Ballmer Admits 'Linux Changed Our Game'

wackybrit writes: "We've all known Linux has got Microsoft all worried, but they've always denied it. On Monday at a conference in LA, however, Steve Ballmer (of Microsoft) confessed that the FUD surrounding Linux isn't quite what it was made out to be. The Register has also covered the story in an easier to read fashion. They point out that Microsoft has just changed a page on their site which originally derided Linux, but now simply states what 'Windows does better.'"

Comments

Re:Read Microsoft's page ...

[Random Bystander]

The way I read that page was that they are trying to compare a homogenized Windows network with a Linux server connecting Windows clients together. Maybe I should read it some more times to see if they are also comparing a homogenized Linux network (or even a Unix-Linux heterogenous network).

They are really comparing whether Linux will run Microsoft applications / frameworks (eg ASP), not comparing similar or equivalent functionality.

No, I didn't expect them to be without bias, but all I really see is the same FUD presented in a different way.

Halloween Docs

[qwerpoiu]

This happened in 1998, but only inside MS.
I'm amazed they're doing what they now are.

From the (http://opensource.org/halloween/halloween2.php) anotated halloween docs, which were leaked in 1998:
------

Here are some notable quotes from the document, with hotlinks to where they are embedded. It's helpful to know that ``OSS'' is the author's abbreviation for ``Open Source Software''.

* Linux represents a best-of-breed UNIX, that is trusted in mission critical applications, and - due to it's open source code - has a long term credibility which exceeds many other competitive OS's.
* Most of the primary apps that people require when they move to Linux are already available for free. This includes web servers, POP clients, mail servers, text editors, etc
* An advanced Win32 GUI user would have a short learning cycle to become productive [under Linux].
* I previously had IE4/NT4 on the same box and by comparison the combination of Linux / Navigator ran at least 30-40% faster when rendering simple HTML + graphics.
* Long term, my simple experiments do indicate that Linux has a chance at the desktop market ...
* Consumers Love It.
* Linux's (real and perceived) virtues over Windows NT include: Customization ... Availability/Reliability ... Scaleability/Performance ... Interoperability ...
* Linux is emerging as a key operating system in the nascent thin server market
* Using today's server requirements, Linux is a credible alternative to commercial developed servers in many, high volume applications.
* The effect of patents and copyright in combatting Linux remains to be investigated.
* Note, however, that Compaq and Dell merely have to credibly threaten Linux adoption in order to push for lower OEM OS pricing.

four distinct advantages

[g4dget]

Funny, those four distinct advantages are exactly the advantages I see Linux has over NT. Microsoft has the arguments right, they just confused the two operating systems.

Proven, comprehensive operating system platforms delivering seamless integration, industry-leading scalability and performance, broad application support, and solid reliability.

Yes, given Linux's extremely widespread use, including at some of the biggest Internet sites in the world, Linux certainly has this advantage.

Faster time-to-market via powerful tools and an extensible framework.

Linux's Posix-based environment is proven, extensible, mature, and very widely used. Its Internet, services, management, and GUI frameworks are also highly extensible and industry leading. An additional time-to-market advantage is the immediate availability of updates and bug fixes throughout the community. This is in contrast with Microsoft's centralized development style, in which I am completely dependent on their efforts to deliver bug fixes.

Ease of deployment, interoperability, and manageability in a heterogeneous environment.

Indeed: score another one for Linux. Its POSIX foundations, widest support for network protocols and services, and multitude of options for management (including command line, GUI-based and network based), make it the clear winner.

Better business alignment with straightforward licensing and clarity of intellectual property ownership.

Yes, I very much prefer the straightforward licensing and clarity of the GPL over the muddy and complex legal agreements with a company like Microsoft. Furthermore, licensing costs for Linux are predictable in perpetuity. And, as an added bonus, I do not need to hire expensive lawyers to analyze the GPL--it is a known, standard, predictable agreement.

Two other common themes of criticism

[Goonie]

Distilling their competitive evaluation, I noticed the following themes:

• There are 27 different ways of doing foo on Linux, whereas Microsoft offers a clear, standard solution.

This is true. Microsoft does tend to impose the One True Way (TM), which can simplify some things. However, other people regard the fact that you can choose the best technologies for your application as a positive.

• Capability bar is available as part of Microsoft operating systems, but it's a seperate app in Linux.

Also often true, but: a) a lot of those capabilities are Windows tools that you probably wouldn't use in a Linux project unless you had to for compatibility reasons, b) a lot of them were open source packages that are usually packaged by the various distributions and are an apt-get away from installing, c) if they're open source, the extra licensing costs are zero anyway, and d) who says building everything into the OS is a good idea anyway?

• Some bits of Linux are immature and buggy

And Windows is perfect?

It's good news that MS are changing their arguments to push their products over Linux-based solutions, because it tends to suggest that their customers (at least in this application domains) weren't listening to their old ones.

Re:How do they do it?

[slickwillie]

Unix admins cost more than MCSEs, too.

I guess it's true - you do get what you pay for.

