Is Microsoft Dying?

genXrcist

Making a prediction that the business world will move to Linux in 10 years is the same sort of nonsense as people saying Global Warming is a man-made threat. Weathermen can't predict the weather 10 days out with any sort of dependable accuracy yet they predict Global Warming destruction?

This guy is no different. Chicken little 'Sky is Falling' attitude generates sensationalism and lets the guy feel like he's cool and 'in the know'. Sure, there is a possibility M$ could go bankrupt tomorrow but are you really willing to bank on that? Base your studies and future income/revenue stream on it?

Money does make the world go round and Free doesn't necessarily mean 'better'. Ever hear of 'You get what you Pay For'?

Sepiraph

The real question should be which area of IT you are interested in, after that choose the appropriate technology.

Forsaken_GA

Microsoft isn't going anywhere anytime soon.

But don't be so quick to discount the *x variants. Open Source is making headway into the IT world.

Even if a unix variant ends up gaining huge market share, it won't put microsoft under. Instead, we'll have honest to god competition, and that's a *good* thing all around.

As for myself.. I'm pretty agnostic. My servers are Debian, my workstation is Ubuntu, my laptop is Mac OS and my game box is windows. Everything has it uses.

royal

HeroPsycho

I thought for sure royal was gonna say, "What's Microsoft?"

Turgon

eMeS wrote: »

I think you guys might be missing my point. I don't see any reason why getting the MS skills is not a useful thing, and I don't think that linux is some nail in the coffin for MS. I agree about the promise of linux over the years not being in line with the associated difficulties. Perhaps reading my original response to the OP would help?

However, it's really irrelevant whether it's Linux or Enterprise Nut Sack OS or whatever.

My point is, sometimes disruptive technologies come along, and sometimes large successful companies with strong product lines don't adapt well to the disruptive technologies, and as a result don't survive long.

I do not think that this is what the 'high school' technician was thinking...sounds more like to me he is just a linux bigot....

However, it is entirely within the realm of possibility that any company that is leading the pack is simply a memory in 10 years...

Please be clear what my point is, and also please understand that my example is only one of many; and at one time their products were very common....

MS

No misunderstanding here on my part in terms of the points you were making. I have seen what you have described happen and it will continue to happen.

hypnotoad

I ran linux for the first time circa 1998, and at that time people were saying the same things that we are today -- so here we are, 10 years later, in the same boat...despite the last 10 years being some of the most drastic and important in the industry.

Vogon Poet

You can learn many of the concepts that you will use in other technologies via MS certs. This training could be invaluable for you. Also, you may have to integrate MS into other technologies in the future as well.
Remember that "legacy technologies" does not mean abandoned. I can tell you that the NY DMV is still using Windows NT server.
Also remember that MS does one thing better than most tech companies, they destroy the competition whether they have better products or not.
Futurists are notoriously wrong. As a kid I was told that everyone would have hovercrafts. Still waiting on that one.

genXrcist

Damn Jetsons.....

eMeS

Turgon wrote: »

No misunderstanding here on my part in terms of the points you were making. I have seen what you have described happen and it will continue to happen.

My apologies...I guess I misunderstood you then.

What I think is really funny is that this has in fact already happened to Microsoft once, but they managed to recover.

MS

markk2008

It I'm perfectly honest, I can't see Microsoft going under for a quite a few years yet, they definitely have the biggest market share without a doubt, and I think this network guy has told you wrong information. I do like Linux and think it much more robust than Windows, but I am also looking forward to the release of Windows 7.

blargoe

There are some people that are so anti-Microsoft that it makes them say really stupid things when they are otherwise very credible. Microsoft will be here for a long time.

Forsaken_GA

hypnotoad wrote: »

I ran linux for the first time circa 1998, and at that time people were saying the same things that we are today -- so here we are, 10 years later, in the same boat...despite the last 10 years being some of the most drastic and important in the industry.

