Earlier quoted context omitted.
I just don't get this insistance on control over utility servers. If we take sensitive businesses out of the equation there's really no argument for it. How many times has gmail been down for me? Never. What about exchange/lotus notes? At least once a month. And even when they work they're shit.
Things like email retention and recovery are two big features regarding control that I don't think Google gives you (at least last time I looked at it).
Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
91–100 of 120 posts
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#92A desktop OS my mother can use. Sorry Ubuntu. You've sudo apt-got my-heart but, well, reality isn't coextensive with our aspirations.
This was what I thought until I installed ubuntu. Maybe it's the honeymoon period, but it just works. I doubt your mum is doing heavy graphics work or playing games and those are the only two things that are keeping me on win 7. The interface ubuntu is nice, it's stable and programs can be installed in one click. I'm not saying its perfect, just that it's much, much better than I thought.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#93more readable fonts
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#94I'd be worried if I was Microsoft. I'd be worried too: Windows Mobile - Android IIS - Apache .NET - PHP, Java, Python, Ruby, etc SQL Server - MySQL, PostgreSQL, etc
While Windows Mobile is in a sorry state, I'm not really too convinced by the rest of your list. IIS is believe it or not a very good webserver, fewer exploits than Apache and just as extensible. And you can extend it with .NET-code. No need for that icky C to do that. .NET is a very good development platform with lots of stuff happening. PHP? Really? Of all things horrible, you mentioned PHP? Microsoft at least had…
Does it have a portable config file yet? Or do you still have to use scripts to transfer website configurations (which breaks when you have sites configured with SSL for example).
I still have nightmares about reconfiguring IIS by hand for 100+ site IIS servers because the damn transfer script failed hardcore. At least when they switched the config to an XML format I could back it up easily, but it was still machine specific...
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#95OpenOffice does not even come close to MS Office .. especially for the Excel part. The problem is not that XLS(X) is a better or worse format than OOXML. The problem is that it is defacto - so if I want to be able to communicate with the rest of the business world, I need compatibility. Softmaker comes close, but not good enough. Plus now that OpenOffice's future is tenuous (oracle?), I would rather buy Office or Sof…
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#96Earlier quoted context omitted.
1) Never used both of them, can't say here 2) Actually you can play most of them, at least those without copy protection. http://winehq.com 3) That's because Dell made drivers for win and didn't for linux. They can't hire one full day linux programmer? Maybe they do not want my money? 4) Works for me.
2) Wow, I had no idea so many were gold rated. Now if only they could get office working, I'd never have to use windows again on my desktop. :) 3) Are there any laptops with such features that work very well with Linux? 4) What distro to you use? Both of my computers have issues where the full screen window appears behind the browser (and switching back to windowed mode fails) - I'm on kubuntu 10.04.
Edit: actually, I've seen similar problems with Flash on Linux in 64-bit. It should be noted that the version of Flash for 64-bit Linux is atrocious at the moment; the 32-bit is far superior. Don't know if that's your trouble.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#97Have you been blown away by Ubuntu? Wait until its next release and watch your hardware and/or software stop working. If I was Microsoft, I wouldn't be worried that much. GNU/Linux is not a business, thus MS products will keep having a grip on gray suites for a long time. Microsoft has the resources to look after its OS. Startups thrive on free-software, but once the pointy haired bosses outnumber the hackers in them…
If there's anything for Microsoft to be worried about, it's that: you can't buy that level of active development. The work that goes into the Linux kernel alone takes thousands of developers around the world and manages tens of thousands of changes to the code every day. No company could ever do that on the traditional level.
That's what Google means: they've been figuring out a few ways of harnessing some of that extraordinary power for enterprise. Microsoft still works hard and turns out a good product, but I think there's a reason they have to pay so much more and work so much harder to develop something that is still perceived by the market as mediocre. You say the switch to 'enterprise' software is unavoidable - but Google, one of the largest and most successful companies of our time, recently dropped 'enterprise' operating systems in favor of their own version of an open source operating system when they made the decision to say that employees couldn't use Windows unless they got manager approval.
Having market share over document formats and things like that will preserve Microsoft's position for a while, but how long? The fact is that development on the old model - behind closed doors, by a team hired by a company, specifically for company goals - has been shown to be slow and outmoded. The companies that are really succeeding now are companies that realize this.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#98Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why is anyone up voting 'agreed'? If you agree, just vote for the comment surely?
Why is anyone voting up "good call"[1]? Agreed, good call: both sound like vote up. [1] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1668060
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#99Have you been blown away by Ubuntu? Wait until its next release and watch your hardware and/or software stop working. If I was Microsoft, I wouldn't be worried that much. GNU/Linux is not a business, thus MS products will keep having a grip on gray suites for a long time. Microsoft has the resources to look after its OS. Startups thrive on free-software, but once the pointy haired bosses outnumber the hackers in them…
Microsoft doesn't have very many resources compared to what Linux (and even Ubuntu) does. There are more people who use Linux than any other operating system in the world, and more developers working on it than on any other software project in the world. It gets more eyes and sees more development. If there's anything for Microsoft to be worried about, it's that: you can't buy that level of active development. The wo…
The Microsoft advantage is that they are business-oriented, and they provide the kind of support and services businesses expect: boring problems solved, backward compatibility, etc.
I stand on the Linux's side, but we'll see.
Re: Ask HN: what does Microsoft sell that you can't get for free?
#100Personally, I don't think that any OS is even close to being what Windows is. Maybe Macs are the closest and I believe they got a few things down better than Windows, but this alternative isn't free either. As for Linux I have tried different linux OSes and I see only use for them in server environments. None of them have made me want to lose Windows completely because they weren't as plug and play as Windows is. Ano…
There's a lot of crappy Java programs. This is likely the result of there being a lot of crappy Java programmers.
Personally, programming is why I'm not on Windows; sure, you've got the .NET stack, but we've got everything else. Most languages, editors, debuggers, etc. that I find are either *nix-only, or have Windows support bolted on.
I feel like a religious war is forthcoming.