Ballmer: "We'll Outsmart Open Source"

An anonymous reader writes "Micorosofts Steve Ballmer is spouting off again in this ZDNet UK article. To an audience of Most Valued Professionals in London, he says 'We'll outsmart open source.' Among other things, he also says 'Linux is a serious competitor.' We've known ever since the Halloween Documents that they have been running scared, but this looks like a prelude to a whole new round of dirty tricks. It also looks like damage control for the statements of Microsoft's Sr. VP Brian Valentines last week."

Comments

MS can't provide a "better" product

[master_p]

A more bloated product maybe. But currently open source can cover 95% of everybody's needs; imagine the future...

Re:Ballmer

[tomhudson]

The MVP initiative will be a big part of Microsoft's efforts to promote a sense of "community" among users and developers, connecting its own product developers with the users most in touch with product issues.

Remember - this "community" is composed of developers who would NEVER share their source code with each other - it's the family jewels to them. How is Micro$hit^H^H^Hoft going to create a community when their "community" members whole business model if founded upon keeping secrets as the only competitive advantage?

Re:I'm waiting for Steve

[FIRESTORM_v1]

When they go to resusitate him with the latest and greatest defibrillator coupled with Windows CE (to allow doctors to diagnose, perscribe and treat efficiently of course) do you think that he will let them? Or better yet when the machine asks for his credit card to "swipe and activate the DRM (digital restraint managment)" feature do you think he'll cough up? hehe.

After all if their product is so good, they should trust their life with it!
(btw, this is meant as a joke only, no flamewar)

Re:Ridiculous

[MoneyT]

So far they have been outsmarting the linux developers. That's why Windows is still the dominate PC OS. Despite the fact that Linux is availible in every computer store, including CompUSA for less than Windows, and despite the fact that anyone can download it for free, windows still dominates. And that's because Windows has been outsmarting Linux. But not just with their own programmers, with the rest of the programmers in commercial development too. The big apps, the ones that people are buying, still aren't programmed for Linux. Untill Linux gets better commercial support as well as community support, M$ can continue to outsmart linux by sheer size alone.

Re:They don't develop, they buy

[Exatron]

Since so much of the code in Microsoft's products is developed by third party sources, it sometimes makes me wonder what the hell their army of programmers actually does all day long...

Well, someone has to write all of the bugs and security holes.

Balmy

[paiute]

Ballmer couldn't outsmart open sores.