I wouldn't say the same boat, the game is changing. When IBM started putting some serious weight behind Linux, that gave everyone a moment of pause. 10 years ago, you could not replace Microsoft in the workplace, the alternatives simply weren't up to snuff.

Now, it's perfectly possible to obtain software packages on open source platforms and deploy free software in the entirety of the enterprise end to end.

However, you still have to account for inertia. It's hard to ignore Microsoft when more people have been exposed to their products than any other OS. The real fight for the home and enterprise desktop is fought in the schools. People naturally gravitate to what they're familiar with. When I was in high school, I was exposed to DOS, Windows for Workgroups, MacOS and BSD (Linux did not yet exist). Today, at least in my area, you'd be hard pressed to find anything other than Windows in a high school. Microsoft understands the drug dealer business model - hook 'em when they're young.

There's a reason they pushed to become the OS for OLTPC after all...

Open Source advocates would be better off applying their efforts to school boards. The kids of today are the CIOs, Directors, and Managers of tomorrow.

UnixGuy

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

I wouldn't say the same boat, the game is changing. When IBM started putting some serious weight behind Linux, that gave everyone a moment of pause. 10 years ago, you could not replace Microsoft in the workplace, the alternatives simply weren't up to snuff.

Now, it's perfectly possible to obtain software packages on open source platforms and deploy free software in the entirety of the enterprise end to end.

However, you still have to account for inertia. It's hard to ignore Microsoft when more people have been exposed to their products than any other OS. The real fight for the home and enterprise desktop is fought in the schools. People naturally gravitate to what they're familiar with. When I was in high school, I was exposed to DOS, Windows for Workgroups, MacOS and BSD (Linux did not yet exist). Today, at least in my area, you'd be hard pressed to find anything other than Windows in a high school. Microsoft understands the drug dealer business model - hook 'em when they're young.

There's a reason they pushed to become the OS for OLTPC after all...

Open Source advocates would be better off applying their efforts to school boards. The kids of today are the CIOs, Directors, and Managers of tomorrow.

I very much agree with your analysis to some extent.

Also, the effort by Novel and Sun is very significant, specially after making Solaris open source.

I've also seen companies who exclusively use Windows for desktops migrating from MS office to Sun's Star Office, which is free and do the exact same jobs on both Solaris and Windows.

Sun has been targeting universities for quite a while now, take a look at this:
Campus Programs - Sun Microsystems

JDMurray

UnixGuy wrote: »

Also, the effort by Novel and Sun is very significant, specially after making Solaris open source.

I've also seen companies who exclusively use Windows for desktops migrating from MS office to Sun's Star Office, which is free and do the exact same jobs on both Solaris and Windows.

And now that it looks like Sun Microsystems will be bought by IBM, none of Sun's products are threatened, but will actually have a better chance of surviving because of the money and support of IBM. In the same way, if Microsoft were to disappear tomorrow, other companies would have purchased Microsoft's assets and attempt to profit from them for many years to come. Very rarely does a commonly-used technology disappear overnight.

RTmarc

markk2008 wrote: »

I do like Linux and think it much more robust than Windows

I, too, like Linux but I don't know if I could make that assertion. Linux has its place but I've yet to encounter anything in that realm that is as powerful -or robust- as Exchange or Active Directory.

sprkymrk

HeroPsycho wrote: »

I thought for sure royal was gonna say, "What's Microsoft?"

Who's royal?

HeroPsycho

markk2008 wrote: »

It I'm perfectly honest, I can't see Microsoft going under for a quite a few years yet, they definitely have the biggest market share without a doubt, and I think this network guy has told you wrong information. I do like Linux and think it much more robust than Windows, but I am also looking forward to the release of Windows 7.

Does it tend to be more reliable provided you strip out what you don't need, etc.? I'd go along with that.

