This was essential: we wanted truly independent, factual information. Novell's Hogan says that Microsoft has often specified the exact system configuration in benchmark tests. For example, in two Veritest studies which compare Windows Server with Linux, Hogan asserts that Veritest fine-tuned the Windows set-up but did not do the same for Linux.
Hogan also claims that Microsoft turned off the Windows 8. He claims the study concludes that upgrading Windows was cheaper than switching to Linux for large enterprises.
But according to Novell, the Yankee Group study also found that the relative TCO of Microsoft and Linux varies according to situation and that the TCO of Linux is considerably lower in, for example, small firms, organisations with customised vertical applications and in "greenfield" sites. The Microsoft chief executive claimed Forrester found that training for IT employees was 15 percent more expensive for Linux than for Windows due to a lack of internal knowledge and a lack of availability of training materials.
But according to Novell's Hogan, the Forrester report also states that the added training costs for Linux are transitory and will reduce as companies gain more experience with the OS. It states that according to the analysts' study the four major Linux distributions have a higher incidence and severity of vulnerabilities, and are slower than Microsoft to provide security updates.
Earlier this summer, Mark Cox from Red Hat's security response team told ZDNet UK that his firm had worked closely with Forrester, and that these findings were flawed because the analyst group had just taken a simple average of the data.
Red Hat fixes issues which other operating systems wouldn't fix, such as temporary file vulnerabilities," said Cox, adding that the report also failed to take into account the severity of the issues.
Novell's Hogan agrees with Cox that the report fails to take into account severity. Hogan also says that the study measured the time to fix a flaw from the time it is made public, which is different for Microsoft and open source.
Microsoft delays making the existence of a flaw known as long as possible, unless your company has signed a special non-disclosure agreement with them," he says. Indemnification In the email, Ballmer wrote that "it is rare for open-source software to provide customers with any indemnification at all.
The response from Red Hat and Novell SuSE executives is that both companies provide indemnification against intellectual property. Red Hat provides a warranty to Red Hat Enterprise Linux customers which guarantees to replace software if there is an intellectual property issue so they can continue using the product without interruption.
It also has a fund which assists companies with any legal expenses associated with litigation related to the development of software under an open-source licence. On top of this it will pay legal defence fees.
Legal Group. Brad Smith will continue as General Counsel with responsibility for law and corporate affairs and will map his team to the new organization. HR Group. Lisa Brummel will lead Human Resources and map her team to the new organization.
As part of these changes, Kurt DelBene will be retiring from Microsoft. Kurt has been a huge part of our success in evolving Office to be a great cloud service, and is a key member of my leadership team. Kurt is a truly amazing leader and a special person. Beginning in , Craig will continue as a consultant through his previously agreed upon departure date at the end of calendar Also at this time, Rick Rashid will step away from running Microsoft Research and move into a new role driving core OS innovation in our operating systems group.
Rick created MSR, the most amazing computer science research institution in the world. We owe him so much for that. He has a great team to assume the mantle, and it is exciting to have Rick return to his roots in OS to help propel us forward. The final piece of the puzzle is how we work together and what characteristics this new Microsoft must embody. There is a process element and a culture element to discuss.
Process wise, each major initiative of the company product or high-value scenario will have a team that spans groups to ensure we succeed against our goals. Our strategy will drive what initiatives we agree and commit to at my staff meetings. Most disciplines and product groups will have a core that delivers key technology or services and then a piece that lines up with the initiatives.
Each major initiative will have a champion who will be a direct report to me or one of my direct reports. We will also have outgrowths on those major initiatives that may involve only a single product group. Certainly, succeeding with mobile devices, Windows, Office and Azure will be foundational. Xbox and Bing will also be key future contributors to financial success. The keys are the following:. In a world of continuous services, the timeframe for product releases, customer interaction and competitive response is dramatically shorter.
As a company, we need to make the right decisions, and make them more quickly, balancing all the customer and business imperatives. Each employee must be able to solve problems more quickly and with more real-time data than in the past. As a global company with literally billions of diverse customers in an accelerating business environment, we must have a clear strategic direction but also empower employees closest to the customer to make decisions in service of the larger mission.
This is tricky in a big company, but it is the key to higher levels of productivity, growth and customer satisfaction.
In our industry, every day brings more challenges and more opportunities than the day before. But we have a unique chance to make the lives of billions of people better in fundamental ways. This should inspire all of us — those who love making products and services, those who love engaging with customers, and those who love planning and running our company in the most effective way possible.
Our leadership team has discussed these cultural aspects a lot and is committed. In my own staff meetings, we are modeling these new characteristics yet also find ourselves occasionally slipping back. One strategy, united together, with great communication, decisiveness and positive energy is the only way to fly. Together, we have created great products and great success, but we all want more.
That means a strategy to deliver a family of devices and services that best enable people for the activities they value most and the enterprise extensions and services that are most valuable to business. A new structure to bring these to market faster. Stronger centralized services so we can be more efficient and effective. Priority focus areas, short and long term. New characteristics of how we work together.
In other words, better execution and innovation through strategy and goal and discipline and engineering coherence. One Microsoft all the time. Across Microsoft, we are facing incredible new opportunities. As devices become further integrated into everyday life, we will have to create new and extraordinary experiences for our customers on these devices. We are going to focus on completely reinventing experiences like creating or viewing a creative document and what it means to communicate socially at home or in meetings at work.
We are going to immerse people in deep entertainment experiences that let them have serious fun in ways so intense and delightful that they will blur the line between reality and fantasy.
And as we develop these new experiences, we will also support our developers with the simplest ways to develop apps or cloud services and integrate with our products. We will help businesses that find themselves in a new world of ever-mounting information to manage that information through greater enterprise information assurance.
We will make these high-value activities priorities in our strategy. We have established an outplacement center in the Puget Sound region and we'll provide outplacement services in many other locations to help you find new jobs. Some of you may find jobs internally. For those who don't, we will also offer severance pay and other benefits.
The decision to eliminate jobs is a very difficult one. Our people are the foundation of everything we have achieved and we place the highest value on the commitment and hard work that you have dedicated to building this company. But we believe these job eliminations are crucial to our ability to adjust the company's cost structure so that we have the resources to drive future profitable growth.
While this is the most challenging economic climate we have ever faced, I want to reiterate my confidence in the strength of our competitive position and soundness of our approach. With these changes in place, I feel confident that we will have the resources we need to continue to invest in long-term computing trends that offer the greatest opportunity to deliver value to our customers and shareholders, benefit to society, and growth for Microsoft.
With our approach to investing for the long term and managing our expenses, I know Microsoft will emerge an even stronger industry leader than it is today. Be respectful, keep it civil and stay on topic. We delete comments that violate our policy , which we encourage you to read. Discussion threads can be closed at any time at our discretion. Ballmer's e-mail to employees regarding layoffs Here is the e-mail that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer sent to employees this morning, as the company announced poor earnings and major layoffs.
CNET News staff.
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