Microsoft's Anti-UNIX Web Site Runs on UNIX

This report might sound like an April Fool's joke, but it's true. A new anti-UNIX Web site sponsored by Microsoft and its server partner, Unisys, runs--not on Windows, as you might expect--but on FreeBSD, a free UNIX variant that UNIX adherents consider more secure and reliable than Linux. The site is part of Microsoft's new $25 million "We Have The Way Out" advertising campaign, which Microsoft and Unisys apparently aren't targeting at Web site operators.

Mark Fromm, a UNIX fan and systems administrator, discovered the embarrassing software choice when he heard about the advertising campaign and decided to investigate. "I was very surprised by what I found," he told The Wall Street Journal. "I thought it was interesting that Microsoft was saying that people should go to Windows, but that [the company was] using UNIX to say it."

In addition to using a non-Microsoft OS, the "We Have The Way Out" Web site runs on Apache, the open-source Web-server software that has trounced Microsoft IIS by a 2-to-1 margin for years.

When asked about the site, a Unisys spokesperson said that the Microsoft/Unisys alternatives to UNIX are aimed at the upper end of the market and require scalable, multiprocessor machines. "We are not talking about hosting a simple Web site," he said.