|
|
Advertise Contact SecurityWatch |
| Articles | Editorials | Reviews | News | InfoSec Directory | Releases | Submit PR |
|
Microsoft & Novell Rumble Over Linux Author: Jeremy C. Wright Saturday, 06 November 2004, 09:48 GMT Novell has responded to Microsoft’s Get the Facts campaign with a ”facts” site of its own. The move follows an Email from Steve Ballmer. While it’s always interesting to watch two equally opinionated groups go at it, particularly over something as fundamental as whether Linux is “worth it”; the current fight is comical at best. Microsoft admittedly put spin on the issue. There are valid points in Microsoft’s campaign, and then there are some laughable ones. However, Novell’s response has been to take this fairly personally. Not that this is unusual for Novell, a company whose latest ad campaign has been based entirely on portraying Microsoft in a negative light. The latest salvo from Novell, though, is a website all about “Facts”. These “facts” are just about as biased, factual and unspun as Microsoft’s. Statements such as “Linux is more secure” are obviously meant to counter Microsoft’s “Windows is more secure” statement. However the fact sheet about security is just as one-sided as Microsoft’s. In response to Microsoft’s claim that “Linux and OSS are just as vulnerable to security attacks and breaches as proprietary platforms”, Novell throws stats which don’t actually compare the two OSs. Likewise, they state a claim that Microsoft never made (i.e.: “The effect of downtime for patch management does not need to be considered when calculating TCO.”) and then refute it. Ironically, it is Novell’s own products that enterprise customers are beginning to turn to in order to do patch management on Windows. And it is the Windows tools that Novell is porting to Linux to make patch management even possible on the open source OS. The end of the article has a recent news announcement on Microsoft’s larger than usual round of patches in October. As is typical of these types of pages, though, Novell doesn’t take into account that most of these patches are 1 security issue in multiple products. Nor does it point out that in the same month its SuSE OS had more than 43 patches issued for its various parts. At the end of the day, any religious war gets messy. Whether Microsoft counters remains to be seen, however one would hope that the bigger kid on the block would be the one to act like the adult. Time will tell. |
Thursday, August 18, 2005 Network Security
GFI MailArchiver for Exchange - Easily archive Exchange Server mail & comply with Sarbanes Oxley - Free evaluation available. Network Security Software - Sponsored by GFI Network Security. Check your website security with Acunetix Web Vulnerability Scanner. Audit your web applications for SQL injection, cross site scripting & more. Download trial! Wireless Security
Press Releases
|
| Copyright © 2000 - 2005 eBCVG IT Security | Affiliates :: RSS feeds :: Privacy |