ship just one time.  That would have paid for 100 Unix systems that actually work," he says.
[the rest of the sidebar goes on to say that not everyone is quite this outspoken, but the general perception is that NT isn't there yet for Mission Critical projects -njh]
Yeah!  That's what I've been saying!  Fashionable doesn't mean functional.

From Dr. Dobb's Journal, January 1998, Page 18:

Internet ExplorerTM

If anyone benefits from the Justice Department's recent unfair business practices allegations against Microsoft, it may be Synet, an Illinois ISP, which filed Chaper 11 bankruptcy last spring.  Synet's problems began in 1994 when it launced a software package called "Internet Explorer," than applied for state and federal trademarks on the name in 1995.  Microsoft subsequently released its "Internet Explorer browser software in August 1995.  When Microsoft refused to change the name of its software -- contending that "Internet Explorer" is to generic to deserve tradmarking (unlike "Windows") -- Synet filed suit in 1996.  According to Michael Sawyier, an attorney recently appointed by the court to represent Synet, the Justice Department's action may provide some "positive side effects" in the company's ongoing trademark-infringement suit against Microsoft.  Sawyier expects the case to go to court with the next year.
                                    -- Jonathan Erickson
 
I'd love to know what happens.  They will probably win some kind of settlement, long after they are bankrupted.  A Yahoo search for Synet didn't produce anything that looked like this company.

 O.k., I was hoping to keep this well documented and professional-like, but this is so good, I just had to put it in.

"One World.  One Web.  One Program."
       - Microsoft advertisement.
"Ein Volk, ein Reich, ein Fuhrer!"
       - Adolf Hitler.
 

If someone can provide hard documentation on these two lines (when and where, and how you found out), let me know...  I think I've seenthe Microsoft add.  Gotta look through some older magazines.

Here's one I'm just giving you the link to.  Something the author/commentor calls the "Halloween Documents", and already I'm starting to think the author is almost as bad as the Microsoft strategies he is blasting.  They are supposedly a memo produced internally by Microsoft, commented here.  I don't agree with all the commenters points, however, he makes many very valid points, and the origional memo provides some interesting glimpses into part of Microsoft's operations.

Halloween Documents


Here's another Justa-Link.  It is a comparason of NT and Linux, published by MSNBC.  Note, this is a joint project between Microsoft and NBC.  Not exactly what I would consider the most unbiased site.  Just think what they might have said had Microsoft not been paying so much of their paycheck!

MSNBC vs. NT

Note:  If you haven't been to MSNBC before, it will attempt to download some kind of program to your machine.  I have found that hitting "Cancel" when it asked if you wish to do this will let you just go read the article, and not have a Microsoft based company "help" you more than they already have...
Referenced in the above article, but worth of a separate link:
Linux vs. NT as a file server
Guess who is faster...  (Hint: I put the link here, didn't I? 8-)
Update: Later benchmarks have demonstrated that Mark Twain's famous statement about "There are three kinds of lies: Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics" needs to be updated to "Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Benchmarks".  Almost everyone's benchmarks are skewed.  For a small server, Linux will do better than NT (I can't imagine running NT on a 486).  For a large server, other criteria will "make" the decision, raw performance will rarely be it.  Several groups have been trying to benchmark big Linux systems against big NT systems, and almost univerally, someone complains about the result by condeming the testing method.

Page (c)opyright 1998-2000, although most of this stuff is referencing other people's material.  This notice is here Just Because.
 

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