By Paul Ferris
A lot of press has been generated surrounding the recent
benchmark
of NT verses Linux by Mindcraft . Everyone is pointing to
technical inaccuracies, but few people seem to be noticing
something rather interesting:
The benchmark is being done on current software and Windows 2000
isn’t even mentioned.
I’d like to add my speculation to the fray of already heated
discussion. If there ever was a king of stall-ware, Microsoft is it. They like to
announce products far in advance of completion while their
competitors are usually shipping functional software, in an attempt
to get people to wait until the Microsoft solution arrives.
But, here you have something different. With these benchmarks
they have risked bringing people’s focus upon Linux and at a rather
precarious time. They must feel that they have just about settled
their case with the Justice Department, otherwise they would be
complaining about Linux and what a blow it is to their competitive
edge.
But they aren’t, they are focusing on NT 4.0 verses Linux 2.2.
Was the Benchmark badly tuned? Without a doubt. But you have to ask
yourself why they are risking becoming Linux’s new advertising
firm, albeit in an unintentional manner, when they are also
promising new technology. The new technology we speak of here is
not of the NT type, but rather actual new technology in the guise
of Windows 2000.
Why do that, when your company policy in the past has been not
to even mention a competitors name?
Why? Because Windows 2000 is shaping up to be a real pig, and it
won’t stand a snowballs chance in a benchmark against an operating
system that runs very nicely on old 386 hardware.
When Windows 2000 ships, benchmarks will be a thing of the past
for Microsoft marketing people. Up to date benchmarks, that is. You
can rest assured that if the Linux community doesn’t somehow give
them a black eye over this, they will point to these results for
years to come. Even when people find that Windows 2000 requires
huge resources and screaming processors to provide adequate
performance.
How long have they touted Windows NT as C2 secure? Is Windows
4.0 certified C2 secure? No. The C2 security rating was only
bestowed upon a
special version of Windows 3.5 running on special hardware with
networking removed. Many people still point to this rating,
even though they should only do it with a nice asterisk by their
face, and scrolling text by their chest running the proper
disclaimer. And while they can argue that NT is C2 secure and run
that disclaimer, I can just as easily argue that in this day and
age if it doesn’t include networking of some kind it’s not an
operating system.
It can only be an act of desperation that has brought them here,
to this crazy snowball fight in the Linux sandstorm. After all, if
you were making klunkers and knew that your next model was going to
be even worse, what to do but race now while there stands even a
minute chance, as opposed to later, when you know you’re going to
lose.
The slogan isn’t “Where do you want to go tomorrow” after all.
It’s “Where do you want to go today”. Maybe that’s the real reason
they are so upset with www.linux.de, and have asked them to
remove the so-called trademark infringement from their web
site. If people ask the latter question, surely the answer won’t be
a Microsoft solution.
“Where do you want to go today” is a registered trademark of
Microsoft Corp.