Also, carriers push users to move off legacy nets
Consider corporate apps
Regarding Kevin Tolly’s column, “Does the OS matter anymore?”: I think Tolly missed one very important item in his comparison, and that is availability of corporate applications. My consultative work focuses on the provider healthcare market (specifically mobility and underlying technology infrastructures), and the application vendors really dictate the operating system… both for the core host/servers and the end-user devices.
Also, I could split some hairs with Tolly on the OS X differences and compatibilities with Office and Exchange (as I am both a Windows and Mac OS X user)… but I think he is close.
Darren Crane
General manager, provider services
Daou Systems
Exton, Pa.
Kevin Tolly’s column, “Does the OS matter anymore?” was a Mac promo rather than an explanation of the premise. The OS matters due to the cost of keeping it. Let’s face it, if Microsoft charged $20 to $30 for a reliable upgrade and would always offer an option to retain the previous interface, not many of us would care. The reason the OS matters is because we have been strong-armed into: (1) paying outrageously high upgrade fees for something most of our users just don’t need, (2) paying for support for an unreliable product, and (3) having no way to displace it cost effectively.
The answer is not a Mac (same problem, different logo). The answer is stability and the option to “stay where we are.” Half of the workstations in my office should almost never need to be upgraded.
I am not a “bash Microsoft” guy. I applaud every bit of what they have accomplished. But there is definitely a problem when monopoly is combined with greed.
Unfortunately, my company is an AS400 shop and have become completely spoiled by 100% uptime and 100% backward compatibility. I just hope my AS400 box doesn’t catch whatever is in the Windows server right next to it.
Gary Lavery
Executive vice president
GAF Seelig
Woodside, N.Y.
I enjoyed Kevin Tolly’s column on how the desktop operating system isn’t as big of a deal as it used to be, what with open source software and freeware that makes the desktop compatible with the back end.
My organization is mainly PC based; however, there is a strong Mac contingent within the faculty. Mac OS X has become a great alternative platform to PCs that are constantly barraged by viruses and the like. With Mac OS X’s ability to authenticate against our Active Directory (Entourage 2004 being light-years ahead of the last version of Entourage for Exchange support) and a great cross-platform product like FileMaker, the Macs are a snap to support. Really, there are very few products that require a PC here. In our next round of faculty computer purchases, I expect to see a few more “switchers.”
My desk looks like the bridge of the starship Enterprise. My PowerMac has two displays, one for my Mac stuff, one for Virtual PC (which is really just used for support issues; I use the Mac for everything else). I also have my personal PowerBook and then a Fedora Core 4 box.
Jared Nichols
Technology support specialist: desktop
New England Conservatory
Boston
Showing some backbone
Your article “Carriers push users to move off legacy nets” states: “In the past, customers would use multiple services from one carrier to ensure redundancy. If all traffic is sent over the same backbone, users will not have redundancy. ‘We’ll probably see more customers adopt a multi-carrier strategy as a result of network consolidation,’ Willis says.”
The Layer 2 or 3 MPLS network will be built on top of a dense wavelength division multiplexing and reconfigurable optical add/drop multiplexing Layer 1 and 2 backbone network. This backbone will have redundancy and recovery that should be transparent to the customer. Ask your vendor of choice if that isn’t the case.
The vendor will be real cagey when answering questions about Layer 1 and service level agreements if the Layer 1 network isn’t as described above. If the vendor is not able to give easily understood, written answers, then you should seriously consider going with a different vendor.
Stephen Wyman
Network specialist
Texas Department of Transportation
Austin, Texas
Recovery room
Regarding your “Cool Tools” item on the Averatec 1000 notebook: One more caveat that unfortunately seems to be necessary nowadays is whether or not the laptop comes with recovery software.
I recently purchased an Averatec 3360 EH-1 laptop and while removing it from the box found a curious CD lookalike (actually a square piece of paper) at the bottom of the packaging material. It stated “Looking for Your Instant Recovery Software?” The message went on to explain that they were using a software backup product called Phoenix to perform backup and recovery functions rather than supply traditional recovery or emergency CDs/DVDs.
The only trouble was that two hours after I had started using the machine and found that it worked very well, I wanted to be sure that the backup and restore functions were working, seeing that I had no recovery software. So I followed the directions and began the process but was shortly left with a blinking underscored cursor on a blank screen. After a brief discussion with their tech support and trying a couple of action which they suggested over the phone, I eventually learned that they didn’t even have recovery CDs available to them to ship to me; instead they recommended that the laptop be returned to them to be re-imaged.
