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MS's Hilf Named Windows Server Marketer
Posted by
kdawson
on Mon Oct 08, 2007 08:17 PM
from the lengthening-the-lightning-rod dept.
from the lengthening-the-lightning-rod dept.
netbuzz writes "The director of Microsoft's Open Source Lab, Bill Hilf, has added a new duty — general manager of Windows server marketing — to his already established role of shepherding the company's efforts to have open source software peacefully coexist with Microsoft technologies. What the company calls a 'natural evolution' of Hilf's job description may not be considered quite so natural among segments of the open source community that eye every Microsoft move with suspicion if not hostility." Bill Hilf answered Slashdot's questions two years back and sounded quite friendly to OSS; yet at other times he has come off like a hardcore Microsoftie.
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Interviews: Microsoft Linux Lab Manager Responds 541 comments
Bill Hilf, Microsoft's Linux Lab Manager, got his answers to your questions back to us in time to publish them just before the San Francisco LinuxWorld, where he is speaking. Before you ask: Yes, Microsoft PR had a look at his answers before he sent them. So if you have any follow-up questions for Mr. Hilf, please post them below and I'll try to ask at least a few of them in person at LinuxWorld.
[+]
Hilf Claims Free Software Movement Dead 395 comments
moe1975 writes to mention that Bill Hilf has taken a rather aggressive stance with regard to the status of the Free Software movement. With claims like; "The Free Software movement is dead. Linux doesn't exist in 2007. Even Linus has got a job today" it would certainly seem that the next offensive is going to be sponsored by denial. "For the desktop, Hilf sees a new frontier in terms of rich client programming. With more and more services by Amazon, Google, Yahoo and, of course, Microsoft being run as services rather than as software installed locally, it will be up to the desktop to provide richer functionality."
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acronyms (Score:5, Funny)
Ok, I know what MILF stands for, but HILF? You've lost me.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:acronyms (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re: (Score:2)
Crikes, if they had MILFs to market servers, that's what I'd call a service!
Ewwww (Score:2)
It makes sense (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:It makes sense (Score:5, Insightful)
So stop kidding yourselves into thinking Microsoft wants to work with GNU/Linux and OSS. They want it gone and they want everyone using only Microsoft software. There is not half way. There is no interoperability. Those are marketing lies as they continue to find ways to keep customers on their software.
And Bill Hilf is no friend of any OSS by virtue of who he accepted a job from and what that job is. IMO.
LoB
Parent
If at first you don't succeed ... (Score:5, Funny)
> "Bill Hilf, has added a new duty -- general manager of Windows server marketing -- to his already established role of shepherding the company's efforts to have open source software peacefully coexist with Microsoft technologies"
So, let's analyse this. Hilf failed at getting open source software to "peacefully coexist" with Microsoft shite. His "reward" is to take on Windows server marketing - an area where open source beats Microsoft in terms of quality, TCO, initial price, and performance.
So Hilf is being punished, right?
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Hilf didn't fill his MS Linux Lab with all kinds of OSS just because he likes Linux and OSS. It was to find their weaknesses and how to spin that into Microsofts strengths. As h
Re:Lacking in insight? (Score:4, Insightful)
If they really wanted to hear something insightful, they'd get the "enemy camp" in for a truth-fest.
The simple fact is, they don't want to hear the truth, which starts with the average Windows user HATING Microsoft. If you think linux fans are bad, try someone who is forced to use Windows on a daily basis, when they have a Mac at home.
But forget the MacHeads. The average Microsoft customer doesn't use Windows because they like it - they use Windows because it came with their computer. They bought it, they paid for it, they can't return it for a refund, so they're darned well going to use it!
That's the point about unbundling (to bring this back on-topic).
As for Hilf, he doesn't "get" open source. He's the guy who said open source was dead in 2007, because "even Linus is paid to write code" - when in fact, that shows that open source is quite the opposite of dead - its so useful that people are being paid to write code and give it away.
That last scares the sh*t out of Microsoft - that businesses have found it profitable to give away the very stuff that Microsoft charges for.
Hilf doesn't "get" that, so he's not going to be an effective counterweight.
Parent
Embrace, Extetend, Exterminate (Score:5, Insightful)
If you have have a Linux Server and a Heterogeneous or even one Windows client, you have no choice but to run Samba because Windows only talks to Windows.
Now before you go hauling off talking about Kerberos Realm mode:
That mode is completely useless. With Kerberos Realm mode, you have no Domain functionality, your machine is reverted to Workgroup status. No roaming profiles, no policies, no drive mapping scripts. So repeat after me, "Kerberos Realm Mode is fucking Horrible!" and nobody uses it.
Now. So lets say you go the Samba Domain Controller Route. In fact, lets go ideal and say you have someone who really knows what they are doing. Samba Domain Controller With Kerberos, NT4 SP6 Policy Editor Running under Wine, with LDAP Backend, either with OpenLDAP or Fedora DS.
Well.
Your Linux Clients work just fine. They login, get account data out of LDAP, Authenticate with Kerberos, maybe use AFS or Samba with Kerberos Authentication. (That works only for Linux boxen under Samba 3.0)
Your Windows Clients? See a bizzare Hellscape of situations where it looks like its surrounded on all sides by "Windows NT 4.9" Servers that all claim to be primary domain controllers. The Kerberos mode? They ignore that and fall back to NTLMv2. They can't even tell the Kerberos or LDAP Servers are even there. Still pretty decent interoperability.
lets take the reverse.
