[There's a reason that Yoda is the unofficial mascot of SBS. Size indeed matters not.] Anti Spin Cycle please? - THE OFFICIAL BLOG OF THE SBS DIVA
Wed, Feb 15 2006 19:28 bradley

Anti Spin Cycle please?

When a washer is squeezing out the excess water, it runs a spin cycle.  There are some days I want an anti-spin cycle when it comes to marketing and white papers and what not to squeeze out the fluff and get down to the facts. 

My sister was talking about some software that was being demo'd to them...and it looked wonderful... it could do everything absolutely perfectly....there's only one catch.  Only the company demo'ing the software could afford all the modular parts that made the software do exactly what was being showcased.  No normal firm, especially these days, could afford all the parts that would make it all work.

There are times like today I get tired of the spin cycle.  Today I saw a Linux white paper that compares the TCO prices of Linux to Windows and in their comparison chart calls ISA 2004 a "web server" and includes it in the pricing comparisons.  Uh, nice guys, but ISA 2004 is a firewall and doesn't compare at all to an Apache/Jboss server.  Apache/Jboss normally goes 'behind' a firewall, which is what ISA Server 2004 Enterprise is.  Then on the SBS Faq site , today I noticed it said this in their faq about what's in SBS 2003 R2:  

"SBS 2003 R2 will only include one Windows Server 2003 R2 component and that component is Windows SharePoint Services Service Pack 2. "

Microsoft, come on, give me a break.  I get Windows Sharepoint Services Service Pack 2 on Microsoft Update for heavens sake.  When I can get it on a Sp1 box, and already have it there, call me wacko, but I don't consider that it's something special that's included from the Windows Server 2003 R2 parts.  Furthermore on this Windows 2003 R2 comparison page, it says that Windows 2003 sp1 gets it too.  You know why Linux is going to win the hearts, minds and pocketbooks of businesses?  Because we, John Q. Public are losing trust in you.  Truly, we are.  You are slowing eroding the trust.  And quite frankly stuff like this plays right into that. 

Want to have proof that the paranoia isn't just relegated to the Tinfoil folks?  This very statement was on a listserve the other day in regards to trusting Microsoft Defender Beta 2....

"If we relegate watching and protecting for malware, trojans, adware, spyware and the like to Microsoft, who will be watching them?"

Last summer I was in Chicago for Tech conference and the gentlemen giving the keynote (admittedly using a Mac to give his presentations) said that Microsoft was on the real verge of losing trust by it's customers.

Am I the only one that is getting tired of the spin that I see going on?  I mean there are marketing books on 'how to tell a story'.  Why can't facts sell?  Why don't companies see that facts can be just as powerful as fluff?

You know what John Q. Public really wants (or at least I think so anyway).  They really don't want to have to think about security, they really don't want to think about technology working at all.  They want a TV set or a toaster level of technology.  They don't want to be dependent on a family friend to get their printer working over a two weekend timeframe or be dependent on their 10 year old to take care of their computers.  But they still want to download that music and what not. 

So will a Linux distro or Microsoft be the maker of that TV set or toaster of the future?  The maker of that technology that just works? 

I really don't know.

Right now I'm not sure John Q. Public can trust either one.  Right now the Maytag spin cycle is working overtime in both camps.

Filed under:

# re: Anti Spin Cycle please?

Thursday, February 16, 2006 10:19 AM by Alun Jones

There's an old computing koan that goes something like this:

The master arrived in the computer room and observed that the student was repeatedly toggling the power switch, but the computer failed to boot successfully each time.

"Toggling the power without understanding the nature of the problem will not fix the computer," said the master.

Then the master toggled the power switch, and the computer booted successfully.

I can tell similar stories about security - that you can follow what appears to be the same process as someone else who produces secure software, but your software turns out not to be secure, because you just didn't "get" the idea.

The same is true of marketing. There's stuff to "get", and there's process.

