A few days ago I read from Singapore Entrepreneurs that the Singapore PHP User Group is holding their monthly meeting next week.
That in itself is unremarkable. But you know what is interesting?
The venue.
The meeting is being held at Microsoft Singapore’s offices on the 22nd floor of the NTUC Centre. And it’s not the case where a member’s brother or spouse or house mate is working at Microsoft and is just booking a conference room after hours as a favor or convenience to the user group.
No - this appears to be at least a partially Microsoft-sponsored event. How do I know? Well, refreshments are provided and sponsored by… you guessed it. Microsoft.
And this is not a one-off thing either. I have seen notices for similar open source community gatherings held at Microsoft premises before.
Look through the agenda - none of the talks involve any Microsoft software or solution. Yahoo merger or not, proliferating the use of PHP (or Ruby on Rails, or Apache, or whatever) will likely not generate one single cent of revenue for Microsoft. So why is Microsoft doing this?
I believe it’s pretty obvious - it’s for PR and community goodwill.
Now, Microsoft has had more than its fair share of detractors over the years. However, one thing that Microsoft is genius at is to mitigate that by investing and reaching out to the very same communities which may have a beef with Microsoft.
This willingness to invest resources and money into PR with no immediate ascertainable ROI distinguishes them from many other companies in the IT industry today. Well, and the fact that Microsoft is swimming in cash from its few cash cows doesn’t hurt either. 
See Also:
- 5 Reasons Why Microsoft’s New Seinfeld Commercials Don’t Suck
- I’m a PC. How About You?
- Veoh’s Short-Sighted Strategy: Alienate 83% of World
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Hi Jon !
Now then you notice that! There has been lots of developer evangelism in MS for a long time. Thanks to the DPE team. Unlike other companies who only value their own programming languages, MS value the developers themselves and provides the best environment and platform for running any language (so that they remain best at whatever language they know).
Like I said previously, even JAVA runs best on Windows !
Yup ! You can run PHP/MySQL (any many many other open source stuff) in super turbo speed on IIS/Windows Server.
-
FG
http://www.microsoft.com/opensource
http://www.codeplex.com/
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsserver2008
http://www.iis.net/
Actually, based on the JBB2005 numbers that you published in your blog, Java runs best on IBM System p running AIX and/or Linux. But who’s counting anyways?
The problem with p-Series is that they are not affordable commodity servers or blades.
Note that NONE of the other hardware uses HW Threading…
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/hardware/entry/index.html
P 550 _Starting_ at $13,840 (IBM US list price)
Compared to x3650… Even if I MAX out the specs, it is still cheaper than any p-series at $5,409.00 !!!!
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/hardware/rack/x3650/index.html
Nice try IBM… If you take into consideration the COST…2 p-Series, 1 i-Series will probably costs more than the _16_ Windows Servers machines in the JBB2005 benchmark put together.
;-P
You must realize that people don’t willingly fork over $13K for a System p server just for it’s ability to run Java, right?
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/p/hardware/entry/550/features.html
Of course, things like virtualization, logical partitions, and shared processor pools are foreign concepts in the Windows world until only very recently.
In such a case, you are _not_ comparing Apples with Apples.
In fact you are comparing Hardware with Software, which is way off the mark.
The Windows world runs on x86 (in fact ANY x86 32/64bit hardware from ANY vendor) and squeeze out every ounce of performance out of the affordable hardware which meets probably a huge majority of the users out there.
Windows Server now provides those features mentioned at the same _affordable_ price when the Hardware is ready to support them.
It is like any technology, when it is first released, it is Expensive and probably not too Useable (SDCards, Thumbdrives, SATA Drives, MP3 Players, etc…).
If p-series’ virtualization, logical partitions and shared processor pools are so fantastic (and affordable), it would have dominated the world long ago right? Hmm apparently not and perhaps never.
Oh wait… Sun Microsystems pioneered some of those technologies too… Sun did not dominate the world in any case. Perhaps IBM should buy Sun to save Jonathan Schwartz’s skin.
Well, no matter how it’s spun, the fact remains that the best published results for JBB2005 happened on a System p server running either AIX or Linux. If any Windows configuration could top that (incl. IBM System x), don’t you think it would’ve been published?
And if Windows Server is so awesome, how come it has over the last decade allowed Unix and gasp… free Linux to carve such a big piece out of the server OS pie? I mean, Windows is a virtual monopoly on the desktop, but how come that doesn’t translate to the server side?
Could it be because of reliability? One *independent* analyst report in 2008 shows that Windows Server 2003 incurs 9 hours of downtime per server per year, which is actually 25% worse than the previous year’s published results.