Is it more robust? Depends on what you're meaning by that. I don't see anything compared to the feature set of Active Directory on the linux side when you factor in system management features like Group Policy Objects, etc. GPO's are very powerful, and a robust way to manage system settings, push software, etc.

I don't see any messaging system with the features that Exchange 2007 has.

PowerShell is even making bash users jealous.

Not slamming linux. I love linux for certain applications, and Windows for others. Depends on the application and your needs. But the reality is Windows has typically and likely will typically continue to be more feature rich than linux will, which often adds powerful abilities to the OS and it's surrounding products. But it's a double edged sword because additional features and what not sometimes lead to stability issues, always will lead to higher licensing/technical support costs, and sometimes security issues, too.

RTmarc

HeroPsycho wrote: »

But the reality is Windows has typically and likely will typically continue to be more feature rich than linux will, which often adds powerful abilities to the OS and it's surrounding products. But it's a double edged sword because additional features and what not sometimes lead to stability issues, always will lead to higher licensing/technical support costs, and sometimes security issues, too.

I think that very fact applies across the board. People expect the Windows machines to do everything. People fail to realize that designing a product to do everything is going to leave gaps. It fits directly into the old features vs friendliness vs security paradigm.

UnixGuy

JDMurray wrote: »

And now that it looks like Sun Microsystems will be bought by IBM, none of Sun's products are threatened, but will actually have a better chance of surviving because of the money and support of IBM.

It will be interesting if Sun were bought by IBM, interesting combination of AIX & Solaris.


But actually, I don't see it coming anytime soon. We meet a lot of Sun personnel, and they're really competing with IBM now. Many companies are now buying Sun's new X86/64 machines to run Windows, because of Sun's support and reliability. That was not possible in the past with Sun selling SPARC machines only. Now Sun's X86/X64 machines are very reliable. Also, the Blade Centers, Sun's X8000 blades are selling very well.

Also, Sun is teaming up with VMware, a friend of mine attended a seminar in France, and there was a huge demo of VMware on Sun X4600 and the Sun Storage 6140. So they're really doing very well competing with IBM on X64 machines, Mid range Storage, and on the UNIX side (Solaris 10 is doing extremely well). I saw a lot of installations for Sun Blade centers running VMware

JDMurray wrote: »

Very rarely does a commonly-used technology disappear overnight.

+1 definitely

HeroPsycho

Completely agree, but at the time time, there's something to be said of an OS to be able to do everything a consumer might want.

Imagine buying a car, but you literally had to choose between a car that could not go 65 miles an hour and therefore couldn't be used on an interstate and others that could, but could never ride on a dirt road.

Sure, we have specialty vehicles for offroading, etc., but the vast majority of drivers need a car that can go on residential roads, interstates, smooth dirt roads, gravel, etc.

Even the various linux distros get that. There are general use linux distros like ubuntu vs function specific linux distros like IPCop.

IMO, I think function specific versions of Windows for the desktop is mostly a waste of time. However, function specific OS's for servers makes a lot of sense. Admittedly, Windows is weaker than linux in that regard, but they are getting better with role installations and Server Core.

UnixGuy

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Is it more robust? Depends on what you're meaning by that. I don't see anything compared to the feature set of Active Directory on the linux side when you factor in system management features like Group Policy Objects, etc. GPO's are very powerful, and a robust way to manage system settings, push software, etc.

I don't see any messaging system with the features that Exchange 2007 has.

PowerShell is even making bash users jealous.

Java Enterprise System (earlier known as iPlanet or JES), is outstanding reliability/stability/security/performance/functionality/feature wise. And you get support of course.

Read more here:
Sun Java System - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

And here:
Sun Java Enterprise System



I see it mostly in ISPs and Military installations. US army to be specific.


But there's an extreme downside: It's really complicated. The initial setup is a real pain in the butt, and it's so difficult to find expertise to manage it.

It needs minimal administration once set up properly, but finding the expertise to set it up is really difficult.


