[Linux-aus] women at the keyboard

[Brent Wallis]

Hi Bret,

Exactly the opposite!.
...and if any wrong implication was indicated, then I un-reservedly
apologise....to all and sundry.

But M$ doing what they are doing with this person makes me suspicious.
In my mind, NOIE is probably the most important road show that MS had to
get into.....
Why not send Ballmer?

He was here when Pretty at Telstra started playing pathetic games with
Linux during a round of licence negotiations in order to "lengthen his
lever stick"......Ballmer flew here by way of Asia and picked up every
damn senior Telstra guy he could find, on the way for a "conference",
which was to basically put across their POV that NO price breaks could
be leveraged from them by way of "playing with Linux".

Why isn't he here now? Surely this is more threatening and important to
their business? After all these years of abject hate for Open Source, it
will be difficult for them to reverse the perception.

They are "spin doctoring"....they are trying to "soften" and "warmly
relate" with open source...Ballmer could never do it!.....but maybe this
person can.....? 

Let's not forget the person running IT in Human services either, she
probably holds the biggest key chain in Government IT, I see this as a
cynical "arm around shoulder" excursive. I sure hope the person in
question lives up to her promise in that she is only interested in doing
the best for Human services. She has rightly ruled out Linux on Desktops
for this year, but seems focussed on keeping an eye on developments. Her
foray into Linux on Servers seems to have been solely based on merit....

You see, this is what we need more of, Senior Government executives more
focussed on merit than schmooze. The unfortunate part is that there are
more of the latter than the former.

I have some female friends in PR watching this very closely. Quality
Female executives hate gender being used as a PR weapon (even more than
tokenism) and I agree with this POV un-reservedly!....It codifies and
promotes the very problem our gender opposites have battled long and
hard to break, even more insidiously than before.

Lets not forget M$ attempts to promote a "real user" who had posted her
story about "how easy it was to swap from Mac to Winblows Xpee"....I'd
give you the link but they ripped it down (A Slashdot search may throw
up a mirror), it was exposed as a fraud (within hours), perpetrated by a
PR company.....They deliberately chose a Woman for that particular FUD
because it enhanced the demographic they were trying to reach..... 

Never forget that for most senior executives, Perception is 9/10 of the
truth.....it's the supplier with the biggest story and largest wallet
for entertainment that wins....damn the effectiveness....one of the
latest examples of that particular "problem" has almost killed RMIT!

M$ have played this "perception" card for years, but as they are finally
finding out: 

the reality sooner or later catches up and overtakes the
perception....:-)

GNU/Linux and Open Source methodolgy are real and growing, it is clear
that they are more cost effective and robust....in the end, they simply
can't fight that...no matter what, they simply can't....

The foolish exec who has stuck with M$ blindly and has not at least done
the early hard yards with Linux will soon find their competitors
overtaking them...the next 5 years will be very interesting don't you
think?

Hope this clears it up 
Brent Wallis.



-----Original Message-----
From: Bret Busby [mailto:bret at busby.net] 
Sent: Thursday, 20 February 2003 12:09 PM
To: Linux Australia List
Subject: RE: [Linux-aus] women at the keyboard


On Thu, 20 Feb 2003, Brent Wallis wrote:

> 
> Hi,
> Being cynical, and respectful to our gender partners,
> the decision to send a woman is a rather pitiful move on M$ part.


?

That makes it sound like a woman in IT, or a woman presenter, is a 
no-hoper...

Please explain.

-- 
Bret Busby
Armadale
West Australia
..............

"So once you do know what the question actually is,
 you'll know what the answer means."
- Deep Thought,
  Chapter 28 of 
  "The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy:
  A Trilogy In Four Parts",
  written by Douglas Adams, 
  published by Pan Books, 1992 
....................................................

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