It’s the thing to do since everyone is linking to the page–I just read Microsoft’s new page comparing Windows to Red Hat (www.microsoft.com/windowsserver/compare/compare_linux.mspx). The marketing group at Microsoft does impressive work. They successfully got a large number of article writers and bloggers to keep their name floating on everyone’s mind (myself obviously included).

Nevertheless, if there was a school teaching how to compare products, Microsoft would’ve flunked. The first issue is a basic logical fallacy. You cannot necessarily apply a characteristic of one specific instance to the larger group and claim it to be true of the group as well. I happen to love spicy food, does that mean everyone named Josh loves spicy food? No. Microsoft’s link labeled “Compare Windows to Linux” goes to a page called “Compare Windows to Red Hat” so they’re comparing a specific linux distribution, Red Hat, with Windows but a visitor to the web site has clicked something leading him or her to think that s/he is reading information about Linux in general. Slimy as spam, that is.

The page is arranged like a large grid where the Y axis has a list of criteria on which the products are “compared” in two columns. The first criterion is total cost of ownership. In this criterion, Microsoft mentions Red Hat’s subscription fees for support (again Red Hat, not Linux distributions in general) but doesn’t discuss other costs that one would figure go into calculating total cost of ownership. The explanation glosses over how additional software components can be adopted in the first place, which may not require certain fees that would be present with Microsoft products. Though to its credit, Microsoft provides a report discussing support fees over time. I have not fully read that so I will not comment on it.

The more problematic issue is that when you read Microsoft’s own response to TCO it slants far from an apples-to-apples comparison of what it says about Red Hat. Even though it cites certain prices and issues with Red Hat it doesn’t offer parallel information for Microsoft. In other words, it is not a direct comparison and the reader is left in the dark about how the two actually compete here.

A well-constructed comparison would consistently and systematically compare the alternatives on the same criteria, using the same types of data so that the reader can understand what is similar or dissimilar. Forget that this is a marketing vehicle and forget that this is on Microsoft’s web site, which obviously has a strong interest to publish information biased toward its own products (I don’t mean to imply anything necessarily wrong with that). A critical reader of this comparison however, ought to be suspicious because it is constructed in such a way that it does not permit the reader to actually make a comparison on the terms it purports to. I think Microsoft would have a much more compelling page if it did a proper comparison rather than trying to trick readers with lousy logic and inconsistently responded criteria.

One last thing that interested me (I won’t go over these point-by-point), is at the bottom of the page. Microsoft states that open standards do not equal open source. Actually the page says

“Open Source is a software development and distribution model, which does not equate to how easily the software interoperates with other software or how open or standardized the interfaces are.”

I tend to agree with that characterization. I love that a typically proprietary vendor is saying this when so often I see proprietary software vendors flout their work on open standards as a method of deflecting the fact that their software is not open source. It’s as though they hope the similar sounding terms will stun questioners seeking open source.

Having said that, Microsoft talks about its own products in a way that attempts to make the reader feel the products are designed to be interoperable with everything. Reading carefully, Microsoft is not claiming so much to adhere to open standards as they are claiming that their products work with their own products and their partners’ products. They also mention competitors’ products and “engaging” in standards setting activities. Search news articles about open standards processes and they’ll be rife with commentary about Microsoft tactics at thwarting standards that don’t originate from a place sustaining Microsoft product dominance. Is that how it engages in standards setting activities?

I would argue that while open source doesn’t imply open standards, it could make developing open standards easier, since none of the software is locked behind proprietary secrecy. Rather, free and open source software enables anyone to study it and tinker so that common grounds can be engineered for standards–but then, from the outset, Microsoft also mischaracterizes free.

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Addendum: nice comment from Barbara French, refreshing a good linux.com link to an article about the previous campaign. 

After a lengthy post yesterday about TEC’s internal use of a corporate wiki, I read an announcement today from TWiki about the launch of its enterprise wiki service TWIKI.NET. TWiki is a venerable open source wiki system, with a huge quantity of interesting and useful plugin functionality. The company’s press release says

“TWIKI.NET will provide premium support to a tested, reliable and secure version of TWiki. “We’re adding a professional company to a proven software platform so Fortune 500 companies and organizations of all sizes can feel safe, supported and secure while also accessing the innovation and flexibility of the TWiki solution,” added Beckström.”

Looks like they’re taking one of the common open source business models in hand, providing services to ensure dependability, upgrades, security, features, etc. A few years ago wikis seemed to be the little booth in the corner at trade shows, without a huge amount of people paying attention to why these would be useful in an enterprise context. Persistance seems to be paying off as these wikis continue to mature and gain acceptance, and most seem to be growing from their open source seeds. The list includes SocialText, Atlassian’s Confluence, XWiki, DekiWiki, and a lot of others.

One other thing of note, TWIKI.NET has a page with brief reasons why companies use an enterprise wiki–lots of interesting reasons.

A Computerworld article covers some of the problems (and ends with a few happier notes) about a PeopleSoft (Oracle) ERP implementation taking place in ND’s government and education sectors. Although the state agencies sound generally satisfied, the article focuses on North Dakota University System’s unhapiness with the unexpected massive cost and time overruns for getting their system implemented.

Why did they underestimate the costs, which ballooned from the extra time required for the (still) incomplete implementation? The article suggests the lesson to be learned is never embark on a major project like this without employing a full-time project manager (which, surprisingly it sounds like this implementation lacked from the start). But there is something else to learn from the article:

“The academic software modules, particularly a grants and contracts management application, also did not perform as expected and have required extensive customization, said Laura Glatt, vice chancellor of administrative affairs at the Bismarck-based university system.”

I wonder why they did not expect this? Perhaps their original RFI/RFP was not designed to request that information? Did they script some demonstration scenarios for the vendor to show them how the modules would accomplish the sort of functionality they needed? I’d think there could have been some way to prevent this issue–maybe the ghost of a full-time project manager would have thought of that during the selection and evaluation phases.

It seems that open source ERP provider, Compiere, is prepping itself for a lot of new growth. Today it announced (hot on the heels of bringing in Andre Boisvert as its Chairman of the Board and Chief Business Development Officer) that it would be moving its corporate headquarters to California’s Silicon Valley and at the same time that it secured a nice little VC nest egg of $6 M (USD).

The company’s press release (linked above) has CEO, Janke, stating “…the market’s demand for our product has outgrown our capability to scale the business accordingly.” And then Boisvert mentions that Compiere’s in a good position with its “…modern architecture at a time when many proprietary legacy ERP systems are approaching the end of their intended life cycle.” That sort of growth should keep Compiere’s model vibrant.

In April the company announced seven new implementation partners, which I think bodes well for its business model–a model largely based on second level support and training (in other words supporting its partners). The more partners implementing it the better. The company had a little over forty toward the end of 2004 and now claims more than seventy. Hopefully the additional funding truly will help it scale for those partners’ demands.