What's the Business Case for Microsoft and Open Source?

Friend of perl developers everywhere, Jeremy Zawodny, has an intriguing question: "If you had to explain to Microsoft why they should change their attitude toward Open Source, what would you say?" For more about this, read on... From Jeremy: "If you had to explain to Microsoft why they should change their attitude toward Open Source, what would you say? More to the point, how can Microsoft benefit from better supporting or even adopting Open Source in their business? (Replace IIS with Apache, for example.) Does it make sense for them? Are there ways that they can use Open Source as a competitive advantage without pissing off the Open Source community in the process? Which of their products would make sense on Open Source platforms? How can the Open Source community help Microsoft? Or is this a lost cause? IBM has made it work. Can Microsoft?

I ask these questions because I may have the chance to talk with folks at Microsoft about Open Source. And it only makes sense that I look to the community for input. So let's hear it. Flames won't help. Thoughtful answers and ideas very well could."

Comments

Re:M$ is doomed

[mumblestheclown]

How about some new mod options for Slashdot?

• score -1, naive
• score -1, simplistic

This is a serious proposition and about as objectively applicable as "-1, Troll"

Hard sell.

[JordanH]

• IBM has made it work.

IBM is an OSS advocate because:

1. IBM wanted to get out ahead of the curve they saw as becoming an important force in the industry. Too late for MS to do that.
2. IBM wants to use high-quality OSS products/strategies against specific competitors. Those competitors include MS (and Sun). You'd have to convince MS to compete against itself or that they could negate OSS by using it themselves. Tough sell, as it would involve a substantial loss of revenue.
3. IBM wants to pump up their services and OSS needs lots of services. A possible angle for MS, but again, tough as they already have their own products for every niche that already have a support strategy in place, and that strategy doesn't involve opening up the source and let the community fix your bugs.
4. IBM wanted to field a line of mature products for the .com boom and using OSS was the shortest path. That boom has gone bust.

If I were to approach it, I might challenge MS to think outside the box and compete against themselves.

Take Apple's strategy of supporting an OSS-based OS (Darwin) and adding in strategic closed source bits to productize it. Perhaps they could move some small fraction of their $40 Billion war chest into support Darwin itself. Could you imagine the boost that Darwin would get from $4-$5 Billion? (Only 10-12% of the MS Cash holdings.) This could energize their developers on their current products to take OSS seriously and spur them to produce better products.

Perhaps more importantly, this could sap mindshare and community away from Linux. How many Enterprises would field an MS-supported Open Source OS before Linux? A lot, I think.

start with development tools

[primus_sucks]

I c# went totally open source, it would at least have that over Java. In my experience 95% of developers have a negative attitude toward M$, and making c# open might help with this. I think developer opinion is important because they often choose which products/languages to use. Personally I would never choose M$ development languages over Java because of the closed/platform dependant nature.

Selective Open Source might make sense...

[dinotrac]

It's hard to know where Microsoft would benefit from Open Source (remembering that they can already, ahem, borrow BSD'd and similar code) without knowing how much each product contributes to the company financially and how much each product costs, but, if I were to hazard a few guesses, it would be these:

1. IIS==>bit bucket
IIS does not dominate its market and has a wretched reputation. IIS extensions are available under apache, and the apache license would allow Microsoft to make its own proprietary extensions to a Microsoft-supported license.

It would make a world of sense for MS to bite the bullet, declare apache their web server, and add MS-only content in the form of proprietary mods.

2. SQL Server.
Big asterisk here. If SQL Server contributes serious net dollars, I might continue to ride it for a while.

However, SQL Server faces fierce competition at the high end from Oracle and DB2. The continued visibility of Open Source is exposing it to danger in the middle from solutions like PostgreSQL and MySQL, products that conspire to take the profit out of the segment.

I can't help but think that Microsoft could learn something here from the tremendous success of Access. Nobody buys Access because it's a great database. They buy Access because it's a database they can use. Microsoft can open up SQL-Server or they could even get more radical:
base a new database on PostgreSQL, perhaps with extensions to ensure that current SQL-Server databases are cleanly supported.

