Q&A: Gates beefs up Longhorn vision
Published: 29 Oct 2003 10:45 GMT
In the same vein, plenty of CIOs continue to invest in Linux, particularly on the server. Will Longhorn change their thinking? Is that one area where Microsoft will sell Longhorn's management capabilities?
Certainly, that is a huge area we need to advance, and we think all of the operating systems need to do a lot better to build in the management. We have made great progress with Windows. People will be pretty stunned by how far we have come with recent releases. In terms of Linux on the server, it is certainly taking share in the Unix space. There are only two operating systems growing on the server, Windows and Linux.
Departmental-level Windows is the overwhelming thing that people are using, particularly now with Windows 2003 Server. At the central level, there has always been competition between Windows and Unix. As we have gotten our scale richer, we are gaining in those areas. Linux is the Unix to compete with now, so every new release of Windows has to be effective for the problems that people want to solve.
Security is still a major issue for your customers. There were reports last week that some companies were reluctant to enter long-term contracts with Microsoft due to security concerns. What do you tell them about Longhorn that could change their minds?
First of all, I think you are mischaracterising the reports. We have been very focused on helping customers with their security things, and we weren't even out there really touting these enterprise agreements like we normally do, because we have been very focused on helping people with their firewalls and updating. The two big things that stop propagation are software updating and firewall protection. In terms of keeping the update very small and flowing automatically, there is a lot that we need to do.
On the firewall side, we have articulated exactly how we are going to make that easy to audit and do super well. Our challenge is that because of the density of our systems, we have to block propagation, and the two ways to do that are to make sure people are up-to-date or turn on firewalls. So that's where we have a clear path to go through those things with customers in the coming months, to make sure that they are not having these security problems.
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