Summary
Windows is a series of lowest common denominator
operating systems intended for businesses that consider only initial purchase
price and ignore total cost of ownership, reliability, downtime, security,
productivity, or other factors.
“Technically,
Windows NT Server 4.0 is no match for any UNIX operating system, not even the
non-commercial BSDs [FreeBSD, NetBSD, OpenBSD] or Linux.” —Microsoft Windows NT
Server 4.0 versus UNIX
William
Neukom, Microsoft’s senior vice president for law and corporate affairs, told
U.S. District Court Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson on December 15, 1997,
“Windows 95 puts users back with the Flintstones in terms of operating system
function.”
Microsoft
has been running a series of television commercials claiming that Windows 2000
is reliable and that it can be left unattended for days at a time without human
intervention. Windows 2000 is in fact still less reliable and stable than the
least reliable version of UNIX (even the free ones), and will require a full
time maintenance and administration staff, as well as at least a part time
staff or independent consultants for recurring repair work.
Microsoft
has been running a series of television commercials claiming that Windows 2000
is secure and immune from hacker and virus attacks. Windows 2000 is in fact
still less secure than the least secure version of UNIX (even the free ones),
and the Windows family of operating systems (including Windows 2000) is subject
to the greatest number of viruses of any operating system family (more than
10,000 as many viruses as the UNIX family of operating systems).
Microsoft
has been running a series of television commercials claiming that Windows 2000
can easily connect to other systems and that it is easy to merge operations on
separate Windows 2000 systems. Windows 2000 is in fact unable to connect to any
other operating system unless the other operating system provides the
connectivity (UNIX, NetWare, and the Macintosh provide the ability to connect
to Windows). Merging multiple Windows 2000 systems (even just two Windows 2000
systems) is a difficult and time consuming process subject to errors and loss
of data. Some businesses have been unable to get a new Windows 2000 system to
correctly run their business, even after more than a year of direct Microsoft
support.