* "*..." and <...> comment by Eric * Rest: mostly a summary of what MS tells in this PDF (1.5MB, made * on a Mac :-)), probably I did this in a biased way. "..." are no * real quotes. The size of the PDF is because of useless fotos of * customer / vendor like people who are looking thoughtfull / interested. * I am reading a marketing argumentation help by MS (in German), * as mentioned on heise.de/newsticker... Download URL of this leaflet: * www.microsoft.com/germany/library/resourcesmod/linux_partner_brosch.pdf * Typical "Fear Uncertainity and Distrust" / "Our products are best"... * It is meant to help pc vendors to convince customers that windows * is better than linux. uhum. "against linux" arguments... - no clear Linux roadmap - bad scalability - security takes work - users have to learn Linux first - Linux often uses outdated technology - there is too much software with too many licenses, which confuses users * (!!!) - network management is complicated - few actual projects, only knowledge of what should be possible - too much software, confusing market - too few bussiness solutions (Branchenloesungen) - commercial applications are not open source "Linux hit Unix, like Novell, but not that much Windows, here is why:" MS tells: Linux might be free but the TCO is high, because support and admin takes more time. Community support is not business-grade, to unpredictable. Self-help with own programmers is not realistic. Third party support has unpredictable costs and quality. Linux cannot scale up from simple to critical servers * ??? You have to know mutch and patch often to make Linux secure. Package management is not good. Good press does not mean good security * ah, so everybody complaining about insecure Windows * does not mean Windows would be insecure?). Linux might be more stable than WinNT, butWin2k/NET reaches 99.998% availability. Companies like IBM using Linux are just using it for PR and because they can sell support or commercial software for Linux. The GPL was meant to mean freedom, but because users do not know C++, this is not true. Real business solutions are not open source. Distros do not want users to compile from sources. * Detailled "information" follows (I am on page 5 * of 12 now, first page was only an image, other * pages had 50% images. Not useful images, that is). The lack of institutions makes it possible for individuals to trojan software, such as happened with SSH and sendmail * MS does not mention how fast this was discovered and fixed Linux still uses insecure 70s protocols like NIS, NFS, telnet... * hu? Windows never came with SSH clients, only telnet ones... Win2k active directory with Kerberos and IPSec is more secure. While those standards originate from Unix, they are actually harder to install on Unix... * (!!!) The Windows update service / SUS / Win2k active directory provide better and faster updates than some Linux distros. Users of "slow" distros have to search patches for 1000s of packages by hand. * MS does not mention that they simply do not * reveal problems before they have the patch ready MS seeds FUD about Open Source (which exists longer than Linux): there are open patent issues (like JPEG ones, where the developer tried to change the license later and asks for money). Linux companies own patents but do not want to use them like that, questions remain open. The relatively small number of programmers and availability of sources to hackers eases attacks. * Virus programmers never needed Windows sources, did they? MS offers special shared source access to their sources to big and paranoid institutions. Distros suggest not to compile yourself. They try to sell per-client binary licenses. * SCO / Caldera indeed does, but others do not For example SuSE asks license payments for each OpenExchange client. * (;-)) Linux is not security-certified, while Win2k Server is Common Criteria certified. * Paul Berger adds: * Actually RedHat Advanced Server 2.1 is certified under the same criteria * as Win2K is, RedHat & IBM got certification for it, and IBM does alot of * US Government contract work. The last Prior to Win2K the last Windows * version that was was NT 3.51. * next page follows... Management is important, things that do not work frustrate admins and users. User-, Package- and Update-Management is the term. Getting an overview of some Linux distro is hard, seen the amount of different packages and config file styles. Unified config user interfaces often do not allow to config all aspects, * hm, so does MSes, unless you REGEDIT, which * is just as hard as text editing config so you have to browse all config files or install again. * did they say that about MS or Linux? ;-) The central Management Console of Win2k Small Business Server is great. Linux has "none". Linux is just a loose bundle of apps, with controlling scripts in Perl, PHP, Bash, ... if an update breaks scripts, "very very" much work and understanding and learning is needed. * next topic: scenarios Windows is 11-22 percent cheaper in TOC, tells some IDC study. They mention 4 scenarios: File/Print Server: Samba - no ACL, * Linux has XFS / libacl, as MS forgets to mention no centralized password files. * ... NTFS has ACL, and EFS (crypto FS) has crypto * Linux has crypto and crypto FS, too, ...! The NTLMv2/Kerberos management is great. Web- based config, * MS forgets: Linux has this crypto FS, print clusters, ... Backup/Restore is not easy/plug and play in Linux. The admin user interface of Win2k is much easier than the Linux one, Win2003/NET even more so. * next page Firewall/Router: Cheaper than hardware/commercial. Take care, critical. Technology: Often simple, chains, NAT/Masquerading, hardware routers for a few 100 Euros are far more advanced, cheap and easy. * really? Really modern firewalls are application layer firewalls, which are hard to install on Linux or closed source. * ah, they mean those "are you sure if Word may send mail" * type of Firewalls!? The Win2k Server with ISA (Internet Security Acceleration) server has intrusion detection, stateful inspection, is application layer, has a proxy, and is easy to install and manage. You can set up rulesfor users / user groups. Content filtering and antivirus stuff are easy to add. ICSA certified. * what does it cost? * next scenario follows Management and communication: Mail alone is much worse than Groupware (as Exchange, which is expensive). Mail is becoming a knowledge database, information management is important. * sure, groupware is cool, but the webmail of * Exchange is crap compared to Squirrelmail Simple POP3/SMTP solutions do not allow agenda or folder sharing easily, nor good backups. The Linux Groupware based on OpenLDAP, Cyrus, IMAP, Sendmail... is hard to understand and use. Disaster recovery and scalability are bad. Commercial Exchange competitors often miss