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North Pole - Citing concerns about security and licensing costs,
Santa Claus is considering migrating his computer systems from Microsoft
Windows to Linux.
 With
several thousand computers and the largest database in the world,
Santa's Workshop is one of the largest and most important clients
for Microsoft. It is expected that the software maker will do whatever
it takes to keep Claus in their corner.
"If some naughty kid was able to break into my systems and change
his status to nice then the whole integrity of the Claus empire
would be called into question," said Kringle. "I also have to watch
out for the Easter Bunny. He's always trying to muscle in on my territory.
If he were able to compromise my database and get access to my client
list, then we might be celebrating Christmas in April."
"IIS couldn't keep up when Slashdot posted a link to that web-interface
I made for turning Rudolph's new LED nose on and off. That was the
last straw," Claus continued. "I'm entrusting the entire holiday
of Christmas to a company that can't even make a reliable web server?"
Microsoft feels that the issue isn't security but the new licensing
agreement currently being negotiated with the North Pole giant. "You
think he's all 'Ho ho ho' but Santa is one tough negotiator," said
the Microsoft sales representative responsible for the North Pole
region. "Behind that beard is a shrewd operator. He's managed to
stay in business for centuries while giving his product away for
free. Even the best Internet entrepreneurs couldn't sustain that
business model."
Santa has more leverage than most of Microsoft's customers said
one analyst. "He's made some veiled threats about Xboxes falling
off the sleigh while he's flying over the Atlantic. I also heard
he threatened to move Gates and Ballmer to the Naughty List."
Santa dismisses Microsoft's claims that his threats to move to Linux
are nothing more than a negotiation tactic. "I agree with the philosophy
of the Linux community. I give all these toys and goodies away for
free, I think that the software I choose should be supporting those
sort of ideals too."
Linux would be a good fit for Santa on both the server and the client
side. "Linux has strong server choices and as far as the workstations
the elves don't use them for anything other than to listen to Christmas
carols and to open up the occasional Christmas list that some geek
sends to us on CD.
Sources say that Red Hat Linux remains the front runner if Santa
does decide to switch.
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