I thought that was unacceptable for an otherwise good piece of hardware and asked what they thought of me trying to recovery the operating system by upgrading to Windows XP SP2. They said they wouldn’t recommend it. I was just leery of shipping an otherwise good piece of hardware and losing its use for what would have probably been three to five days at best. I also felt that at that point I had nothing to lose and tried it anyway.
So I used my upgrade copy of Windows XP SP2 and recovered the operating system with a successful upgrade. There must have been enough of the home edition on the HDD to authorize the upgrade. I downloaded the drivers for the 3360 from their Web site and moved on without the supplemental software.
I gotta tell you I love the hardware and think it’s a terrible decision on their part to go this route of no recovery software. I remedied the problem by loading ghost and making my own emergency DVDs using the onboard DVD burner. I tested the reload the following day and it worked like a charm. Good old Symantec!
Please include information on recovery disk availability in your future articles if you can. I’m sure it will make a difference and perhaps the manufacturers will think twice about leaving the software out.
Richard Heise
Glendale, N.Y.
Quality check
Regarding Mark Gibbs’ BackSpin column “Critical thoughts”: I agree that all software does not live up to its claims. However, Gibbs does not get to the heart of the matter: Software is written by people, and people are faulty. Closer to the truth is: The top ranks of every corporation and government are filled by people.
Gibbs writes about the auto industry and their performance and feature improvements, but misses the connection with his point about software: quality. The auto industry never really improved its quality until forced to by competition. And the competition developed quality because they listened to Dr. Edward Deming (an American).
If you study Deming, you find that the U.S. auto industry fought him, so he went overseas by invitation from the U.S. military. Deming taught them his principles and they ate it up. They went from suppliers of junk to the world, to suppliers of quality products that were far superior to the U.S. offerings. When consumers figured this out, things changed.
We are at a point in America were software is purchased even though it is of low quality, because it has the features and performance we desire – and there does not seem to be a competing product of quality. But we are shipping all our coding overseas, and they will learn that all they need to do is take the product and add quality and they will corner the market. They already understand Deming’s principles of quality.
The Big Three automakers are no longer exclusively American; the big software giants of the future will probably not be American, either. It does not have to be this way, but history shows that it will.
Paul Vincent
Supervisor of data processing
New York OTDA-DDD
Albany, N.Y.
Lamentable 3Com
I would have had a good laugh reading your article “3Com quarantines malicious traffic”. Unfortunately, this is not a funny matter for several reasons: because of the investors who lost their money investing in 3Com; because of (former) 3Com customers, who lost a lot of money and trust investing in their solutions; and also because of a thousands of (former) 3Com employees, who once used to be proud being associated with a progressive leading-edge network and security company.
Here is an excerpt from a recent e-mail I received from a (once proud) 3Com employee: “…We’ve gone from a headcount of 16k+ (when I started in here in ’99) to approx. 1,000 folks. Oh my — the morale is so bad. Our once sprawling campus of 5k+ in Santa Clara has been chopped down to 2 (soon to be 1) ‘track suite’ buildings just north of the local Togo’s sandwich shop…”
Interestingly enough, 3Com’s management team that engineered 3Com’s demise into oblivion is still at the helm of this once powerful, but now pitiful company.
I am sure developers of Cisco’s security strategy are all scared from this imminent “competitive threat,” which probably makes as much sense and has as much potential for success as a kindergarten softball team challenging the Boston Red Sox.
Back in 1997, 3Com tried to challenge Cisco and other leading network companies. At that time, 3Com really and truly was the Number 2 networking company with incredible engineering talent and excellent products. Unfortunately, due to gross mismanagement, not too much is left today from what used to be 3Com then. Thus, the company that invented Ethernet lost its leadership even in Ethernet products.
I do have to agree with the article on one point regarding a possible solution for 3Com’s troubles and market position: looks like after losing most of its engineering and development talent and being left with inept, incompetent (but very nicely compensated) management, 3Com finally found what they can do best today — repackage and resell someone else’s products, as they “successfully” do with Huawei. In my humble opinion, if 3Com is serious about being successful in the network or security business, they should not go for Chinese imitations, but rather consider reselling Cisco products.
Eddie Rabinovitch
Upper Saddle River, N.J.