Oh, and by the way, AIX led the pack with only 36 minutes of downtime per server per year, with various Linux flavors somewhere in the middle of the pack.
http://www.iaps.com/2008-server-reliability-survey.html
Performance is no use unless your server is reliable, my friend. Thank goodness System p has both. If you are a CIO who needs to run mission critical applications, could you justify the $13K now?
If IBM p-Series are so great…I find it strange that IBM is NOT the number 1 for Linux revenue or units.
Opps. HP is #1
_2008_
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/ERC/cache/107846-0-0-0-121.html?ERL=true
_2007_
http://h71028.www7.hp.com/enterprise/cache/107846-0-0-155-121.html?ERL=true
Secondly I don’t see any news that Linux or AIX overtaking the Server Market Share anywhere. I wonder who is the Dominant Server OS?
I think I know.
I think I know why… Customers VOTE with their MONEY !!!
And IBM is basically too damn expensive in all categories Software/Hardware/Services !
QED.
HP makes decent servers and has a healthy market share, just like IBM. There is no shame in that. The enterprise server market is big enough for more than one player, just like enterprise software.
If I’m a SMB customer running a tiny Intranet using SharePoint Services for 37 users (the max that it can scale to without needing to install SQL server), then yeah, Windows OS is good enough for me.
But like I mentioned, any mission-critical data centre running systems that absolutely must not fail will likely run Linux or some kind of UNIX flavor like AIX, HP-UX, or Solaris. Windows Server simply is not reliable enough. ROI is easily justifiable in this case for purchasing “expensive” IBM hardware, cause the CIO knows very well that every single last cent is worth it.
There are many more customers that fall in the former category than the latter, so I’m also not surprised about the overall server market share.
The SMB IT Manager doesn’t care if their tiny Intranet goes down for 9 hours during the year, but you can bet the CIO of the Fortune 100 bank definitely does.
So the two facts still remain undisputed:
1. When it comes to Java performance, the highest performing systems are documented to be on IBM hardware and UNIX-variant operating systems like AIX.
2. When it comes to reliability, Windows Server is the worst among the bunch - yes, even behind the Solaris OS you loathe so much.
And you can be sure Fortune 100 CIOs know these two facts, and vote with their money accordingly.
Game, set and match.
Your statement…
“But like I mentioned, any mission-critical data centre running systems that absolutely must not fail will likely run Linux or some kind of UNIX flavor like AIX, HP-UX, or Solaris. Windows Server simply is not reliable enough.”
Very interesting… I wonder why so many companies running mission-critical data centers are still using Windows Server ?
Can you tell me how many Fortune 100 companies are _NOT_ using Windows Server ?
I wonder why Sun Microsystem is supporting Windows Server ? Especially since they have their own Solaris ?
If AIX is so good. Why is it not supporting its own X-Series ?
http://www-03.ibm.com/systems/x/os/index.html
Why is IBM supporting Solaris on X-Series… and not AIX ? If AIX is supposedly more robust than Solaris..
Haha… you don’t give up, do you?
Fortune 100 companies with mission-critical data centers also have departmental Intranets and other non-critical systems. I’m sure Windows Server is more than acceptable there and is being deployed in that capacity. But I’ve spoken to enough banking customers who won’t even breath the word “Windows” if they are deploying a critical high-volume banking or trading application.
Sun supports Windows Server because they are in the business of selling servers. Commoditize the operating systems you support, and demand for boxes increase. Simple economics, my friend.
And finally, let’s play word swap!
If *Exchange 2007* is so good. Why is it not supporting its own *32-bit Windows Server* ?
Why is *Microsoft* supporting *Exchange 2003* on *32-bit Windows Server* … and not *Exchange 2007* ? If *Exchange 2007* is supposedly more robust than *Exchange 2003* …
Commercial Practicality
64-bit is prevalent on Server class hardware.
64-bit x86 is a standard.
You can run both 32-bit & 64-bit on the same 64-bit x86 Server too.
Is IBM selling any pure 32-bit Server class hardware now? You know now…
Money votes.
-FG via WM6
There you go! So you answered your own question then. It’s all about commercial practicality.
If a Fortune 100 CIO needs the reliability and system flexibility that AIX provides, they are willing to put in the investment for higher-end System p hardware.
Just like Microsoft’s company line is that there is no reasonable market for running Exchange 2007 on 32-bit x86 (forget upgrading… just rip and replace!), IBM also feels that there is no reasonable market for AIX on lower-end System x series.
And based on the healthy revenues that System p generates for IBM, yup, I would say that money votes.