IP: Alleged Microsoft shenanigans

[Dave Farber <farber () central cis upenn edu>]

Please note Tim's company markets a web server djf




From: "Tim O'Reilly" <tim () ora com>
Date: Sat, 13 Jul 1996 13:58:07 PDT
To: farber () central cis upenn edu
Subject: Microsoft shenanigans




Your readers might be interested in knowing about the following 
"feature" planned for NT Workstation 4.0.  It's clearly an abuse of
Microsoft's operating system monopoly to compete in the 
application space.


In quick summary, they give away IIS (Internet Information
Server) as a "free" web server on Windows NT server.  But lots
of people have been happily using competing servers such
as WebSite with NT Workstation.  So now they are crippling the
next release of NT Workstation so people will have to buy NT
Server if they want to run any web server on NT.




From: "Bob Denny" <rdenny () dc3 com>
To: website-talk () online ora com
Subject: FYI: NT Workstation 4.0 Limits
Message-ID: <9607110652.ZM547 () solo dc3 com>


FYI -- From the USENET comp.infosystems.www.servers.ms-windows newsgroup a 
conversation between me and Jim Buyens, a pro-Microsoft person who is fairly 
vocal... Sorry about the nested quotations...


Jim Buyens wrote:
> Bob Denny wrote:
>
> > Jim Buyens wrote:
> > [...]
> > A version of IIS that runs on NT Workstation is planned for NT 4,0, but
> > this be a developer version with limited connections. I've seen it
> > mentioned that NT Workstation 4.0 will support significantly fewer
> > simultaneously open sockets than NT Workstation 3.51 and before.
>
> [me...]
> Yes, it's true. The limit is 10 unique incoming IP addresses in a 10
> minute period. That's "significant" alright. A major removal of
> functionality going from 3.51 to 4.0. 
>
> It should seem obvious that this is a way for MS to boost the sales of
> Server (which has fallen well short of predictions) by forcing current
> customers who are happily running web services on Workstation to pay for
> an upgrade to Server. I also strongly suspect (though I don't know) that
> the connection limits for sockets on Server will work like other Server
> limits. You may have to pay for capacity. IIS looks even less free under
> this scenario. Compare other servers and Workstation with the cost of
> Server and possible "capacity units" coupled with "free" IIS.
>
> Imagine how Process, O'Reilly, Netscape, etc. are reacting :-) This is
> as close to a lockout maneuver as it gets. Put a "free" webserver into
> Server then brain-damage Workstation so you have to use Server to do any
> webserving... Considering that the above companies (and a half dozen
> more) pushed hard in the fight to legitimize NT vs Unix as a web
> platform over the last 18 months, this is a pretty harsh move.
>
> > If true, this could mean you'd have to buy NT Server to run *any* Web
> > server -- Netscape, WebSite, Purveyor, etc. -- in a volume environment. NT
> > Workstation simply wouldn't have enough sockets to support the volume,
> > regardless of Web Server.
>
> Righto. Time's a wastin... 4.0 goes Gold soon and then it'll be too
> late. Let Microsoft know how you feel about their putting the screws on
> current NT web people by removing existing functionality in order to
> force them to upgrade. Or just tell 'em you aren't going to upgrade to
> 4.0 Workstation on your webserver machines till they restore the 3.51
> functionality to Workstation.
>
>  -- Bob (caveat: I am the WebSite server developer)


I think we agree -- this move by Microsoft directly short-circuits the logic
of, "NT Workstation plus our Web server is still cheaper than NT Server plus
Microsoft's free server."


The suprising thing is that many aspects of IIS remain as weak as they are.
Microsoft needs to work on the user interface for administering security on
different parts of a site, for example, and user interface is usually a
Microsoft strength. Having to use regedit to make perl work, to change the
server port number, and maintain the MIME-types table is pretty lame too.


Perhaps Microsoft is more concerned with collecting license revenues from
Server than pushing IIS.


On the other hand, this could be a tremendous opportunity for stack vendors
like FTP Software and Netmanage...


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---End of forwarded mail from Jim Buyens <buyensj () primenet com>