Re:HA HA HA HA

[e_n_d_o]

What I find most pathetic about their argument is statements like this one (from the Microsoft Embedded page):

An example of this risk can be taken from NVIDIA. An NVIDIA programmer, in the course of developing a driver for one of its products, used a portion of code from a freely available video driver. The developer failed to realize the code was licensed under the GPL and would therefore require NVIDIA to release the source code for its entire driver. Because NVIDIA did not want to release the source code to its commercial software, the company incurred substantial cost to develop a new driver that did not contain the GPL code.

If you're going to use someone else's source code, you better sure as heck check the license they are providing it under.

This case is not much different than a hypothetical where a developer takes a chunk of Microsft's proprietary source code and uses it in a piece of their own proprietary software. The only difference is that with the GPL, the developer has the option of either making his license compatible with the GPL or removing the component from his project.

Anything to do with upcoming earnings statements?

[sydsavage]

You do realize that MS will be releasing their fourth quarter and year end financial statements on Thursday? And also that they have a settlement with the SEC in which they have been ordered to cease and desist "cookie jar" accounting practices?

Look at these quotes from the story:

Ballmer also spoke about the technology sector as a whole, noting that the past year has been one of the toughest in recent history. Still, he says he's optimistic.

"So despite the fact that it's been a tough year, I think about it exactly as that--a tough year, not the start of a cold winter. My optimism and enthusiasm about where we are going has been unabated."

"Some of that change I argue will be net positive over the long run, and some of that change has certainly been troublesome over the course of the last 12 months," he said.

Perhaps now that they can't prop up their financial statements, they are trying to spin it by saying "we were trying to compete on price with something our competition gives away for free." Where have I heard that before? Let me see, oh yes, during the anti-trust trial, I believe, from that other browser maker.

The recent statements about it being Apple's fault they haven't sold half as many versions of Office v.X as they had projected could also play into this strategy. "We would have made our quarterly projections, if Apple would have just advertised OS X more!"

Worrying

[theolein]

As someone on the varbusiness site noted, Microsoft is *NEVER* friendly nor admits to FUD or mistakes *UNLESS* they are preparing some sort of new attack on their competition. I would watch that space for upcoming announcements with regard to new Microsoft licencing restrictions (Trying to make it illegal to use Win on the same computer as Linux??) or something else.

fine strategist .. programmer? 1 word -- BASIC

[fw3]

he would actually be pretty interesting to meet ...but I bet he [B Gates] still knows his stuff.

Trying not to drop into an ad-hominem cheapshot

The last project that I know of which Gates authored was a ROM Basic. The Basic interpreters which followed for various early microcomputers were written by his assciates at MSFT. Of course whether or not Bill still writes code I have no actual knowlege, but nothing I've read from MSFT suggests that he acts in any capacity but architect / vision-leader.

I think this 'aura' of a brilliant coder plus his wealth is exactly the primary MSFT strategic advantage. I know dozens of lawyers, MBA's, executives who seem to beleive the following:

This guy (company) is fabuloulsy successful so their product must be just wonderful
and:
He's this really brilliant programmer / geek and that's the basis of it all

And because these folks haven't got a tech background they're basically taking it on faith. honestly it's insidious, I've seen an entire company (very big one) in a different business say 'wow that's great, lets emulate it ... ohh and yes lets also go with MS in the Data Center! [doh!]. (They fired an MIS director and then a CIO who couldn't make this fine strategy actually work in practice.)

Now what *is* true about Bill (IMO) is that he's really bright (and that his early commercial coding was largely in either assembler or on DEC PDP / Vaxen used for emulation of 8080/z90/x86 systems). Where to my knowlege he applies this is strategy and architecture, and if I don't like his choices, I'm the first to admit they've been effective (if underhanded and illegal) in the market.

Second, for 2 decades MSFT aggressively hired the very best and brightest CS grads. A freind who teaches in one of the better university CS departments observed this and on that basis only started investing in MSFT. That was a very good investment strategy for him :-).

Today I think even the financial types are beginning to realize that some of this is smoke & mirrors. I think the combination of unreasonable licensing changes and the slap on the wrist they just got from SEC are just the sort of thing that these people pay attention to.

Microsoft has always been brought more or less kicking and screaming into standard technologies. netbui vs tcp/ip; WINS vs DNS; NT Domains vs Kerberos|LDAP. Often they have implemented open technology (DCE) in the internals, just not making these the preferred API's.

Of course the whole time I and other opensource types have been looking on and saying *yikes* you want to put this cruft in an enterprise??! MSFT is highly feature driven and lusers love features. Nowhere near enough coders (or architects) work to the priciple that the least code that will do the job is usually the best solution.

Througout, Gates has pushed Basic as the language of choice [shrug]. Gates I don't really want to meet, his original partner Paul Allen, also a billionaire who has said "Blame me for having to type the backslash" ... he doesn't want to meet me in an alley :-)

I will say that I'm glad Gates is focussing on technology again. .NET has promise, and the mono initiative will make it open. His foundation is also giving big money in important areas of medical research and he cares about the right stuff, (e.g. HIV/AIDS).