[ale] OT: Re: posting to Linux mail list

[walter Sams]

Geoffrey has a good reply to the MS marketer

A cattle rancher should not feed the wolves hoping they will leave.  
>From my business perspective, all linux needs to take over the desktop
now is a fax program to compete with winfax.  Once someone is able to
write this and make it available for under 400.00 There will be no need
to buy MS products to run an office.  Then let them show me how they
will save me money instead of bleeding me dry with licensing, upgrades
and support. 

On Fri, 2003-12-19 at 09:53, David Corbin wrote:
> I'm with Geoffrey on this.  MS business policy/strategy is to lock their 
> customers in.  I don't see how telling them what we want is going to convince 
> them to change.   All you're doing is telling them WHERE they should be 
> locking their customers in.
> 
> 
> 
> On Friday 19 December 2003 09:33, Chris Ricker wrote:
> > On Fri, 19 Dec 2003, Geoffrey wrote:
> > > I'll let you know.  I'll give you my perspective.  I personally see
> > > Microsoft as a marketing company that tries to write software.  You'll
> > > not get a lot of pleasant responses from me or, I suspect from this
> > > group.
> >
> > My take is a bit different than yours, Geoffrey. Let the man post his
> > survey and we can tell him what we'd like from Microsoft.
> >
> > What I'd like from MS is true interoperability. Open formats, open
> > standards, open protocols. Changing this would not hurt MS sales, either.
> > The world already has all the MS-only shops it's going to get. For the rest
> > of us in the real world working in multivendor environments, dealing with
> > MS proprietary lockin is extremely expensive and painful, and hurts MS
> > sales in such environments. We actively look for open solutions just
> > because we have to integrate with everything from Windows to Linux to other
> > Unix to mainframes. MS products don't get considered very long with such
> > needs because they're not suitable.
> >
> > later,
> > chris
> >
> > PS In case it's not clear, by open I mean standard, documented, and
> > unencumbered by patents, not necessarily free or open source.
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