10.03.09
Reader’s Contribution: The Register Sells Out to Microsoft and Novell
Summary: The Register on “interoperability and mixed environments” (apparent commercial in disguise)
A REGULAR READER of ours has just watched a Webcast that we previously covered here and criticised. The Webcast goes under the title: “Making IT work in the real world”
Sounds promising and informative, right? The real deal.
This item from The Register on ‘mixed environments’ is what our reader calls “an advert masquerading as technical discussion.” We wrote about this type of practice in the previous post.
“Pay close attention to who the speakers work for,” the informant points out, then giving some examples as follows:
At 6:25 .. please buy our virtualized solution and not that open source Linux stuff ..
The only reason you need virtualization is to save on licenses. With Linux, you can deploy the image any number of times .. DOH !!
At 09:00 Linux training and shortage of skills FUD ?
At 12:43, please go to a mixed Windows/Linux solution. Notice how there is *NO* mention of any other platform.
Oh, wait 13:28 he goes waffling on about licenses.
“IT guys in particular want help in understanding whats the best license model to deploy”
This is classic FUD. Remember this video is aimed at the PHBs who don’t know anything about IT. So basically the talker is telling the CEO the IT staff are not to be trusted. A sad day for The Register.
At 17:40, Linux is relatively new and doesn’t have the decades of support in the real world.
Not as many Linux specialists as other platforms ..
At 19:37: a load of marketing waffle .. going forward bla bla bla …
At 20:12: The Novell/Microsoft alliance is mentioned
At 23:32: Novell is mentioned, it’s the only Linux company mentioned up to now ..
At 25:28: Jose Thomas is interviewed over the phone.
At 3:50: Frank Rego pops up over the phone. It just occurred to me to ask, why didn’t they use the Microsoft video-conferencing app. Oh, wait, that doesn’t actually work in the real world.
“For shame,” summarised the reader, “The Register reduced to spouting free adverts for Microsoft. I assume this is free, or just who ‘sponsored’ it. Notice it’s a video, where we can’t find the text in Google. As usual, aimed squarely at the non-techie CEO.”
To put this in perspective, adds the reader: “What Microsoft did with the MS/Novell deal was to buy some credibility. Street cred with the CEOs of the major companies. Look, see Microsoft has to teach ‘open source’ Novell how to work its own software [...] To have Ballmer on the same platform as Ron Hovsepian (you know those two on your front page).” █