key features, like individual forms or good scalability and disaster recovery. "You need Outlook licenses" for such solutions, while "Exchange already includes them". MS Exchange Server 2000 has far more features than the competitors. The central Active Directory management and centrally backed up and easy to use webstore of Exchange are great. Backup and recovery tools are included. Integration with Windows and MS Office is great and improves productivity * of viruses? Web servers: LAMP - Linux Apache MySQL PHP/Perl systems are the common Linux web servers and said to be secure, but there have been break-ins recently. * Slammer? Yaha? ... ;-) For intranet use, Linux does not scale well (MySQL... scripts...) * maybe ask PostgreSQL? and cannot use the cool implicit Kerberos auth that MS uses. Win2k Server with MSSQL2k is very good, integrated auth, good IDE, professional dbase. SharePoint team services and FrontPage, together with SQL, form an easy to use intranet portal. IIS security has been improved "long time ago" and can be tamed with simple tools from MS. * next page Infrastructure: Using Unix for DNS / DHCP is only "politically" motivated. However... - Win2k Active Directory is better, e.g. using Kerberos secured dynamic DNS updates and replication. DHCP is fully integrated with DNS. Win2k is equally, often more, scalable, manageable, reliable, conforming to standards * MS conforming to standards??? - Kerberos, IPSec and ActiveDirectory mean security. AD is a centralized secure group / user / rights storage. A cert auth is included which helps with SSL, client/router ident, mail security, smartcard use. * next topic follows Desktop: Linux is not yet wide spread, but planning to be. A very important Linux problem is the non- availability of many applications. Further, support for modern hardware is not good * MS is speaking about a lag of months here... MS also mentions something about Office, which seems to be neither pro nor contra Linux. Reaching MS Win/Office productivity, while things look similar at first glance, takes lots of time and money (for courses), which is probably the most expensive point in switching to Linux. Lots of companies offer MS courses and support. Management scripts may change over time or between distros and are not rule based * so MS never changes over time? Software deployment as with Active Director is not possible with Linux. * end "scenarios" section * Next section, page 9: discussion hints. * (then follows page 10, facts and backgrounds * about Linux, page 11 is yet another meaningless * image, page 12 only tells about trademarks and * that this document is by Microsoft Germany GmbH, * Konrad-Zuse-Strasse 1 (the poor Zuse! Invented * a computer maybe before the Americans did and * now an US company lives in "his" streed), * 85716 Unterschleissheim (Bavaria, I guess). * So now, page 9). First, check out the current status: Which OS / age / tasks, what services (mail, net, fax, directory), what experiences (not reliable mail, server crashes, data loss), which lobby? Often, admins ident themselves with their solution providers, be careful... Why did the products/admins show up: What were the errors of their predecessors? Why do they want to expand or replace the systems? What do they want to achieve by this? Is it really only about saving money? If the customer suggests a Linux solution, note used products and versions, check details, find problems with using them for critical tasks. Decisors do not want to hear "get Exchange, it has everything", they want to know about the solutions and details. "Exchange" is not one standalone product. Scalability, stability, price and future support are important. Only offer necessary parts: Costs are often very important these days, often even the short term licensing costs. Try to integrate existing hard- and software and knowledge. Show advantages: MS Platforms offer a wealth of advantanges... tested and proven solutions * (proven to be. what?) scalable and failsafe * (!?!?) many certified support companies future development can be easily predicted using the roadmap * (hm, how about suprise discontinuation of WinNT/...?) so investments are safe with MS... Costs are not everything: Use up to 80% of the discussion time to find out the real reasons. IT means productivity and helps to compete. This is where MS can score. Be firm on licensing models: MS offers a broad range of licensing models. Decisors often feel uncertain because of what the press says - use facts against prejudice. The model can influence the price a lot, which makes MS solutions interesting again. * end discussion hints Appendix: Facts / Background on Linux: Linux is based on Unix, which was developed in 1969 on base of an existing system. The goal was to offer secure multi user use of expensive hardware. As users were highly qualified, permission structure and file security are simple. Rights are still at AT&T. UNIX has been open source for long time, because it only ran on the particular hardware it came with. When PCs became able to run Unix, the source stayed open to larger customers and universities. In that time, admins were C programmers. Many tools are made and shared by admins. In 1991, Linus Torvalds wanted to use the power of Unix on his PC at home, so he wrote a small OS which was generally POSIX compliant, so that he could use those "shared" Unix tools. Linux itself is only the kernel - only the many thousands of other programs make the system useful for users. Other kernels like FreeBSD are open source, too, and popular for firewalls. HURD is using modern technology * I would say, microkernels have pros and cons... and some are enthousiastic about it. But the hype around Linux has pulled public attention towards Linux, which annoys some people. It is possible that people would move to other kernels if Linux becomes too commercial, but this is hard to predict. Open Source is discussed a lot. One of the models is "the cathedral and the bazar": MS is like a cathedral, with one architect and many workers. Well defined workflow and quality management etc.! On the bazar, however, everybody offers software, being convinced to be the best. But each software has to attract both users and programmers, living in continuous competition. * long ago, MS had competitiors... If development slows down, it is not likely to survive long. The user has to find useful components and combine them. Nobody knows how many programs there are, maybe 4000-8000. This model does not explain the dynamics of the community. For sure there is lots of fun there, but one of the most important reasons is "all but MS", the will to hinder the success of MS has freed enormous amounts of energy. Some people start to feel used: While trying to bug MS, they helped Linux companies which are becoming more commercial all the time.