“As the development of Windows 2000 wound down over three years ago, Microsoft was making a transition of another kind: The company’s development focus was moving from delivering technology to delivering solutions that met real customer needs. It sounds like an obvious strategy, but consider the ramifications: In the past, Microsoft would determine what features to include in each revision of its products, deliver as many of those features as it could in the time allotted, and then move any dropped features into the next version.” Read the article at WinSuperSite.
Windows Server 2003: The Road To Gold, Part III: Testing Windows
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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Heh… just installed it, and it still takes 5 seconds to come up with a file type dialog when you click on an unknown file. I thought you couldn’t click in the far bottom left to expand the start button, but this is only in the default install – you need to disable the language bar to fix this. Windows: gets flustered easily
But it looks the same as 2K, and time will tell whether it’s as stable.
Here is yet another report from Paul Thurrott, the Pravda chief correspondent to Redmond.
“with Windows Server 2003, the company has finally fulfilled its long-term goal of supplying products that meet the needs of virtually any type of corporation, large or small.”
Gosh, M$ must have tested their latest OS in every business environment possible, from bakeries up to space centers.
“small- and medium-sized businesses, often demand cutting-edge features as soon as possible.”
Wrong, I know some companies where they’re still running Windows 3.1 on 486 with 16 MB of RAM (unfortunately for them).
“customer will expect this software to just work, and to just work forever.”
Ever heard of MCSE’s and how they spend hours fixing the same glitches over and over again ?
“software as complex as Windows Server 2003, with over 50 million lines of code”.
No federal law oblige software makers to create bloatware.
“Windows Server 2003 would be different, with the Release Candidate 2 (RC2) build considered final”
There are good reasons why it’s called release candidate, in real world language… not in Newspeak.
“there have already been a number of repeat customers, such as Intel, Siemens, Chevron-Texaco, and Continental Airlines”.
I always thought Intel employees were smarter than that. Continental Airlines is in financial trouble, yet they want to spend millions on new software.
“migrating from Exchange 5.5 to Exchange 2003”.
If Windows Server 2003 is so complex, how come it can’t run Exchange 5.5 ?
“After the customer has left, Microsoft keeps an image of their environment, minus any real-world data.”
Is it normal that big corporations bring their real-world data to Microsoft in the first place ? Is there any guarantee that it will effectively be deleted after the customer has left ?
“Any time there was a Windows Server glitch, within 20 minutes there was a person from the product team that showed up from across campus and started digging into the code,” Cornett said.
It doesn’t mean free help will arrive within 20 minutes once the product has been bought and installed in Kentucky, far from Redmond.
“They asked us how much space we needed, so we did the math, and it came to about 1 terabyte (TB)”
So, this Cornett guy feared that Microsoft couldn’t afford 5 200 GB hard drives which cost less than 300 $ apiece. Who is he kidding ?
“With the upgrade to Windows Server 2003, all of the districts’ servers will be dual-processor-capable Dell PowerEdge 2600 machines”.
Of course, Cornett and Logan are spending someone else’s money.
“Logan’s grand plan is to reduce the current collection of 320 Exchange 5.5 servers scattered around the state to just 20 Exchange Titanium Servers”
What will happen to the 320 replaced servers ? Will they be auctioned instead of put to good use with free software ?
“First, each district gets 100 percent matching funds for up to $20 per student per year, so the state matches that, providing a total of $40 per student to spend each year, plus any local funds. That’s a large buying power to provide contracts for hardware and software to get it to as low a cost as possible. We get some really good discounts.”
Are you reading this, all of you who live in Kentucky ? This is how your dough will be spent : subsidize the richest corporation on earth. That’s what Logan calls getting the cheapest hardware and software possible.
In summary, I wonder what makes me more sad : the fact that no matter what expensive stuff and crazy schemes Microsoft
come up with, people will be stupid enough to buy it and defend it; or the fact that taxpayers money is mismanaged in such a blatant way by public servants all over the place ?
As for Paul Thurrott, he sounds more and more like those reporters who used to sing the praise of Comrade Staline no matter what, back when he was still alive.
This setting can change ALL the face off this test!!
David.
Is it really necessary to troll in such large doses?
I don’t even bother to read Paul’s stuff anymore. It’s so blatantly sycophantic that the smell comes across the wires. Yuck.
There is very little objective news or analysis of Microsoft anymore. If you post anything negative about Microsoft, they blackball you. As Paul has a business based on Microsoft’s noblesse oblige, you can guess that Paul will never say anything negative about Microsoft.
Anyhow, thanks for the authentic commentary, Mark. Unfortunately it is up to the citizenry to be the ethical police as the government and media certainly have failed.
haven’t you wondered why Microsoft hasn’t cracked down on winsupersite, ala “You’re using Windows in your name, change it” rampage they went on.
Paul is the Fox News of the information technology world. It is about time some objective, “devils advocate” analysis is done instead of interviews taking place that ask the nice fluffy feel good questions like “how has your year been with such fabulous product launches”.