Microsoft thwarted again

Call it a case of bad karma. As part of Microsoft's crusade to build support for
its Windows operating system in the enterprise, the software giant launched an
anti-Unix Web site with server partner Unisys last week, as part of a campaign
to portray Unix as a complex operating system that unnecessarily ties users to
expensive hardware. 

Such a denigrating tactic would hardly garner much ink on a normal news day,
except for the revelation of the embarrassing fact that the anti-Unix Web site
itself was actually running on Unix software--specifically the Apache Web
server and the FreeBSD operating system, according to a Netcraft query. The
plot grew thicker the next day, when after much negative publicity the
anti-Unix Web site was moved to a Windows 2000 server running Internet
Information Server, Microsoft's Web server, and promptly quit working. 

The whole episode was painfully reminiscent of a similar episode that occurred
two years ago, when a highly placed source within IBM leaked to the press a
lurid story about Microsoft and its use of the AS/400 server. 

Microsoft was unable to migrate to Windows NT from some 23 AS/400s that ran an
ERP system for the company's manufacturing division, and had to revert back to
the AS/400, which, according to the source, was administered remotely via an
application service provider.

LOL,

Jerry