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Technology Stocks : How high will Microsoft fly? -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Sir Francis Drake who wrote (22753)	5/16/1999 2:52:00 PM
From: Sir Francis Drake	Respond to of 74651

Mudwrestling Linux vs NT - rematch. Where is Don King? Details inside... maximumpcmag.com <<A controversial prizefight between welterweight Linux and heavyweight NT Server will go to round three and may involve top coaches to groom the OSes. Round one happened when independent lab Mindcraft published test results in April that found NT Server to be several factors faster than Linux in file and web serving. The results caused an immediate uproar in the Linux community, which accused Mindcraft of bias. Microsoft commissioned the test but had no input on the outcome, Mindcraft officials insisted. A second round was staged using tweaks solicited from Linux experts but the results are not being published yet, Mindcraft president Bruce Weiner told Maximum PC. Part of the hold up is that Linux supporters wanted to witness the tests being run. Mindcraft said it can't allow outsiders into its labs because of nondisclosure agreements with its other clients. Neutral ground for the fight was found in the labs of PC Week and the weekly newspaper's technicians will play referee. The tests will also be conducted on a low-end server with a single processor and 256MB of RAM as well as Windows 98. The first and second rounds took place on identical Dell Quad Xeon servers. Weiner said he has invited Linux inventor Linus Torvald, Red Hat officials and other high-profile Linux supporters to tune the test machines and watch the tests. Microsoft is also being invited to tune NT for the match. Mindcraft is out to clear its name and prove all it wants is the truth, Weiner said. The company has received a fair share of hate mail since publishing the first results. That's tapered off as the Linux community learned of Mindcraft's open benchmark. Weiner previously said Linux didn't scale well on the multiprocessor Xeon machine. Since then there have two releases of the Linux kernal which may address those problems, Weiner said. "(The Linux people) are getting everything they've asked," Weiner said. "It's an opportunity for them to show where they are." Weiner said he hasn't heard yet from Linux expert if they'll participate or not but Microsoft NT Server experts will be there. In fact, the Microsoft NT Server crowd has been taunting the Linux camp. "Even though their requests have been met, the Linux community has not officially accepted Mindcraft's offer. Furthermore, RedHat CEO Robert Young's request "to bring a real benchmarking organization to this enterprise, like Ziff-Davis, or the Meta group," has also been met. It's time for the Linux folks to step up to the challenge and prove that Linux is capable of achieving better results than Windows NT Server. After all, this is the real issue," said a post on the NT Server web page. "Unlike Linux, there is an abundance of evidence to support the performance and scalability capabilities of Windows NT Server. To date there is no performance data using industry benchmarks to support the Linux community's claim that Linux performs better than Windows NT Server on server hardware." If the parties agree to the test, it won't be conducted until early June. All we need now is Don King.>>