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The knights who say: No more, please

Tom Krazit Former Staff writer, CNET News
Tom Krazit writes about the ever-expanding world of Google, as the most prominent company on the Internet defends its search juggernaut while expanding into nearly anything it thinks possible. He has previously written about Apple, the traditional PC industry, and chip companies. E-mail Tom.
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Tom Krazit
2 min read

SAN FRANCISCO - Let's face it, there are only so many ways to make a discussion of migrating Unix servers to Linux or Windows boxes part of an entertaining afternoon.

Dell's marketing folks gave it a shot Monday at Oracle's OpenWorld conference. Before Chairman Michael Dell took the stage to formally introduce new servers based on Advanced Micro Devices' Opteron processor, the company ran a four-minute video that resembled a cross between "Monty Python and the Holy Grail," an episode of "South Park," and a white paper on Unix-to-Linux migration.

It's sort of hard to explain, but the guys at Pixar needn't worry. Cartoon characters with the heads of Michael Dell, Oracle's Larry Ellison and EMC's Joe Tucci set on down the road, leading their subjects away from Proprietaryville to Global Standardopolis. Along the way they pick up Intel's Paul Otellini and AMD's Hector Ruiz (who have a short, but pretty funny fight scene), and Linux penguin mascot Tux (who deserts the filming of "March of the Penguins 2"), and slay the evil Proprietary dragons.

The whole thing is set to a musical score, of course. A sample verse:

Look, there's Intel! And there's AMD!
So used to fighting quite aggressively
But now they get along so well
'Cause everyone's friends when we partner with Dell!

It kind of goes on like that for a while. If you're looking for an afternoon break or curious about how companies are deploying their marketing budgets these days, check out the video on Dell's blog. Other than the new servers hinted at during Ruiz's keynote earlier in the day, Michael Dell had little to say that wasn't covered in a press conference featuring Dell and AMD executives a little earlier in the day, or in hundreds of discussions over the past 10 years about the need for standards in enterprise information technology.