MS: Beta Software Good Enough for Production Use 411
RMX writes "CNet is reporting that
Microsoft is starting to license test software for real-world use
.
In particular, Visual Studio 2005 and the April "community technology preview" of SQL Server 2005 are both supposed to be released sometime in the second half of the year. But Microsoft is claiming the pre-release versions are stable already, so they're licensing the pre-released versions on the grounds that they 'are already suitable for running production business applications.'"
Nothing new here. (Score:5, Informative)
Free beta CD (Score:5, Informative)
If you want to distribute programs you make with it, you have to sign the GoLive aggreement here: http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/golive/licen
Good enough? Try it for yourself (Score:2, Informative)
thats because of pension funds... (Score:3, Informative)
Theres not enough current notquitesooldies to keep the funds up and buying the stocks of the kiddies.
Any trade in 'virtual goods' back and forth is just a pyramid scam, todays winners taking from tommorows winners, aslongas theres an increasing amount of new 'suckers'. ie population growth.
This plan falls apart once you have flat population growth.
Its time corporates died and there were 100000s more tiny companies out there.
Re:One born every minute (Score:4, Informative)
No one is paying for shit. Microsofts BETA liscence forbids you from running production servers on beta software. They are simply offering an exemption from this restriction. They are not charging for the software, they are simply letting you go live with the beta software before the production version is ready if you wish to do so. Then, you will buy the production liscence when available (ie when it's released).
Re:One born every minute (Score:5, Informative)
Oh wait, nevermind. I just did.
Re:How much do it cost? (Score:3, Informative)
I sure didn't...
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/D
And if your database is so important that you don't want to run it on beta software, then... don't!
Re:Even better... (Score:2, Informative)
Microsoft's software is not software. (Score:3, Informative)
Allow me to quote something I posted in a different story a moment ago:
That pretty much sums it all up.Re:Accountability (Score:1, Informative)
Re:Accountability (Score:3, Informative)
Well, lets see. When I was looking to see which OS would perform best on my graphics station I used three pieces of software for testing. All three work on both Windows and Linux. They are the GIMP, Blender, and Povray.
These apps performed tasks on average 17 percent faster on Mandrake 10 community edition than they did on Windows. On Gentoo (with only O2 optimizations, not riced out) they performed on average 22 percent faster than Windows XP.
I could probably reduce XP's performance deficit by shutting down the firewall, anti-virus, and other protective wares, but I have an always on connection so it would be pretty stupid to do that. Besides, the Linux distros were tested with the firewall on, as well as some network monitoring daemons, and don't need all the other stuff Windows needs to be reasonably secure.
The tests I used were all based on rendering speeds, which are not dependent on the video card or any drivers, and since I used the same PC (literally, the same box) for all three OS's the speed difference can only be caused by the OS. It was, after all, the only variable.
Therefore, I must call bullshit on your calling bullshit.
TommyAll very well, but ..... (Score:3, Informative)
Sure theres a _lot_ of nice new stuff in there (a lot of which has been around a while in open and non open source java IDEs), but the releases fully deserve their beta / alpha statuses from my experience.
Microsoft's basic problem is that it's unable to release software at anything like regular intervals. Whereas the MacOS is updated once or twice a year, Microsoft is struggling to release Longhorn after what, 5+ years. Ditto for IE. Visual Studio has also been waiting far longer for an update than its competition. Trying to sell your beta software might sound like a solution to this problem, but its not if the beta software really is only beta quality.
In the internet age, where a year can see immense changes and where the companies pushing those changes are no longer Microsoft, either Microsoft has to speed up its processes or its monopoly is bound to slowly fade.
Re:Microsoft Business Plan (Score:1, Informative)
Google does the same thing and Slashdot doesn't have a problem with it.. and where does it say that Microsoft is charging anyone anything to test their Beta product?.. Oh wait.. it doesn't.. I forgot, it's more fun to criticize Microsoft for spreading fud about linux and then about face and do the same shit..
Link for the clueless:
http://lab.msdn.microsoft.com/vs2005/golive/ [microsoft.com]