Microsoft Campaign Against Unix Uses Site Running on Unix --- Company Calls Windows Rival `Inflexible,' but Key Partner Relies on the Software By Lee Gomes,04/01/2002, The Wall Street Journal A Web site funded by Microsoft Corp. urging businesses to avoid the Unix operating system is itself running on Unix, the latest example of Microsoft benefiting from the competitive software even while criticizing it. The site is connected with a new advertising campaign called "We Have The Way Out" that is co-sponsored by Unisys Corp. and Microsoft. The purpose of the campaign is to persuade corporate computing customers to use computers running Microsoft's Windows operating system instead of Unix, a rival operating system. Ads associated with the campaign say Unix "makes you feel boxed in. It ties you to an inflexible system. It requires you to pay for expensive experts." But the Web site that is part of the campaign doesn't use Windows for its operations. Instead, it uses a free "open source" version of Unix called FreeBSD, along with another piece of free software called the "Apache" Web server. Both products compete with Microsoft offerings, and both are extremely popular on Internet sites. A Microsoft spokesman declined to comment. A spokesman for Unisys, which is taking the lead in the campaign, said the Web site had been set up outside of the company by a third-party Internet-service provider. The fact that a Web site used by a key Microsoft partner would itself be relying on Unix highlights the predicament Microsoft is in as it tries to expand the dominion of its Windows products. Unix, especially the free open-source versions such as Linux and FreeBSD, are the biggest obstacles to Microsoft's expansion plans, and the company mounts periodic campaigns against the software. Last year, for example, Microsoft embarked on a public-relations campaign trying to convince businesses that open-source software could jeopardize their intellectual property, because of the licensing requirements associated with the software. But that campaign was undercut by the disclosure that Microsoft itself has been a user of various forms of open-source software, including inside its huge Hotmail messaging service. There are a number of standard Internet tools that can be used to determine what operating system a Web site is running; the site www.netcraft.com also provides the information for many sites. The fact that the Microsoft-Unisys site is running on Unix was discovered by Mark Fromm, a Unix system administrator at a Kirkland, Wash., medical-device company. Mr. Fromm, an ardent fan of Unix, said he was bothered by the statements being made in the anti-Unix campaign, and out of curiosity decided to check on the Web site. "I was very surprised by what I found," he said. "I thought it was interesting that Microsoft was saying that people should go to Windows, but that they were using Unix to say it." Guy Esnouf, a spokesman for Unisys, said the campaign is intended to highlight a high-end Unisys machine called the ES7000 Enterprise Server, an expensive system running sophisticated corporate-computing applications, such as very large data bases. "We are talking about using Windows for those kinds of problems; we are not talking about hosting a simple Web site," he said. -- Janina Sajka, Director Technology Research and Development Governmental Relations Group American Foundation for the Blind (AFB) Email: janina at afb.net Phone: (202) 408-8175 Chair, Accessibility SIG Open Electronic Book Forum (OEBF) http://www.openebook.org
