Is this true? I don't see too many Enterprise shops going "no more windows, exchange, and active directory. its ubuntu, postfix, and ldap all the way!"
Linux certainly has killed commercial unixes, but MS Server products never got popular for web and other areas Linux is traditionally strong in. The fabled year of the linux desktop never happened.
MS still leads with many enterprise products. For all the hand-wringing over surface and bing, MS is swimming in money on the enterprise side.
First it has nearly sealed off the 'cloud' from Microsoft. Sure there is Azure, and you can ask many VPS providers to put Windows into the box, but Linux system images dominate the 'cloud' OS space by a large margin. So a lot of what Microsoft used to sell as 'back office', aka an NT server for a small business running exchange and maybe Access is shifting over to gmail + AWS.
The other place its getting crushed is of course mobile phones. If it weren't for licensing revenues from patents the Android (and Linux kernel) would be doing more financial damage, as it is, the number of 'seats' which run the operating system of choice are running a Linux derivative. We've talked about how this is the 'post PC' era, and it is, and the Post PC, whether it is your Samsung 'smart TV' or your phone, predominantly doesn't pay Microsoft an OS tax.
So revenues that Microsoft used to get for OS installs are now time limited patent licenses.
Improving growth does mean either Microsoft's doing something right and/or the size of this market is increasing. But seeing a growth number this high means you should be very skeptical that cloud products will be able to carry the rest of Microsoft on their back going forward, or successfully challenge market leaders.
http://www.liveside.net/2013/05/06/skydrive-reaches-250-mill...
places Sky Drive in fourth, behind Dropbox, Google Drive, and ICloud....
Admittedly I'm referencing data I read somewhere which I can't find right now, so I'll retract the statement about SkyDrive being the biggest. It is certainly up there though and growing according to this financial report.
Or Hotmail. I don't use Windows, but I use Hotmail and I have some files stashed away on Skydrive. This is stuff I don't access frequently where it's fine to go through the browser to get them.
I even tried it on a Mac, but it needs a case-insensitive filesystem. Amateurs...
But it's more than that, SkyDrive was launched in 2007, DropBox 2008. In classic Microsoft style, they didn't really tell anyone it existed for a few years.
I'll be honest, I don't 'get' dropbox. Their security record means I'll never, ever trust them with anything beyond a lolcat, they don't really have any killer features.
The fact that on Windows SkyDrive offers much better user experience than DropBox, the implementation of JIT-downloading files, the fact it hasn't messed around with ASLR in my web browser.
I gather dropbox is better if you run OSX, but at the end of the day having 1% of windows market is better than 10% of OSX market.
I'm sharing some vacations photos with Windows, Mac, Android, iPhone and Linux users.
The only one lacking a first party client is Linux. There are 3rd party ones serving it.
For simple sharing, it can be done entirely in a web browser. In fact for photo sharing SkyDrives web-based offering is much better than dropbox, from handling of exif/geotags to the whole commenting and such.
Most apps I use, will happily use SkyDrive, DropBox or Google Drive. As a business, why would you ever tie yourself to the fait of one. The 'key risk' is simply to great to be tied entirely to one vendor or platform. It is one of the best arguments for making AppStore Apps multi-platform.
Which brings me back to my original point. SkyDrive has some better features, even if you only use OSX. Both Google Drive and Sky Drive are working on converging the web-app space. When people are just in a browser the word / excel / ppt / etc document editing ability (all free) is considerably better than google docs.
For sharing simple photo album, its much better, especially if you want to share with someone who can edit. It also blurs into almost facebook territory with the comment system too, but has better privacy.
I can't think of one feature in fact that would make think Hmm DropBox is the best for this. As I don't have a mac to compare, combined with my deep loathing of the UX/Design Language of OSX, I have only glanced over the feature sheet. Can't see anything SkyDrive is missing on OSX that dropbox offers.
I think many small businesses are looking at Microsoft's cloud exchange solution to be honest. Works just like exchange (meaning all the mobile devices and apps that expect exchange like outlook still work), isn't expensive, pretty reliable and gives loads of space.
That depends if you're talking about the host OS or the guests. There are plenty of people running Ubuntu instances on Azure.
I think a lot of people outside the corporate world have a hard time understanding the virtues of Microsoft because they work on such a small scale or without Security, Compliance, and Regulation concerns that are requisite in Enterprise Environments.
I'm going to presume from your answer that OpenLDAP is not sufficient then? Certainly Linux systems can use LDAP.
- It's far from consensus that a puppy-like system is the best way to manage the settings of all your computers, including desktops. Linux has plenty of other tools for managing multiple computers, and almost nobody uses only one.
