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David Overton's Blog » SBS vs Linux - don't take my work for it, listen to Vlad
SBS vs Linux - don't take my work for it, listen to Vlad

Linux... what an emotive word around Microsoft that is!  I used to be a Unix/Linux boy, but there again, I used to be a Mainframe boy, and then a security boy... I have worn too many hats.

I can see the things people like about all of these, but too often the discussion is religious rather than customer centre'd or factual.  Howvever one more factual and yet spoken from the heart can be found at http://www.vladville.com/2006/06/sbs-vs-linux-the-response-from-email-battles.html

Vlad tells it how he sees it.  Rock on.

 

ttfn

David

Posted Mon, Jun 12 2006 6:22 AM by David Overton
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Comments

iQubed wrote re: SBS vs Linux - don't take my work for it, listen to Vlad
on Mon, Jun 12 2006 9:43 AM
As someone who actively supports Linux and SBS 2003, I have to agree with Vlad's main argument and it's essentially the same conclusion I came to when looking at solutions to best serve my small business customers. This convinced me to obtain Small Business Specialist and standardise my offering on SBS 2003.

However, Vlad does make the following point "First and most important thing to understand about Microsoft’s Get The Facts site is that those reports have been paid for by Microsoft and are to a large extent questionable at best and outright false in many respects.".

SBS 2003 has stolen a march on Linux in the small business market because it is a total solution out of the box. I was deploying Novell's SUSE Linux Enterprise Server v9 as file/print server using Samba to Win XP Pro clients (which is a proven stable solution for large scale deployment). The issue becomes when you want to deploy collaboration services and integrate that into Windows Clients using Outlook and manage the whole system. There are Open Source alternatives but in my opinion they are overall unsatisfactory. You would have to go to commercial offerings like Tivoli and Domino Server/Lotus Notes to get similar/better features. However, these are out of the reach of most small business customers and IBM/Novell aren't that interested in the small business market. I say this as an IBM Business Partner.

Dell recently announced that it shipped 25% Linux Servers but most of these were for Unix to Linux migrations and not Windows to Linux migrations. So, the question is whether Microsoft should really worry about Linux at all!!
David Overton wrote re: SBS vs Linux - don't take my work for it, listen to Vlad
on Mon, Jun 12 2006 9:59 AM
Thanks for the comment.  

I know MS paying for the research has been an issue, but I wonder if you would come to the conclusion?  Many love Linux for it's scripting language, but that is at least as good in Windows if you know how to - different in some cases, but very capable. Others love it for it's secuirty, again something that needs managing in both OSs.  I am sure there are times when Linux is a better choice, and this is when your customers should get it, however, too often it is about beliefs rather than facts that these decisions are made.  MS has offered to co-fund some of these reports with people like IBM and OSF, but it appears that some are very wary about such a report, lest it be used against them, so I do have some faith in the reports produced - not to mention that if the likes of Gartner or IDC etc can be bought, why are we not seeing similar reports sponsored by IBM (who is making lots out of open source) saying the opposite?

I do like the simplicity of working with SBS - while not perfect, it really goes an amazing job and the options for the future are great (eg building on WSS, CRM, SQL, Exchange, ISA, .Net etc).

I always welcome open debate on this area as I think Microsoft still has a lot to learn.

Finally, MS wants those Unix -> Linux sales to be Uniz -> Windows, so yes, we still need to worry. And of course, with piracy being >30% in the UK and higher around the world, some researchers (outside of MS and unpaid by us) believe that some of that Linux ship becomes a pirated Windows shipment.

thanks again

David
iQubed wrote re: SBS vs Linux - don't take my work for it, listen to Vlad
on Mon, Jun 12 2006 10:35 AM
It's great to see someone at Microsoft discussing this issue with such openness and honesty, this site is an excellent resource! As true consultants, we need to be able to choose the best solution for our customers and not just be "Windows" or "Linux" people but "Solution Providers". We need to learn from each other's experience and what works best for our customers, we owe it to them.

You're absolutely right about some of the new technology and in particular .NET, which is a real area of innovation for Microsoft. You only have to look at the Mono Project (http://www.mono-project.com/Main_Page), which was started by Miguel de Icaza who started the Open Source Gnome Desktop project (die hard Open Source guys and now working for Novell), who are implementing .NET for Linux and other platforms. This is a great model for how Microsoft should work by making .NET/C# an open standard under the ECMA. I can't wait for Vista and .NET 3.0, which is going to be a seriously powerful platform.

Cheers,

Vijay
Steve Clayton: Esoterica wrote Stack Wars: SBS vs. Linux
on Mon, Jun 12 2006 3:19 PM

David Overton's Blog : SBS vs Linux - don't take my work for it, listen to Vlad.
There is a good discussion...
Stack Wars: SBS vs. Linux | Steve Clayton wrote Stack Wars: SBS vs. Linux | Steve Clayton
on Thu, Mar 17 2016 2:16 AM

Pingback from  Stack Wars: SBS vs. Linux | Steve Clayton

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