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Just had to share this.



From a friend who attented the conference.

> > A "Microsoft Moment":
> > 
> > I've been attending the USENIX NT and LISA NT (Large Installation
> > Systems Administration for NT) conference in downtown Seattle this
> > week.
> > 
> > One of those magical Microsoft moments(tm) happened yesterday and I
> > thought that I'd share.  Non-geeks may not find this funny at all,
> > but those in geekdom (particularly UNIX geekdom) will appreciate it.
> > 
> > Greg Sullivan, a Microsoft product manager (henceforth MPM), was
> > holding forth on a forthcoming product that will provide Unix style
> > scripting and shell services on NT for compatibility and to leverage
> > UNIX expertise that moves to the NT platform.  The product suite
> > includes the MKS (Mortise Kern Systems) windowing Korn shell, a
> > windowing PERL, and lots of goodies like awk, sed and grep.  It
> > actually fills a nice niche for which other products (like the MKS
> > suite) have either been too highly priced or not well enough
> > integrated.
> > 
> > An older man, probably mid-50s, stands up in the back of the room
> > and asserts that Microsoft could have done better with their choice
> > of Korn shell.  He asks if they had considered others that are more
> > compatible with existing UNIX versions of KSH.
> > 
> > The MPM said that the MKS shell was pretty compatible and should be
> > able to run all UNIX scripts.
> > 
> > The questioner again asserted that the MKS shell was not very
> > compatible and didn't do a lot of things right that are defined in
> > the KSH language spec.
> > 
> > The MPM asserted again that the shell was pretty compatible and
> > should work quite well.
> > 
> > This assertion and counter assertion went back and forth for a bit,
> > when another fellow member of the audience announced to the MPM
> > that the questioner was, in fact David Korn of AT&T (now Lucent)
> > Bell Labs. (David Korn is the author of the Korn shell)
> > 
> > Uproarious laughter burst forth from the audience, and it was one
> > of the only times that I have seen a (by then pink cheeked) MPM
> > lost for words or momentarily lacking the usual unflappable
> > confidence.
> > 

-- 
Bob Tanner <tanner@real-time.com>       | Phone : (612)943-8700
http://www.real-time.com                | Fax   : (612)943-8500
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