October 13, 2004 9:36 PM

LinuxHall presentation

I was presenting the solution of Linux based terminals for Czech Post (~15000 clients) at LinuxHall conference, INVEX computer fair in Brno, CZ.

The most interesting (at least for me) was the presentation by two guys (very similar duo like "Bob and Tom" from TELE TELE show in one Czech TV) from local Microsoft offices. Their presentation started with the fact of comparison of security issues found in Windows 2000 operating system (without database servers, without mail clients, without firewalls, without antivirus etc. ie. completely unusable system) and complete distributions of GNU/Linux operating system (e.g. Debian GNU/Linux with about ~10 mail clients, several database servers etc. ie. completely usable system). Yes, comparing absolute values of issues in both entities, not relative values. And I bet they would count XP SP2 as one fix.

I think this is either: bad communication strategy (read: both presenters were very bad at Microsoft's "school") or the beginning of the end of Microsoft corporation. If lying (read: misrepresenting facts as they want to present them) even before very knowledgeable public is their tactics, they are on the way to loose their customers.

But to be fair, I have to say that I was pleased by the attitude of other Microsoft' employees. Some of them are pretty fair and open and this is what the open-source community values.

Update: and to be completely fair: one Microsoft employee even acknowledged that the presentation misrepresents facts. -----

Posted by Pavel | Permanent link | File under: Work