Remember a few years ago, when "viral marketing" was 'discovered'? Viral marketing is nothing more than good old-fashioned "word of mouth", given a new name so that it can be sold as a consulting service. But, just as word of mouth is the cheapest, quickest and best form of marketing, it turns into the worst form if you try to make it happen on its own.

Word of mouth only works if happy customers believe in the products they buy, so much that they can't help but tell everyone about them; it just isn't the same if you pay people to say nice things to their friends and family about your product.

The same is true of the marketing "story". It's about telling a story of how your product has helped, or could help, a 'typical' customer. If the story is a fictional amalgam, but based on reality, the story will help sell - if it's entirely fantasy, smart people will see through it, and feel insulted, as you have.

So, you've run into a marketer who believes that the story is what sells, when in truth it is the product that sells, and the story is merely a means to explain it. A compelling story without a compelling product is a short-term marketing success, at best. A compelling product without a compelling story is not going to take off quickly enough for most companies.

Marketing success - long-term success - comes when a compelling product is teamed with a compelling story.

# re: Anti Spin Cycle please?

Thursday, February 16, 2006 4:26 PM by Amy

See iPOD.
See iPOD sell.
See Zack bob.
See Microsoft scramble.

The success of the iPOD and Google show how, just as Bill Gates has always said, how easy is to take down a giant like Microsoft. I think that they need to quit growing and start making the development groups work together. They've got the world's greatest talent base but we're not seeing them use it lately.

# re: Anti Spin Cycle please? CPAs with Linux can do it their own way! Why not?

Saturday, February 18, 2006 7:02 AM by http://www.eff.org/Privacy/Anonymity/

The only thing that CPAs (tech types) are missing is a way to preserve the domains they hold in the world vs the likes of Intuit.

CPAs of the world could group together, form support behind a distro, or create their own, adopt an accounting system (open source), and then, create a open/proprietary model for the tax related add-ons that requires expensive maintance as the tax tables and tax laws are changing all the time... so natuarally there would be a support fee that a business would pay to their accountant/CPA for this software support...and expense it like one does all other "needed" annual financial advise and tax handing that the CPA does for a business... why let Intuit into the game at all? With Open source, the CPAs could set up their own way of doing things the right way, and pay very little per CPA as a group to get the software working that they would be members of a co-op to develop and control the direction of...! This can not be done with Microsoft as MS is a competitor of Intuit and is competing with CPAs!

It is time that the CPAs determine their own destiny!

Linux will allow this. Open Source will allow this. Someone who is a CPA just has to sell the idea of independence using Open Source Tools (with a mix of service charges for normal tax table and tax software integrated parts support, fees...) to other CPAs and get a national or world-wide group going who endorse the effort to be able to dictate their own futures... vs being subjects of the ever growing software houses who piece by piece are taking business away from the CPAs. Intuit has a payroll service. Yet our accountant recommends Intuit for small business use... but, he groans because they are competing with him with something new all the time it seems.

# re: Anti Spin Cycle please?

Saturday, February 18, 2006 9:20 AM by bradley

I edited off the huge Ubuntu post that I couldn't tell if it was an honest post or an advertisement (spin/spam) for the distro which was what this post was all about.

I have to laugh about CPAs determining their own destiny.

Many/Most/All... don't code. Wouldn't even have a clue. And as disjointed and unorganized CPAs are as a profession, there's no way that we'd be able to agree on anything. You haven't seen the AICPA in action, have you?

Intuit doesn't take business away from me... it gives it to me in the form of messes of accounting because people who buy Quickbooks screw up their bookkeeping.

Myself and other CPAs don't want to do payroll. That's a joke.

Stop with the spin on open source too please?

Give me facts. Give me a working program. And like Alun says when a compelling program works the story tells itself.

The "R2" release is to make SA customers happy. And for most (all?) it's not. That's the reality.

# re: Anti Spin Cycle please?

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 12:38 PM by Whoever

You certainly stirred up the community over at arstechnica with this post. http://arstechnica.com/journals/microsoft.ars/2006/2/20/2931