Well, Windows Servers will run AD, thats all they will do, thats all they have done.
Windows clients, GPO, all that shit. Linux Clients? Well. You can try the "Services For Unix" method with Kerberos and LDAP trick, but its doubtful that will work. Your best chance again, Samba with Winbind. Linux has too reverse engineer everything. Microsoft policy is very is not Embrace, Extend, Exterminate with Windows Servers. Its just Exterminate. To Microsoft, the only good Linux User is a Dead Linux User.
Re: (Score:2)
"If you have have a Linux Server and a Heterogeneous or even one Windows client, you have no choice but to run Samba because Windows only talks to Windows. "
Not quite true. You can always use the modern equivalent of sneakernet - USB keychains or rewriteable dvds - to move data back and forth. A lot better than actually connecting a Windows box to a local network.
Or you can transfer everything through ftp and http.
Heck, there used to be programs out there that would make an ftp connection look like a
Re:Embrace, Extetend, Exterminate (Score:4, Interesting)
Parent
Corporate Musical Chairs (Score:4, Insightful)
All that the person in the job needs to know is their marching orders from where the only real MS strategy comes from: the mutual work of the (real) geniuses in legal and marketing. That's all MS is good at, and all it needs to be good at. They need to know how to talk to the other execs in their job, and the inevitable lawyers from other companies and the government, and marketers from everywhere.
So he's a "server marketer". It means nothing that he's also an "open source exec". All that means is that he's going to meetings about "open source" and "servers", which we already know since MS has a major strategic alliance with Novell over Linux, and Novell just won proof that Unix belongs to Novell, and *nix runs the only competition to MS servers. But I wouldn't expect this guy to know that until he takes the job.
Re: (Score:2)
Of course most execs wont be familiar with every detail of every patch that went out years before they took a project over. This isnt just microsoft, this is any company.
This isnt necessarily a bad thing. Microsoft has had several VPs that were criticized for being too technical and not business/leadership oriented enough. James Allchin comes to mind, brilliant engineer in charge of Vista, look how b
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
What do you know of MS execs? Have you ever even met one directly? I bet not. I have, more than one, and this guy was the Chief Security Officer for the entire MS corporation. What about NYC? Have you ever even been here? Been in a City Council committee meeting, whet
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, I have met MS executives before. They were all technically oriented ones. (I have probably never met the marketing types that you have) No I have not met anyone on the new york city council before. No, I do not work in marketing, I am an engineer. No, I do not work for Microsoft. But really, why should what I do matter? Your entire post is based on speculation about what I do, as though that is actually relevant to the issue at hand here.
The point I am trying
It doesnt need "suspicion" at all ?! (Score:2)
Friendly to OSS? (Score:2)
Slashback: Ballmer calls open source "a cancer" (Score:2)
And now the commercial... (Score:5, Funny)
"We here at Microsoft are taking the cold Linux air out of data rooms by employing more than double the Servers running Windows, to make things warm - and quite pretty I might add - with all these blinking lights. Not just those pale green lights you see on Linux servers, but also the bright red and yellow flashing indicators and those reassuring alarms that let you know you are important and not lazy."
Walking over to the rack he turns back to the camera, "Why use Linux and run everything on a single box and worry about having it fail when you can have the same stuff run on eight computers, like this..."
Motioning to the rack full of blades, "One for the Files, one for the Microsoft license validation and tracking, this one here is for serving web pages, this is half the email service, the other one is to handle the other half, spam and viruses for the first, over here is the one for user authentication, Muti-media on this one... my, what big wires! And this one was provided by the federal government to ensure your security, I'm not quite sure what it does, but it is included free with every installation!"
"Now all that 'technology' looks a whole lot more 'professional' than that one box over there, just think of that big data center with that one box, think of your job with just one box, pretty terrifying isn't it... I bet now you are getting the picture...", Hilf smiles as a toll free number appears on the bottom, "Call us today and our sales rep will tell your boss the 'truth'", winks, "... about Linux and how Microsoft keeps YOU 'competitive'."
kdawson is bad for society. (Score:4, Insightful)
Honestly, sir. Your unending, rigidly-biased McCarthy-esque [wikipedia.org] front-page banter is tiresome and uninteresting, and in no way promotes productive discourse.
Instead, it serves only give you the appearance of being callous and bigoted. And while you may, in fact, be callous and bigoted, the front page of Slashdot is no place in which to display such commentary.
Slashdot, at its tenth year, remains the pinnacle of dispersion for all news matters relating to open source technology, and continues to grow broader in scope of audience by the moment as more and more people become interested this very important concept.
Yet, it is as if you seek to squander that fame, and use it as a means to broadcast your own fallacious shallowness. This quite plainly reflects poorly upon Slashdot as a business unit, but also more significantly upon its own readership. It is nothing but detrimental to the idea of open-source software, and indeed is an affront toward its widespread acceptance.
Please, stop. Every time you say something so thoughtless and misguided, as is occurrent of regular frequency, we all lose a little more credibility.
You are doing us all a tremendous disservice.
Windows Server a failure? (Score:2, Interesting)
Just stating a point.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
What the fuck does this even mean?