It's another article about MS fighting Linux.
I think you'll find it interesting.
By Stephen ShanklandMicrosoft forms group to counter Linux
update Microsoft is growing more serious in
its efforts to respond to Linux and has
assembled a handful of people to evaluate
Linux the same way the company evaluates
other competitors.
The effort is part of the company's standard
way of assessing competitive threats and
using that information to figure out how to
improve the company's own products,
Microsoft spokespeople said today.
The group includes fewer than 10 people,
the Wall Street Journal reported today, but
Microsoft spokespeople were unable to
confirm the number or say how long the
Linux evaluation effort has been under way.
Linux is changing the rules, said Brian
Behlendorf, a developer of the Apache Web
server software popular on Linux. "I think
they better watch it. I would be doing that if I
were them," he said.
Microsoft isn't to be discounted, though.
Microsoft has "shown it can turn the
company on a dime, as it did with the
Internet a few years back," Behlendorf
added.
While Microsoft's Linux plans may seem a
bit ad-hoc, the company has been
sharpening its focus on the upstart
operating system. For example, the
company funded a controversial study
pitting Windows NT with Linux on computers
serving up files and Web pages and then
publishing a Web page showing the
advantages of NT over Linux.
"It's time for the Linux folks to step up to the
challenge and prove that Linux is capable of
achieving better results than Windows NT
Server," Microsoft says on the Web page.
The software giant has denied Linux is a
threat, which is convenient for its marketing
effort, while acknowledging it's a competitor,
which is convenient for its legal battle with
the Department of Justice.
Though Linux has its fans and detractors,
it's hard to deny that the Unix-like operating
system is changing the computer
landscape. Linux is cheap, particularly given
that companies don't have to pay extra
depending on how many clients will connect
to a Linux server. Many companies are
selling servers tailored for Linux, including
the biggest sellers of servers using
Windows NT: Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Dell
Computer, Compaq Computer. Linux also
stands as a good way to get more use out
of older computers that aren't beefy enough
for other operating systems. And because
its programming instructions are available
for anyone to see, companies can debug or
tune Linux themselves.
Criticism fading
Some standard Linux criticisms are also
fading. It now works better on
multiprocessor machines, round-the-clock
global technical support is emerging, and
HP is helping to set up a site where
companies can hire Linux developers to
write software under a deadline to meet
specific requirements.
Behlendorf said the biggest change in the
playing field isn't so much Linux, but the
arrival of the open-source programming
model--a method Microsoft has been paying
attention to since at least August 1998, the
date of publication of its Halloween
documents.
Microsoft has made vague statements
about releasing parts of its own software as
open source, though not likely as open as
what prevails in the open-source
community.
One example of the company's mindset is
the Microsoft-funded Web server study of
Linux vs. Windows NT by Mindcraft, a lab
that tests software for clients including
Microsoft, Sun Microsystems, SGI, Apple,
and others.
The study found that NT was 2.5 times
faster than Linux at serving up files and 3.7
times faster serving Web pages, but it
provoked outrage among Linux fans on the
Internet who said the NT system had been
tuned for the test but the Linux system
hadn't been.
The Mindcraft test employed Apache, a
popular open-source program adopted by
IBM and others that delivers Web pages to
Internet browsers.
Apache developer Dean Gaudet, however,
acknowledged in a posting to the Linux
kernel mailing list that Apache isn't blazingly
fast. "Apache will never be the fastest Web
server, because that isn't our goal. Our goal
is correctness and usability. Performance at
this level is mostly a marketing gimmick."
Tuning Apache gives only a few percentage
points improvement because of the way it's
designed, with a new computing task called
a "process" being generated for each Web
page delivery.
Behlendorf said that Apache developers are
changing Apache by altering how the
program allocates tasks. The method, called
"multithreading," is expected to give the
software a performance boost, particularly
in serving up complex pages.
Meanwhile, Mindcraft was stung by
accusations that its study found what
Microsoft paid it to find.
Perhaps more significantly, though,
Mindcraft invited "leaders of the Linux
community to participate in a retest of the
Linux and Windows NT Server benchmarks
we published," the company said. "We hope
that they will accept this invitation."
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