- Really, what was MS thinking when they joined email configuration with the desktop settings management? (And ntp, dhcp, and etc?) AD imposes a lot of restriction on how one must organize his services, and just a tiny minority would be content with something like that on Linux.
- There are plenty of yellow pages solutions that people like more than LDAP.
Selling Exchange licences, what else?
> AD imposes a lot of restriction on how one must organize his services
Preventing machine-profile creep is a big concern for me. Every different kind of machine we deploy is one more different configuration we need to manage.
I think the operative word here is "can." Active Directory allows you to actively reject machines from your network that are not part of the Domain and it can prevent you from extricating a machine from the Domain to circumvent restrictions imposed upon the machine, the user, the location, or any other myriad of configurable factors.
It would surprise me if there was something you couldn't do to on a nix machine that you could do with Active Directory on a Windows based PC but the time and maintenance involved are in no way proportional. The full featured and easy to use tool-chain was what made Microsoft great, and they lost that with overly complicated systems in the 2000s but they seem to be getting back on the right path with Powershell and their Core Server administration tools.
Additionally Active Directory is an LDAP provider so it's relatively easy to integrate nix machines into an AD environment.
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/663402/what-are-the-diffe...
That sort of deployment, where you have say a call center with 1,500 people sitting in front of a PC to look up orders and such on their desk. You can update all of them, make sure none of them can surf outside to random web sites, etc.
It is also useful in a large technology enterprise where you have many developers. (Say a large C# shop of contract coders) because the tools help manage workstation build environments etc. When you are a mixed shop it is less useful.
Basically if all of your IT needs can be met by Microsoft products, they have a good story about how you can deploy them, manage them, and maintain them. There isn't a solid open source equivalent. Part of Google's strategy there is 'Chromebook' since if you're running a bunch of terminals that makes things easier to centrally manage.
If you were going to build something in the FOSS space here it would probably impose some strong limits on customizations in order to work. It would also need a way of disabling 'smart' employees from subverting the system (remember the kids who broke through the restrictions in their school issued ipads?) You have to think in the mindset that your employees are not your friends and may be trying to subvert the system :-) The "ideal" (and I put it in scare quotes because most employees hate it) is a workstation that can only run the tools to do your job, and only browse to sites that help you do your job.
I expect we'll get back to that and there will be a 'soft' network for personal devices which is monitored.
Of course, technically, I can conceptualize that in my own company, I would set up a stock Puppet-based configuration that controlled Debian workstations, build computers, etc. Firewall rules, access rules, login rights, etc - all via puppet.
As much as I'm not a fan of Windows Servers, I understand that they provide a pretty easy, integrated approach. I do wish open source projects would look to that and not think what's available is good enough. People will trade up their Camry for a Lexus, but not willing trade down to a Yaris.
1) although with over 1,000 or 10,000 employees you probably should assume you've hired some damn fools or evil folks - that's just basic numbers
I use FreeBSD with Samba, but I only have 500 at my current site with a mix of iPads, PCs, and OS X.
That's partly because the desktop became more irrelevant, while mobile became more relevant, and linux dominates the mobile market. One could say that the it switched from being about "the year of the linux desktop" to "the year of the linux palmtop", and that already happened.
Of course, depending on your point of view, that may just be double speak to obscure original point, which to varying degrees it most certainly is.
Linux failed in the desktop market thus far, and probably will until someone comes up with an OS that is at least as user friendly as OS X and then actually has the ability to get it into users hands.
I don't, necessarily. Or, more accurately, I used to, then I didn't, and now I don't really care.
I long ago realized there's a sweet spot technology when that technology is used enough to be popular in niches, but not enough that skills in it's use and maintenance are commoditized.
Professionally, this results in more demand for your skills. Personally, this allows you to invest some portion of your identity/personality in your choice, especially if your identity is slightly nonconformist (this isn't necessarily a good thing, but it can feel good).
It's incredible that the enterprise mail market is dominated by MS. How Linux didn't get that is beyond me.
Plus nothing really came along that was a viable alternative to Office. Don't count MS out of tablets yet, Surface falls into line quite well with an Office dominated culture.
The ASUS T100TA is an impressive tablet or mini-laptop based on the new Bay Trail Atoms and will allow many corporate users who are tied to the MS stack to do what they need on a tablet. They run Windows 8, not RT and are start at $350.
http://hothardware.com/Reviews/HandsOn-ASUS-Transformer-Book...
Same kinda true of IBM too, no? Except AFAIK, they don't even have a Linux flavor the claim as their own. I think they're clearly a supporter of Linux, but any marketing I've ever heard from them (admittedly not much), was for their own core products.
