On Wed, Jul 24, 2002 at 12:54:00PM -0500, ben_b wrote:

> they do about beating big business.  Personally I find advantages and 
> disadvatages to both Microsoft and open source products.  Having been a 
> software developer long enough to remember when it was commonplace to have 
> multiple platforms in any given company I find it nice to be able to write 
> code once (all for WIN32) and know that it will run everywhere in a given 
> company.  Think how much simpler install routines are for the whole WIN32 
> family than they are for the multitude of unixes.  On the other hand I'm a 
> big fan of Apache, having done a lot of web development over the past 
> several years I've come to appreciate Apache much more than IIS.  Anyway, 
> I think it's important to have an open mind and evaluate all aspects of a 
> product/project rather than just knee-jerk rejection of all things 
> Microsoft.
> Ben (getting off the soapbox)
[some snippage]

One of the problems is as follows:

1) Company decides on Exchange
2) Company therefore decided on Outlook
3) Company therefore is locked into Windows, or an outdated version of 
Outlook for MacOS
4) Company is then locked out of using anything else on the desktop without
ditching all the software they bought for the Windows systems, and Outlook,
and Exchange


It /is/ Microsofts business model, tie as many things together with 
proprietary protocols/"standards" and you've just locked a company into
windows by choosing *one* product.

On the other hand, you can use a UNIX variant, and *gasp* they can all
communicate, using standardized protocols, usually without any problem
whatsoever. 

Microsoft interoperates where the dollar value outweighs the lock-them-in
philosophy, and even then they muck with it (email, html, pop3, etc)

-- 
Matthew S. Hallacy                            FUBAR, LART, BOFH Certified
http://www.poptix.net                           GPG public key 0x01938203