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Results 41-60 of 69 for Paul Murphy.
OPINION

Microsoft, Open Source and National Security

Two weeks ago, I wondered out loud about the top 10 worst IT business decisions ever made and nominated HP's decision to follow DEC down the road to oblivion for top spot. Today I'd like to suggest that the U.S. Defense Department's continued use of Microsoft's software is likely to top a future lis...

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Sharks, Laziness and Sun’s Gateway to Success

Sometimes bitter humor is the only sensible response to absurd injustice. A few years ago, for example, a lot of frustrated Apple fans were sure that if Steve Jobs walked across San Francisco Bay, the PC press would thunder "Jobs Can't Swim!" Or, more topically, if Sun won a major legal victory agai...

OPINION

The Top 10 List of Worst Business IT Decisions

About a month ago we had some people over for dinner, and the discussion drifted to top-10 lists of the Letterman variety. As part of that conversation, I got challenged to name the top 10 worst IT decisions ever -- something I couldn't do then and still can't do now, which is why I'm asking for you...

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Eight IT Textbooks, 4,031 Pages, 17 Mentions of Linux

Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely t...

McNealy To Bet the Company on ‘Corona’ CPU

The standard chip-making process, based on using lithography to etch circuits in silicon and other materials, has been in use since the mid-1970s, with change expressed mainly in increased manufacturing precision as decreases in the wavelengths used allowed the development of ever smaller components...

OPINION

The Role of Hatred in Decision-Making

Two weeks ago, I wrote a column on LinuxInsider to think out loud about the fundamental differences between Microsoft's operating systems and Unix variants like Linux, Darwin, BSD and Solaris. That drew the usual kinds of responses: Some people said nice things, others critiqued my work, and a lot o...

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

Congress and Protectionism: Outsourcing Your Job

One way or another, anti-outsourcing legislation seems likely to pass both houses of the U.S. Congress relatively soon. Whether this comes about through the House initiative led by Bernard Sanders or through other routes isn't important. What is important is that most of the proposals being discusse...

OPINION

What Differentiates Linux from Windows?

What really are the most fundamental differences between Windows variants like 2003/XP and Unix variants like Linux? From a practical perspective, cost is an obvious differentiator, as are access to source and the ability to run outside the Intel processor environment. But it's possible to argue tha...

OPINION

Meet Tomorrow’s Venture Capitalists

Want to know why most business analysts and venture capitalists simply don't get it with respect to Unix? Take a look at the computer books they study while working toward their MBA, financial analysis certificate or accounting designation, and you'll understand that their ignorance isn't entirely t...

INDUSTRY ANALYSIS

The Money Bet: Solaris on Sparc

I've been puzzled by Sun's Linux strategy for a long time. On the software side, things make sense: Linux is Unix, so supporting Linux in the short term brings new value to Solaris in the long term. On the hardware side, however, I couldn't see any logical reason for Sun to sell x86 boxes until just...

OPINION

Fighting Outsourcing with Unix and Strategic IT

One of the unfortunate realities of the Wintel monoculture is that expectations are set mainly by ads, the Sunday supplements and stereotypes like TV character Marshall, the supertech on the show Alias. But delivery is constrained by reality. As a result, the Microsoft Certified Systems Engin...

OPINION

What Does Linux Cost?

Microsoft's Get the Facts site, which I discussed in my LinuxInsider column last week, "Getting the Facts About Windows and Linux," makes the case that Windows is cheaper than Linux. The site includes a contribution from Meta Group dedicated to the proposition that the combination of Linux plus a da...

OPINION

Getting the Facts About Windows and Linux

If you read a report sponsored by the Flat Earth Society in which an independent research organization found the world to be flat, would you believe it? I'd guess not, but any reputable research organization hired to survey the society's membership on the question would have to come to that conclusi...

OPINION

Software Vulnerabilities and the Future of Liability Reform

If you were to make up your own list of the top 10 issues likely to affect computing over the next five to 10 years, would you include liability reform in the American legal system? I think you should, even if you live, as I do, in Canada or some other country where American law doesn't apply direct...

OPINION

Wintel Doesn’t Matter: Gaining Strategic Advantage with Linux

The publication in the Harvard Business Review of an article by Nicholas Carr titled "IT Doesn't Matter" raised much controversy. Carr's fundamental argument is that every widely used business technology conferred significant strategic advantage on early adopters but lost that potency as it m...

OPINION

Technical Change, Humiliation and the Macintosh

A few years ago, the only IT system I wasn't responsible for at a multimillion-dollar company consisted of a SCO server with an ancient accounting application maintained by the remaining representative of the company that had originally sold it. At the time, I thought old Vitki (not his real name) w...

OPINION

Toronto’s IT Fiasco: Repeating the Past Again

The people who run Toronto's municipal IT infrastructure have managed to ground themselves so securely between rocks and hard places that they're about to charge the taxpayer another hundred million or so to bail them out. It really is too bad, but Toronto's not exactly beloved by the rest of the co...

OPINION

Bill Gates and the Asteroids of Doom

I've been thinking a lot lately about the future of computing -- and that, of course, has to include Microsoft's future. Microsoft's own vision of its future seems clear. The company sees a transition to a secure Windows OS environment, continuing strength in Office and server applications, and deve...

OPINION

Sun’s Desktop Selection Guide and Pusillanimous Counsel

The word "pusillanimous" is normally used to label actions judged to reflect a lack of moral courage on the part of the person taking the action. Thus people who can be rather easily pressured to undertake actions contrary to their own beliefs are often said to be pusillanimous, cowardly or weak-spi...

OPINION

An Open Letter to Darl McBride

Dear Mr. McBride: I guess push is coming to shove, huh? You finally got a court to order release of the AT&T code, so things are coming together a bit on that end. It's an important legal step, and one I'm sure you'll be glad to get over with, despite the crowing going on among those who see it ...

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