50 Greatest Network Arguments: What readers are saying

What about Apache vs. Microsoft IIS and Oracle vs. SQL Server?

What about SNMP vs. OSI CMIP? Anyone remember Word vs. WordPerfect? How could you forget Apache vs. Microsoft’s IIS?

All good questions, and just the type we suspected we might get when we put together our package on Networking’s 50 Greatest Arguments. 

Yes, I think we smell sequel and would love to hear more of your suggestions. 

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What about SNMP vs. OSI CMIP? Anyone remember Word vs. WordPerfect? How could you forget Apache vs. Microsoft’s IIS?

All good questions, and just the type we suspected we might get when we put together our package on Networking’s 50 Greatest Arguments. 

Yes, I think we smell sequel and would love to hear more of your suggestions. 

Read more reader-reported stories.

Others made good suggestions such as SQL Server vs. Oracle databases and 100BaseT vs. 100VG AnyLAN.

“Maybe it only seems big to me because I was on the losing side, but VG was first with 100Mbps products and with round-robin access controlled by the switches, VG was deterministic,” one reader wrote. “Unfortunately VG was only half-duplex and lost out in the long run to full-duplex switched 100BaseT.” [Another reader pointed out that TCNS (Thomas Conrad Networking System) was actually 100Mbps before 100VG].

Network World colleague Adam Gaffin chimed in as well, with his suggestion of X.12 vs. UN/EDIFACT. “As a cub technology reporter back in the day, I was amazed at the politics involved in EDI over these two formats -- as in, American trade industry arguing against specifications for defining shipping dates because the UN had defined it, and that was un-American!” he wrote

As of this writing, the argument on our list getting the most readership was the battle between AMD and Intel. We asked readers which side they were on and found in our highly unscientific online poll that 77% of the 376 voters preferred AMD to 20% in Intel’s camp and 3% hanging onto their PowerPC. Jeez, Intel doesn’t do too badly for itself for such a weak following….

Other readers took exception with our depictions of some arguments. For example, regarding our piece on DEC vs. IBM, one reader questioned our statement that "industry acceptance of IP ultimately knocked DEC out."

The reader wrote: “Not all true. By the time IP won, DEC had a very good IP stack. It was DEC's management errors that caused the company to fail. For example, every other OS includes IP. Why not VMS?”

More than half of the 70 or so readers voting in our poll about which side they were on (IBM or DEC) chose DEC.
Underdogs had a good showing across the board in our polls. For example, readers chose Xen (52%) over VMware (40%) and Microsoft’s Viridian (8%). 

Some of our pieces – such as Token Ring vs. Ethernet -- proved nostalgic for readers:

One wrote: “I think my office was one of the last to use TR. My predecessors had seen the usefulness of networked computers early. The first topology implemented was Lantastic. When the office needed to share a T-1 line for Internet connectivity they upgraded to TR, which worked really well during its lifetime. When we purchased a new computer, we'd simply take the TR card out of the old computer and stick it in the new one and we'd be off to the races. What goofed up this Shangri-La was when computer manufacturers stopped making computers with ISA slots.”

One reader pointed out in our piece on the frame relay vs. ATM debate that yes, frame relay outlasted ATM to a certain degree, but emphasized that ATM hasn’t died off: