[nivla]

>Yet it's conspicuously absent from the servers that run things like Google, Facebook, Twitter or Amazon. I wonder how they explain why is it so.

Isn't that similar to assuming Ruby, Django and Go is inept because PHP powers Wikipedia, Facebook, Wordpress and millions of other websites and blogs... In business just because X doesn't use it, doesn't mean your product is inferior or making a loss.

[rbanffy]

I only contrasted the fact Microsoft makes a huge profit with the fact it's completely absent from the companies we identify as the ones leading the way and the most advanced tech it has to offer is something its competitors have been doing for years.

[nivla]

>has to offer is something its competitors have been doing for years.

I disagree, what their pricing is focusing on is familiarity and 24/7 support. Also, don't be quick to judge that open-source softwares are not making any money. Ubuntu, MySQL, PHP.. etc, all of them sell premium business support.

[rbanffy]

> what their pricing is focusing on is familiarity and 24/7 support

In other words, they bill you so you don't have to learn something that's not in their product line. And unless you are paying a lot, their 24x7 support is laughable when compared with what you get from either Canonical, Red Hat or Percona.

[nivla]

> they bill you so you don't have to learn something that's not in their product line

Yes, convenience has a price. Thought that was business 101 or the Walmart strategy.

>their 24x7 support is laughable

Subjective, since my experience is different than yours, similarly you could say the same about Canonical, Red Hat, Percona, heck even Google.

[rbanffy]

> Yes, convenience has a price.

Not that convenient when you move from Windows Server n (based on Windows x) and have to relearn to navigate around the entirely different Windows Server n+3 (which is based on the tablet-friendly Windows x+1).

> heck even Google.

I never had much trouble with Google paid support (I used to work for a company that has a 6+ million user Gmail account), but my most stellar account comes from a bug I found in the ndb library of App Engine while it was still beta. I fired a question to the mailing list and, a couple minutes later, came an answer from Guido Van Rossum. I guess e-mail support can't get any better than that.

[nivla]

>Not that convenient when you move from Windows Server n (based on Windows x) and have to relearn to navigate around the entirely different Windows Server n+3 (which is based on the tablet-friendly Windows x+1).

But a lot more convenient than switching OS. Most FOSS server softwares are written for Linux. Switching to them requires you to learn OS specific commands, switches, and workarounds. It is more convenient to stick to what you are already familiar with.

>I never had much trouble with Google paid support

Exactly. Thanks for proving my previous point that support is subjective. The common consensus is Google's support is terrible to non-existent but in reality it is subjective like others. Other's over exaggerate the lack of Google's support like you did with Microsoft's.