On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Anthony Hess wrote: [...]
I don't think Ive seen that - I think people are fairly critical of Microsoft in the tech press.
The press seems to get softer each quarter and have exceptionally short memories. Partially is that there are so many problems that people get jaded.
Their software is certainly a lot better than it was in the 90s - even if most of the features aren't ones that will be used by people or aren't particularly innovative.
The direct comparisons between OOo and MSO are good. Comparing MS products only to earlier versions of the same or similar MS product is part of the MS marketing strategy, there are some improvements and a few new problems. However, comparing these to non-MS products, with the exception of early versions of MS-Word, they have lagged behind and are slowing down. Scalability, robustness, interoperability and performance all tend to be at the bottom of the heap.
MS-DOS < DR-DOS
MSIE < Mozilla | Opera
AD < NDS | eDirectory
MS server < Samba | Netware | AFS
IIS < Apache | Zeus
MSO < OOo
MS-Frontpage < XMetal | Dreamweaver
MS-SQL < Postresql | MySQL | Oracle
NT4,NT4, NT5.5 kernel < Linux | BSD | QNX | Darwin
MS-Windows < Fluxbox | KDE
etc.There's more to using computers than having a check list of functions, those functions actually have to work. That's why Hotmail still has to run on BSD.
I don't think anyone can deny that Windows XP is a far better OS in a number of ways than Windows 98
Yes, but it's still neither modular nor multi-user nor designed for a networked environment. It also won't run on an older computer. It's still got the NT kernel, which lags behind the Linux and BSD kernels in about every aspect. The graphical shell is only tied with KDE as far as usability, and lags decades behind in functionality and flexibility. OS X has both beaten by a long shot on usability, functionality, and flexibility. Aside from fiddling with the metrics of how issues are dealt with, security has not really been addressed. It is still a major problem for XP and is not even on the same playing field as Linux, BSD or OS X.
was, same goes for Exchange 2003 versus say 5,
MS Exchange is an interesting study in cognitive dissonance. It is sold as a calendar, used in place of a mail server and seems intended to tie all the desktops to MS-Windows via MS-Outlook. Everytime, I've checked out the situation I've found that it does not communicate well (sometimes not at all) with regular mail servers or mail clients or web browsers. I studied one site I was at, and found that it lost 15% of the mail during a two week test period. Apparently 5% - 10% lost mail is the norm. Other problems inlcude false bounces and sending delays of many hours. Uptime was measured in hours. Sendmail, postfix and exim, however, work like a charm with *very* little maintenance. Other places I've visited or consulted that use MS-Exchange appear afflicted with the same issues, enough to be visible to an outsider like me, but I have not made any further studies. MS-Exchange is to e-mail like a cardboard kayak is to white water IMHO.
So far, MSO has metastasized the least, probably because it has been two platform and the upgrade cycle has been tied to the file format. Anyone not yet tied into the use of MS' DRM stil can drop MSO in favor of OOo. But the fileformat for MSO 2003 looks to make that more difficult.
There are many home users and businesses still on MS-Windows 98 though NT4 who would have the least difficulty to pick up OOo and gain a few useful years out of their hardware.
I'm not sure why I'm so verbose today.
-Lars
Lars Nooden ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
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