Yes you have: Windows dominates in the corporate desktop arena, even after 21 years.
No. I'm sorry but popularity is absolutely not empirical evidence. And the desktop is only a fraction of the whole.
To clarify: I was talking overall corporate networks (which are largely client-networks), not data-centres. *nix destroys Windows back-end for reliability and competes cost-wise.
And with thin clients and "the cloud" becoming bigger and bigger slices of the whole pie, it's the back office (data center) that's actually running the show.
(It's a) fact that an average Windows jockey doesn't require as much skill (pay) as a *nix one.
Are you comparing end users to engineers, or Windows engineers to UNIX engineers? If it's the latter, do you have any empirical evidence to support that claim? (If it's the former, it's an apples to oranges comparison.)
That may have been true back when UNIX ran on "big iron" and Windows was starting to make inroads in the market that Novell used to dominate in. I'd be really surprised if it's still that way, with so many Linux experts available today.
It depends on the network; if your back end is relatively small (or run by someone else, as a lot of networks have gone) and 90% of it is comprised of clients, then client TCO is pretty much all that matters.
That has nothing to do with what you quoted from me.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by that; if you mean Windows Server is completely broken, I can't agree.
Windows, just like every operating system, is the platform on which applications are run. It's not an end in itself. Not in a production environment anyway.
If you want examples, one time I was called at home back to work after watching my colleagues work for hours (during working hours) trying to troubleshoot a problem with our one and only Lotus Notes mail server. I tracked the source of the problem to a failed CPU in the SMP machine. In the process I discovered that the Notes process was being started by hand because whoever built the system apparently didn't know why it should have been installed as a Windows Service. Perhaps that person didn't know how to do it. There were several other similar problems with that
system.
In another case I was asked by many end users to "fix Citrix" for them. At the time, my locus of responsibility was limited to the Citrix client software and the networking functions that allowed users outside of the corporate LAN to connect to the Citrix farm. The problem was under the locus of responsibility of the networking department, but neither the FTEs, the 3rd party consultants nor the paid (by us) consultant from the company that built the Citrix farm were competent to administer the Citrix farm or fix what was done wrong. So I was asked by top management to intervene.
Later on, when our organization was negotiating to be acquired by a larger company, I was asked to make sure that a PowerPoint presentation that was to be done on our Citrix farm but operated and shown at the other company's corporate headquarters worked flawlessly. After the acquisition I was offered a job in the networking division and asked to oversee the entire Citrix system.
I don't agree; having administered since WFW 3.11, the only significant change was WinNT; otherwise, it's pretty much the same. The changes are more like patch notes than learning something new.
I mean no offense to you personally, but that statement is precisely what I meant about grossly underestimating the difference between being a user and an engineer.
When you said that you "administered since WFW 3.11", did you mean that you used MOM?
Having worked directly for CIOs almost 20 years...
Again, you're not speaking to what I wrote that you quoted.
May I make a suggestion? Since we're in The Lounge, could we try to avoid making lengthy, point-by-point posts, and keep it at a more conversational level? IMHO this is getting a little too intense. TIA
