Interesting moment in EB history.

[syciprider]

http://news.com.com/2008-1082_3-5065859.html

BP, you interview well. No double speak, just like here.

 

[sandman@midlife]

I never really thought about all the "business side of it". It makes me appreciate EBMM even more. There's a lot more to it than just making my bass sound good.
And he still has time to make us some green meanies!
Thanks Big Poppa!

 

[Big Poppa]

Scott Mc Nealy the chairman and founder of Sun claims that I have generated over 2 billion dollars worth of negative publicity for Microsoft. I still get interviewed now but as a tribute for making what seemed like a tough decision that is pretty common now. I am very rpoud of the team at Ernie Ball and the IT dept that dove in and made us the first non microsoft comapny of any consequence in America. When I said there was no choice they forged ahead and really did some great work

Ps> Bill Gates lives here in the desert during the winter and I know he knows who I am.

 

[Lazybite]

kudos BP!! the attitude to customer service shows through in this article....

 

[prickly_pete]

Bill Gates has done more to hinder the development of software than he ever did to advance it. He and Warren Buffet are currently trying to buy their way out of hell!

 

[nicolasd]

from the article

So what did swearing off Microsoft entail?
We looked at all the alternatives. We looked at Apple, but that's owned in part by Microsoft. (Editor's note: Microsoft invested $150 million in Apple in 1997.)


for the record. microsoft was given 150 million in non-voting stock in apple. at that point apple had over 4 billion in cash on hand in addition to its value as a company... it was a high profile PR gesture, a "vote of confidence," but entirely negligible in its influence on apple. MS has long since cashed in that stock. as a regular stockholder, i had more power over apple than MS did with that stock purchase.

 

[Big Poppa]

They still had that investment but remember this was an interview...it was edited...Apple didnt work due to the high hardware aquisition cost and weak apple works bundle...It was still not a great alternative.

WE have been apple shareholders for a long time and we go back with Apple to the LISA!

 

[RitchieDarling]

They still had that investment but remember this was an interview...it was edited...Apple didnt work due to the high hardware aquisition cost ...

I agree BP. Our company was looking into Apple as an alternative to Microsoft. But it was just WAY too expensive. The end result was that the company went with Microsoft, and I got an Apple G5 for myself.

It didn't really matter though. In our haste to ditch MS, we neglected to check with SATAN........uh.........I mean AUTODESK.

They don't make AutoCad for Mac anymore! Haven't done it in years!

Ritchie

 

[tadawson]

Well, all I can say is amen, BP! I am an IT professional in the real world, and have been attempting to get my various employers to do what you did for years - the decision seems so obvious, but everyone seems to still buy the FUD . . . . .

At any rate, now I have even greater reasons to be loyal to EB/MM - not only the best basses out there, but the wisest choices of management as well, and I know that of all the hard earned $$$ I spend on EB/MM product, not a thin red cent will fall into the coffers of the criminal monopoly, Micro$hat . . . . .

"What do YOU want to crash and corrupt today?"

- Tim

 

[nicolasd]

They still had that investment but remember this was an interview...it was edited...Apple didnt work due to the high hardware aquisition cost and weak apple works bundle...It was still not a great alternative.

WE have been apple shareholders for a long time and we go back with Apple to the LISA!

now THAT makes sense. i love apple's stuff but appleworks and even the new iwork is no match for ms office. and back then, openoffice was either nonexistent or embryonic for mac os (its in good shape now, by the way).

-n.

 

[LisaIs]

BP never ceases to amaze me. I am really impressed with this company.

 

[Big Poppa]

we have migrated from open offfice to star office that is supported by sun We are running the whole company of Sun's FANTASTIC Sun ray thin client workstations.
The benefits are huge......maybe some of the team could chime in here


Iknow about open offfice on the Macs I use them daily

I also think that it is really funny that Microsoft hears the footsteps and has agreed to allow ms word docs to be saved in an open format.......I love pdf's!

 

[fearofcups]

I'm with open source all the way, sometimes you gotta turn your back on uncompromising monopolies and use the stuff that works

 

[Calaveras]

Kudos!
I have been teling my workplace this for years. I crash and reboot about 5 times a day on average. And we have one station down due to virus infection.
For the record the only reason I am not using an all linux/bsd setup at home is the lack of serious audio apps such as Pro Tools, Sonar, Sound Forge.

 

[Chewie]

This is basically all that is used in day to day business at EB. Evolution for email and calendaring, Gaim for instant messaging, Mozilla for web browsing, StarOffice for word processing, spreadsheets and presentations. We also use the Linux terminal program to access the ERP/MRP system..

In SLO we have about 30 SunRay Terminals and two SunRay Servers. It's been 61 days and 90 days since a reboot. Rebooted not because we had to, just because i felt like it.

The SunRay is definitely a sweet system. There are certain things they are not feasible for but for 90% of our employees who use computers, they are more than sufficient. The only exceptions are the Engineering and Art Departments. The Engineers have High powered Sun Workstations for CAD and the Artists have G5 Macs for Photoshop and Flash development. Everyone else on SunRays.

Next plan is to convert the SLO SunRay servers from Linux to Solaris 10. After that both offices will be on Solaris and the only remaining thing I see that is worthwile is to upgrade Solaris 10's stock StarOffice 7 to StarOffice 8. StarOffice 8 as well as OpenOffice 2.0 (essentially the same program) will both support the new ISO standard Oasis OpenDocument Format. Several Countries as well as the state of Massuchusetts are adopting this format as their defacto standarard. What does that really mean? It means that Microsoft is definitely not king and they now have to bow to the Internatial Organization for Standardization. More importantly it means people are finally realizing that there is this thing called Open Source and that there is a viable option to Microsoft products. Also PDF's are really nice, but this new format will greatly reduce the need for using them.

 

[Beth]

I still crash and reboot at home all the time on my computer, but said troubles are never experienced here at work. Open source has really changed the way we work on computers here at EB/MM. Our instant messenger program keeps our offices communicating and the physical set up of it is unsurpassed. I can take my card out of my computer at any point, bring the card to the other side of the building (or even 5.5 hours north to the SLO office), put it in any other "CPU" and have the same *EXACT* page I was working on pop right up -- even if I was listening to EB Radio.

Love it!

 

[Freddels]

Several Countries as well as the state of Massuchusetts are adopting this format as their defacto standarard. What does that really mean? It means that . . .

Some politician here in MA is getting a bunch of $$ from someone or they have a relative that either owns the company or works there.

 

[tadawson]

In SLO we have about 30 SunRay Terminals and two SunRay Servers. It's been 61 days and 90 days since a reboot. Rebooted not because we had to, just because i felt like it.

Sounds like you are still a bit in the WinBlowz paradigm. I reboot my production Linux servers more like once a year . . . . . .

- Tim

 

[Big Poppa]

Did you know that in germany firefox is 48% market share?

 

[tkarter]

I love my Linux servers. we use Mac workstations. Neo/office J is the best form of open office to use on Mac OS X. As no X11 terminal is required. Have used it to recover some corrupted Excel files too.

tk