I've just read an interesting interview with Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of platform strategies, that describes plans to compete with Linux.
In this interview he discusses the lessons Microsoft is learning from customer interest in open source and how the company may ultimately respond.
The point that are interesting for me are the answer to these questions:
- Where do you see Linux being successful today? ANSWER: Definitely on the edge. You're just seeing edge services continue, such as firewall, appliances and those types of devices.
- Do you worry that Linux will gain more traction at the edge because of security concerns about Windows?: ANSWER: Security is one of those workloads where Linux is getting traction, partly because we don't have a firewall appliance offering today.
I don't agree totally with Martin, because for me Linux now is not only an edge OS... with security aspects I think it's better then Windows now, and today Linux is more simple to configure, so it could be a good choice also for desktop market.
I agree with Martin about the Open Source Community... I'm a fan of Open Source, but I agree that open source doesn't mean a better level of quality in code.
However, read the entire interview... it's really interesting.
FlexBeta has a new Longhorn Boot Utility ready to use. It will turn your non-bootable Longhorn 4053 ISO into a bootable one.
To do this:
1) Extract the FLEXBETA_BOOT_UTIL.rar file.
2) Navigate to the folder that was extracted.
4) Locate your 4053 ISO (non-bootable) and extract the ISO image into the 4053 folder
5) Run the utility Flexbeta_4053_Boot_Utility.bat
6) Thats it! It will create an ISO Image in the FLEXBETA_BOOT_UTIL (If you didn't name it differently) folder that is bootable. Simply burn the ISO Image to a cd using Nero or a similar burning utility that will burn ISO images.
Microsoft is planning to release a Service Pack for its 2002 and 2003 versions of the .Net Framework and Visual Studio suite in order to insure they will work properly with Windows XP Service Pack (SP) 2. But versions of the .Net Framework and Visual Studio suite that predate 2002 won't be upgraded... Microsoft will work to ensure that these tools continue to function correctly on XP SP2, however the tools may not benefit from enhanced XP SP2 security. Not good! :(
The service pack will include, in addition to the normal bug fixes, a number of new security-enhancing features, including additional memory protection, an updated firewall and better e-mail and browsing controls.