Red Hat is indeed a commercial company with a Linux distro as its core product, but, while it may be the most successful "Linux" company, isn't it small potatoes compared to AAPL and MSFT? Most non techie people I know probably wouldn't know what Red Hat is, but I suspect all would know Apple and Microsoft.
Regardless of what it actually is, my point is that I don't believe we will see the kind of overwhelmingly quick adoption of Ubuntu or other flavors of Linux until somebody makes a laptop or desktop computer that runs Ubuntu, does everything a Mac/Windows machine can do (and I mean EVERYTHING...the only reason I'm not running Linux all the time is because the best DAWs and audio plug-ins are for Mac or Windows), and somehow also markets it to be a cool computer to have. That's the only way they're going to beat Apple at this, by being better.
But that's not going to happen. What will happen, I believe, is that over time, more and more people will gravitate to using Linux as they tire of the limited choice offered by Apple, Google and Microsoft. Hopefully, so many will that major software vendors will begin porting their stuff to Linux, at which time it will become more and more obvious for people to be using it. With Steam for Linux and SteamOS based on Linux, we've already seen some trickles of this in action. I think we'll see more gamers gravitate toward Linux when Steam for Linux gets more popular and if that succeeds, other industries will follow suit.
Maybe history will prove me wrong, but I've got a feeling that Valve isn't quite ready to stop batting 1000.
In the past. But now, MS desktop deteriorates and that process will only grow with Linux finally getting more traction. Valve's push for Linux gaming is one of key factors which will reduce MS grip on the desktop.
My wife uses windows because I can't convince her that google docs or openoffice are ok. She just prefers MS Office.
Valve's push may get us better graphic card drivers, but I don't know anyone who uses windows over linux because of that (I know a few people who stubbornly use linux notwithstanding crappy drivers though)
Depends on what you are using them for. I've tried to convince a lot of people that that is the case, and then I wrote a book and found out it isn't actually the case. They are good enough for casual use, they aren't actually good enough for more serious work. Editing in particular is far far superior with Word.
That's why it kind of surprises me that MS sticks its neck out on UX redesigns like the ribbon or eliminating the desktop, since every change gives the core userbase another excuse to try something new. (Even if there are a few good underlying UX ideas, like larger buttons, more prominent placement of common commands, and saving me a Win key before I just start typing to search...)
Granted, I'm not a good representative of the average user.
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/library/ios/documentation/iphone...
Most of us are forced to use outlook, because it is our corporate mail server. It is horrible, but our IT guys don't know anything else. Typiclly IT departments are run by who only know microsoft.
If you ask a source like Yahoo who see's real data, you would know thats not true. If Bing is making an impact Yahoo would not be going out of way to avoid Bing.
CPC is down due to lower CPC's on Mobile. Isn't it public knowledge?
That statement is not borne out by data. Apple’s iPhone revenues and market share have continued to rise since inception. Please remember that Apple was never the biggest phone manufacturer. In the last couple of years, iPhone (and in general, smartphone) growth has mainly come from people switching from feature phones. The rest came at the expense of Symbian, Windows Mobile, and Blackberry. The number of people switching from iPhone to Android is negligible on the whole.
In the last reported quarter by Apple, in which the iPhone offerings were awaiting a refresh, Apple sold 20% more iPhones compared to the same quarter last year. Unit sales reached an all-time high for the June quarter.
Their online division giving Google some heat is all well and good but that Wintel thing is still their bread and butter - alienating all their hardware partners by doing Surface and buying Nokia is a big deal and a great gambit if it works out - but so far its failing and seems desperate. Their position is increasingly precarious.
I don't think they are doomed, I do think they have a very real crisis in leadership and focus.
I guess the more alarming trend is how a lot of tech companies and governments are picking up LTS Ubuntu as a replacement for Windows XP workstations they have had for 10+ years.
I have friends who work in the systems integration space and from their experience they don't see an evidence of this. Was there a number reported anywhere that makes you say this?
Don't know about Amazon but its just a small software company that is known to be stingy to its own people
You're kidding me, right?
In case you didn't bother to read the parent comment, the user was referring to Amazon forcing its users to install Linux instead of Windows.
From what to what? I see a "47% increase", but was that from $100 to $147, or $100,000,000 to $147,000,000?
Their guess was between 900 million and 1.8 billion, or large but they haven't a clue. 47% should be in the ballpark of a few hundred million.
Google is smearing the smartphone market, at the expense of Apple's cash engine, Microsoft is smearing the Search market at the expense of Google's cash engine and Linux is smearing the operating system market at the expense of Microsoft's cash engine. Seems like there is a lot of pressure to diversify.
[1] http://techcrunch.com/2013/10/24/pricing-engine-adwords-bing...