November 1999

The following letter refers to Tom Keating’s Cc: column in the August issue of CTI�:

By this time, I should be used to the usual gratuitous fawning at anything and everything from Microsoft. But your latest article “evaluating” Windows 2000 surpasses even your normal worshipful attitude towards everything Microsoft. Before you categorize me in the “Oh boy, another Linux-head who hates Microsoft” gang, you should know that I actually have a lot of respect for many of the advances which Microsoft has brought to the computer (and, of course, computer telephony) industry.

Aside from acknowledging the system crash resulting from a completely normal administrative activity, there was nothing even remotely objective in your article; it could easily have been written by Microsoft’s PR department. Example: “I can promise you that within six months of Windows 2000’s release, you will see some novel CTI applications developed using TAPI 3.0. These applications might just transform the CTI industry as we know it!” Oh, really! Exactly what are these applications? How are they going to transform the CTI industry as we know it? Oh, you can’t tell? Then why publish it? This is exactly the kind of manipulation of the trade press for which Microsoft is justly famous, but does your readers, and the industry as a whole, a severe disservice.

One only has to examine the documents in Caldera’s suit against Microsoft to see how these kinds of actions by Microsoft, manipulating a compliant and only-too-anxious-to-please trade press have killed competition in the past. And competition is what drives advancement in the industry. Another example: You cite “an improved kernel mode write protection to prevent system crashes.” To anyone even remotely familiar with any flavor of UNIX, that statement is laughable. What else is the OS supposed to do besides protect areas of memory from being written to incorrectly? UNIX has always had perfect kernel mode write protection since it’s beginnings in 1970!

In the same vein, you laud the “new Kill Process tree” to allow administrators to kill a single process without rebooting the system. WOW! What an achievement! Oh gee, that’s right. Something else that UNIX has been doing perfectly for almost 30 years.

Maybe you should just change the name of your magazine to “CTI for Windows” if you’re not going to even make an attempt at objectivity. You have not even made a first pass at examining Linux, which is changing the nature of the computer industry in the most profound way in years. How about some real journalistic integrity for a change?

-Gerry Gilmore

Tom replies:

The Cc: column to which you refer was a report on the new features of Windows 2000 that, like it or not, will have an impact on the CTI industry. If you recall, I reported on my ability to crash Windows 2000 in just 15 minutes, so I don’t think Microsoft was exactly ecstatic with my honest journalism.

You’re absolutely right about UNIX. It has had a great memory model for many years. And it is true Microsoft took a long time to get its memory model right (assuming the new memory model in Windows 2000 is as good as Microsoft claims). It also took Windows a while to have a decent GUI, which, with the release of Windows 95, made the Macintosh diehards cry foul. Just because a great technology or idea is copied, even if by the much-maligned Microsoft, doesn’t mean the press shouldn’t report on it.

I am no more a Microsoft groupie than a fan of the Spice Girls. As proof of that fact, I have managed a SCO UNIX server in our office for five years. I’ve programmed using Informix 4GL on a UNIX system, as well as managed and programmed on an old Zilog UNIX server. In fact, our accounting system runs on SCO UNIX server, and I was one of the key developers. Our lab has several operating systems installed, including Linux. Next, take a look at a review TMC Labs recently did on a Linux product called CC&T EMIP-1 WAN emulator, and finally our Linux Learning Center at CTI™ EXPO, for which TMC Labs is responsible. I love Linux. I might even write about it in a future column, but that doesn’t mean I’m not going to report on any of Microsoft’s innovations, even if it means drawing the ire of anti-Microsoft contingent.