Exchange and Active directory are doing very well, and finding expertise is not a problem.

Forsaken_GA

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Is it more robust? Depends on what you're meaning by that. I don't see anything compared to the feature set of Active Directory on the linux side when you factor in system management features like Group Policy Objects, etc. GPO's are very powerful, and a robust way to manage system settings, push software, etc.

It takes a little more effort and know how, but you can lock down a unix based work station pretty well. On the debian side of things, it's a fairly trivial task to setup your own repo's and push software updates and system settings down through that.

I don't see any messaging system with the features that Exchange 2007 has.

Look into zimbra and scalix

Not slamming linux. I love linux for certain applications, and Windows for others. Depends on the application and your needs. But the reality is Windows has typically and likely will typically continue to be more feature rich than linux will, which often adds powerful abilities to the OS and it's surrounding products. But it's a double edged sword because additional features and what not sometimes lead to stability issues, always will lead to higher licensing/technical support costs, and sometimes security issues, too.

I don't know if windows will continue to be more feature rich, it's advantage in that department has been pretty steadily eroding. The only thing I can think of that I absolutely must have windows available for is Visio. I'd be perfectly happy using Dia, but the problem comes when collaborating with other companies who are windows based. But that problem is easily solved by windows running in a VM

netteaser

I use to work for a school district and they had the same perspective, that is the reason they did not want to invest in any certification training. They also went out and replaced all windows workstations with Mac's.

As soon as I got a job as a consultant I was able to see that Microsoft isnt going anywhere for a long while

pwjohnston

Why can't you do both? Personally I think more businesses are going to become more nitrogenous than anything. Servers could go either way, but I think it's difficult to believe that end users are going to use anything other than Windows. They can usually barely run that.

HeroPsycho

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

It takes a little more effort and know how, but you can lock down a unix based work station pretty well. On the debian side of things, it's a fairly trivial task to setup your own repo's and push software updates and system settings down through that.

Look into zimbra and scalix

I don't know if windows will continue to be more feature rich, it's advantage in that department has been pretty steadily eroding. The only thing I can think of that I absolutely must have windows available for is Visio. I'd be perfectly happy using Dia, but the problem comes when collaborating with other companies who are windows based. But that problem is easily solved by windows running in a VM

Precisely my point. It takes more effort and know how. It's harder to push system changes through multiple machines at a time and manage configuration changes with non-Windows systems.

I have looked into zimbra and scalix. Microsoft is already moving into unified communications with VOIP, IM presence, etc. that tie into Exchange, while those are trying to catch up with email and calendaring.

On the office suite side, and believe me it's hard for me to say this because I absolutely positively LOATHED MS Word forever, but with the 2007 editions, there's no way I would even think about using a Microsoft alternative to any of them at this point. I suck at making a document look professional, and I can very easily do that with Word now. Visio rocks, Outlook rocks, PowerPoint rocks, Excel rocks. And I used OpenOffice for years, and wanted it to succeed, but it's just not a competitive product, even for free. Ditto StarOffice.

Add integration into server apps like Sharepoint, which is another product I don't see there being much competition in within linux, and Microsoft again is the feature packed company surrounded with a larger ecosystem of supporting products from archiving to backup/recovery (some third party) that is also unfortunately expensive, and has security issues that sometimes come out of the software being so feature rich.

Forsaken_GA

HeroPsycho wrote: »

Precisely my point. It takes more effort and know how. It's harder to push system changes through multiple machines at a time and manage configuration changes with non-Windows systems.

It's a little more difficult to lock them down, I think it's much easier to push updates and config changes, at least on the debian-based side of things.

I have looked into zimbra and scalix. Microsoft is already moving into unified communications with VOIP, IM presence, etc. that tie into Exchange, while those are trying to catch up with email and calendaring.

Great, got to love creating single points of failure for even more services. I dunno, asterisk works fine for VoIP deployment, if you really want to spend money, Cisco will be happy to take it. Jabber works fine for IM. All of this can also be integrated with LDAP.