Then, without having to R&D the database (and, not coincidentally, gaining a marketing point in terms of customer flexibility), focus on proprietary tools that make developing and admining the thing easier. Maybe special additions (as separate proprietary products) to help exploit the Windows platform.

3. The Access back-end.
As I said, nobody buys Access because it's a great database.

4. Outlook Express.
A little danger here, because it might make it easier to clone Exchange. However, this could be a sort of "reverse-samba": Outlooks showing up in all kinds of strange places and on all kinds of strange platforms where it never lived before. Why? PHBs. Nuff said.

5. NetMeeting.
C'mon, guys. The whole purpose of NetMeeting is to let people in remote locations participate in a meeting. MS doesn't charge for the basic client, anyway. Opening this means that Windows can communicate with anyone else using the NetMeeting softwareThis one seems like a no-brainer, especially as a revenue stream might be found in enhanced software for originating sites as opposed to mere participants.

6. Whatever MS calls it's instant messenger.
That would be a great stab at Yahoo and AOL, and, for MS, wonderful irony.

Anyway, those a re a few of my ideas.

Not as antagonistic as you might think

[zzyzx]

I'm not quite sure who you will be talking to and what exactly you mean, but if you're talking to the programmers, prepare to be surprised at the attitude. I was a contractor at Microsoft. What language did I program in? Perl. While there, I worked alongside Linux advocates and other free software fans. I heard more Windows bashing there than I have at my non-M$ jobs. The programmers there are geeks. They're likely to already agree with you.

Now if you're talking to the marketing or legal departments, good luck. I don't know if they can even turn on their computers.

Horse "industry" also pushed "Stupid" Laws

[NZheretic]

From The Effect of the Car on a City by: Linda Lawera

The "Red Flag Law" which only allowed the car to travel 4 miles an hour on country roads and no more than 2 miles an hour in the city slowed travel. Also a man had to warn the approach of the car, by having a signal man walk ahead of the vehicle to signal its coming by swinging a red flag by day and a red lantern at night. This practice hindered the growth and development of the automobile further in England for at least 30 years.

So mayby this time we can learn from history, the CBDTPA,DMCA and ilk legisilation should be raising a few "red flags" before they can do as much damage.

Business Case vs Freedom

[Gleef]

There are huge problems with making a business case for Microsoft encouraging Open Source. Their business model in which they would evaluate the case is antithetical to all but a token onvolvement in Open Source. Any business case (Open Source or not) would need to either fit into (or expand on) their existing model, or come up with enough evidence that a new business model is superior to theirs.

If you have a superior business model for a Software company than Microsoft's, your time is better spent developing it into a real business rather than telling it to Microsoft. Please do so.

The other problem is you are talking to "Folks at Microsoft". From everything I've heard it's fairly easy to convince programmers and other developers at Microsoft that Open Source software is a good thing. The problem is that their Exeuctive Management is convinced that Freedom is a bad thing. What little use they make of Free Software with such a mindest is likely to be exploitive. Bill Gates has esentially said he really likes the idea of Open Source licenses like BSD, because Microsoft can take those programs, adapt them to thier needs, and not worry about contributing the changes back to the community. In my opinion, there has been more than enough exploitation along these lines, we don't need someone encouraging more.

In my opinion, the only really tactic is to toss the "Business Case" idea aside, and convince Microsoft that a healthy Free Software community is important to Microsoft. This is a tough call, but here are some arguments:

Key technologies they Microsoft makes a great deal of money off of were developed by a healthy Free Software community:
* Email
* World Wide Web
Having further development, in the Free Commons, will expand the computer industry as a whole. Microsoft currently has 90% of the industry, if it has only 70% of an industry three times as large, it's making more money. A healthy Free Software community can help make this happen without Microsoft having to shell out significant amounts of money.

On the flip side of the equation, many industries have a healthy commons and still make money hand over fist:
* Law
* Medicine
* Engineering

The bottom line is that Microsoft's executive management needs to be convinced that Freedom is not bad for their health before it's worth getting them involved in "Open Source".