09.22.10
Crimson Consulting Group Paid by Microsoft to Lie About GNU/Linux
“Analysts sell out – that’s their business model… But they are very concerned that they never look like they are selling out, so that makes them very prickly to work with. [...] “Independent” analyst’s report should be issued, praising your technology and damning the competitors (or ignoring them). “Independent” consultants should write columns and articles, give conference presentations and moderate stacked panels, all on our behalf (and setting them up as experts in the new technology, available for just $200/hour).”
–Microsoft, internal document [PDF]
Summary: Another new example of “independent” consultants being hired to mock GNU/Linux and then cited by Microsoft as “proof” that GNU/Linux is “expensive”
ONCE in a while we pick apart Microsoft’s false advertising or Microsoft's benchmark frauds, the latest of which receives coverage from IDG’s Microsoft-boosting blog. The headline says “Microsoft HPC claim: Windows is cheaper than Linux” and this is sponsored by Microsoft, just like IDG itself (through contracts and advertising):
This “recent research” is a study sponsored by Microsoft and executed by the Crimson Consulting Group, which examines the total cost of an HPC deployment consisting of 250 compute nodes and 1,000 desktop nodes. The study compares Windows HPC Server to two Linux scenarios, one involving Red Hat Enterprise Linux and Platform LSF and the other involving Red Hat Enterprise Linux and DataSynapse GridServer.
They are known to be cheating in benchmarks (see the quote at the bottom). HPC domination by GNU/Linux (Windows has around 1% market share in top supercomputers) is a tough nut crack and Novell does what it can to help Windows in HPC (in dual mode, under the guise of “interop”). Mary Jo Microsoft covers the Microsoft news PR by stating that “[d]espite the Linux-interop message, Microsoft’s foremost competitor in the HPC/supercomputing space remains Linux.” Microsoft is just busy lying about it rather than improve its own proprietary offerings. █
“Microsoft did sponsor the benchmark testing and the NT server was better tuned than the Linux one. Having said that, I must say that I still trust the Windows NT server would have outperformed the Linux one.”
–Windows platform manager, Microsoft South Africa
Reference: Outrage at Microsoft’s independent, yet sponsored NT 4.0/Linux research
twitter said,
September 22, 2010 at 9:11 pm
It is funny how Microsoftites can pretend they are the center of the universe even in places where they have no significant presence. MJF loses style points for the “new and improved” gaff and major substance points for publishing a PR release without consulting an independent expert.
Please, tell me about the super computer needed to run my spreadsheet. Does it have a flight simulator easter egg? Who doing HPC wants their desktop crippled with any version of Windows, let alone Vista 7? Is there anyone with a nice free software desktop that would consider a Microsoft cluster for their real work? What a farce.
Dr. Roy Schestowitz Reply:
September 22nd, 2010 at 9:15 pm
Yes, MJF turned into a PR agent about 2 years ago (distinctly changed her style) and she plays along with the sevenwashing of HPC Server. I did warn as I linked to her.