As for the rest of it, I'll leave it alone.

All I'll say is that I believe Microsoft isn't going anywhere, anytime soon, but it has nothing to do with their products being superior, and everything to do with their userbase being inoculated and being either unwilling or unable to function with alternatives.

goforthbmerry

The only piece of that advice I would worry about at all is maybe to wait on the Vista cert. It looks like 7 may be released by the end of the year and few businesses are likely to bother moving to Vista. I am not saying that Vista is bad. I use it and I have no problem with it. It just never provided with business with enough reason to pay to switch over. Windows 7 may provide the reason they need with more adaptation of Server 2008. Either way Microsoft will be around for quite some time.

Linux is also very useful. There is no denying this. It is a very valuable skill set to have. Still no reason to ignore Microsoft.

Gundamtdk

FluxCapacitor wrote: »

I met my high school's network technician guy today and I told him that I plan to pursue certifications in Vista and Server 2008 after I complete my MCSA. He told me that it would be a waste of my time because the industry is moving towards linux. He said that in about 10 years Microsoft's control of the market will be gone. Is this true? Should I just abandon my Microsoft studies?

Sounds more like wishful thinking on the tech guys part.

If your going for your Microsoft certification please continue with it.

The majority of the market still uses Microsoft.

Slowhand

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

It's a little more difficult to lock them down, I think it's much easier to push updates and config changes, at least on the debian-based side of things.

I think you're being a little unclear as to why Windows is more difficult to lock down and why Debian is easier to configure. If it is simply because you know Debian better than Windows, that's simply a matter of preference and experience, which you could have with any operating system.

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

Great, got to love creating single points of failure for even more services. I dunno, asterisk works fine for VoIP deployment, if you really want to spend money, Cisco will be happy to take it. Jabber works fine for IM. All of this can also be integrated with LDAP.

A "single point of failure" can be created with anything. If you don't have the sense to provide disaster recovery and some type of failover for a unified system, you deserve to lose your data when your enterprise system goes down. As for Asterisk, it is as difficult to configure and set up as any other VoIP system. The difference between it and something you get from Cisco is that there is a great deal more documentation on Cisco's equipment and you can buy a service contract from them so that the responsibility of fixing bugs and resolving issues doesn't fall solely on your shoulders.

On that note, I do have to give credit where credit is due. Red Hat, along with a few other vendors of Linux, have been doing a great job of providing customer support. When given a choice between using something like Slackware, Debian, Ubuntu, or a product sold by a company like Red Hat or Sun, I'm going to choose one of the latter options for my business needs. I don't want to be stuck with having to work around some software issue or incompabitility on my own when I'm in the middle of a huge project. Microsoft products, like Exchange and Windows Server, come with the same type of deal, you get Microsoft's help with issues that you either cannot resolve or don't have the time to deal with when you're knee-deep in work. Red Hat, especially, have moved in this direction, as has SuSE, and the results for them have been undeniable. I, personally, called up Red Hat with an issue for a former client. The response was that they wrote a patch for the bug I reported, something I would not have been able to do on my own. Without that enterprise-level support, I wouldn't have wanted that software in my enterprise.

Forsaken_GA wrote: »

All I'll say is that I believe Microsoft isn't going anywhere, anytime soon, but it has nothing to do with their products being superior, and everything to do with their userbase being inoculated and being either unwilling or unable to function with alternatives.

Being inoculated with a product, as you call it, happens when you use something for ten or fifteen years without really having a reason to change. For most people, Windows works, as does Word and a lot of other products that Microsoft produces. The same can be said for other vendors, such as Sun. There are developers in my company that swear by Solaris and Sun's development platforms because that's what they've always used, that's what they're used to, and there's been no legitimate reason to drop everything and learn a whole new way of doing things. Just because a good number of people use Microsoft products doesn't make that product bad.