[url]http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/cn/20020402/tc_cn/anti_unix_web_site_on_the_fritz_&printer=1[/url]
[b]Anti-Unix Web site on the fritz?[/b]
[i]Tue Apr 2, 6:19 PM ET

Michael Kanellos CNET News.com[/i]

When it comes to Unix (news - web sites), Microsoft and Unisys are suddenly silent.

The two companies launched a [url=http://www.wehavethewayout.com/]Web site[/url] earlier this week seeking to persuade customers to switch from the Unix operating system to Microsoft software. But as of midday Tuesday, the "We have the way out" site displayed either an all-white screen or an "Error 403" authorization message.

Unisys declined to comment on the development. A Microsoft representative, who also pulled up a blank screen when trying to access the site, said the company would look into the matter.

Although it's been around for only a few days, the site has drawn the wrath of Unix and Linux (news - web sites) programmers.

On Monday, [url=http://news.com.com/2100-1001-872266.html]it was revealed[/url] that [b]the site ran on Web servers powered by FreeBSD,[/b] an open-source version of Unix, as well as on the Unix-based Web server Apache. Both pieces of software compete with Microsoft's Windows operating system.

Netcraft, which tracks the software running on various sites, reports that [b]the site switched over to using Microsoft Internet Information Server software on Tuesday, the same day as the outage.[/b] [grenade]

The Web site is just part of Microsoft's renewed [url=http://news.com.com/2100-1001-870805.html]marketing and advertising campaign[/url] to undermine Unix, the operating system at the heart of powerful server lines from rivals Sun Microsystems, IBM and Hewlett-Packard.

Unisys is spending $25 million on the campaign. Microsoft is adding funding of its own but has declined to say how much. Before the Microsoft/Unisys site came up blank, it solicited names and contact information in exchange for research reports on data center trends.

The "We have the way out" campaign describes Unix as an expensive trap. One ad reads: "No wonder Unix makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system. It requires you to pay for expensive experts. It makes you struggle daily with a server environment that's more complex than ever."

I just tried connecting to the server, and it looks like it's running IIS and having problems.  Microsoft screws up twice.z

I just started studing Linux/Unix at school.  According to my teacher(who is quite knowledgable) MicroSoft's Hotmail is also run on Unix(FreeBDS) servers.  He also showed us a sales graph that stated Linux/Unix servers are capturing more and more of companies server markets, something like 30% of all servers sold during 2000 were Linux/Unix servers.

MicroSoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server has many benefits, as does Linux/Unix operating systems.  Linux offers much more flexability of the operating system itself while 2000 A/S has [b]many[/b] more applications overall available for it.  Linux/Unix is alot more reliable.  MicroSoft license fee are very high while Linux/Unix is often quite cheap and technically free.  However, IT tech with complete knowledge of Linux?Unix are rarer than MicroSoft techs.

All in all it's 6 of one and 1/2 dozen of another  IMHO[:)].

For what it's worth I like both systems for differnt reasons.  I also have no problem with what MicroSoft is doing, it called capitalism at it's best.

Sgtar15  

Novell is the superior enterprise network product and Unix/Linux boxes still have more than half of the internet servers. Microsoft crushed Novell with marketing and will do the same to the xnix code based boxes controlled by idiots.

Microsoft makes a fine desktop but Novell makes a better network product hands down. The security issues with IIS make the sane administrator and engineer stick with a Linux or SYIV box.