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Microsoft Targeting Indian Developers
Pranjal writes "An Indian Business magazine, Business World is reporting that in it's war against Linux, Microsoft is taking the battle to the Indian developers. The logic is simple. India has 10% of the developer population of the world. If a significant number of these developers commit to work on MS platforms then the number of developers working on Linux platforms can decrease significantly and thus the number of applications. As Dilip Mistry, a director at Microsoft India's Bangalore office puts it, "This country can affect our (Microsoft's) destiny." [Quote From article] Local linux user groups are trying to counter this threat by targetting school and university students and increasing the awareness about development on a linux platform. Read the full story here. [Nice cover don't you think?]"
In related news, Bill Gates is visiting India and gave $100 million to fight AIDS in India. Although I geniuinely believe Bill Gates to be a humane person (really), _perhaps_ this action has something to do with leveraging Microsoft position in the Indian government?
I first thought when I read targeting Indian Developers it was for the use of pirate software, not to woo them to use more pirated MS software.
Also, what about price. I don't think the average Indian developer has $1000US for software licenses, it is more likely that the $1000US will be used to feed the family, etc.
As far as Western countries loosing jobs, yes that is a possibility, but there is enough racism at least in North America that will prevent massive job losses. Think "Made in America", and also how many taxi drivers were doctors in their homelands.
It seems that programmers are one of the few occupations that are treated nearly equal. In some ways this sucks for us, but at least these people have a chance and their education is respected...
I think MS will suceed in this war. The linux groups in India are all small and pretty restricted in terms of their activities. And Bill is doing his level best to woo the India programmers. There is a place in Delhi where you can buy any pirated MS software. Everyone knows about that. But there are hardly any raids there. I think MS is knowingly encouraging pirated software in India, so that they can get more developers.
Another thing is that software industry in India is mostly a services business, as in they sell services to other companies. They dont make any software products. Now its easy to guess what work do they get more, linux related or Windows related.
What's under yellowstone?
I want that cover, either in printed form or as a hi-res JPG or as vector Postscript.
Thinkgeek, are you listening?
www.eFax.com are spammers
This article's arguments are as valid as if it were saying "Microsoft is sabotaging the open source movement by recruiting the best minds at the best Universities. Give me a break...
Mother is the best bet and don't let Satan draw you too fast.
Most of the development on Linux is done by individuals that do it for their own pleasure or need, it is not done by sweatshops like you find in India for profit. MS is just going their to cut their costs and get rid of some of their high paid workers here, IMHO.
Rediffmail.com is India's largest email server and it runs entirely on Linux.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
They only specialize in Windows because Windows is pracitically free over there. In the Indian IT world, no copy protection laws are ever respected, and the Windows XP devils0wn edition runs on every computer.
If Microsoft began enforcing copyrights strictly for Indian IT companies, then you would see quite a switch to Linux over there -- and quite possibly a boost to the hiring of American programmers with Windows skills, if the H1B training mills are shut down because of it.
--- YEAH I SAW SPARKS FLY!! FROM THE CORNER OF MY EEEYYYEEE!!!
Estimates put the present size of India's developer population at anywhere between 450,000 and 600,000. That's about 10% of the world's developer population.
So by these numbers, there are between 4 and 6 million software developers in the world. According to the Microsoft(tm) Annual Report, they have about 50,000 employees. So what percentage of the worlds developers need to be working on core open source projects before the open source developers outnumber the Windows developers? Looks like the answer is less than 1%!
And that's why I think Microsoft is doomed in the long run. Open Source already has most of the functionality of Microsoft's offerings. And it only takes a small fraction of the world's developers to completely outstrip the amount of effort Microsoft can throw at the problem. Hell, if 10% of the developers spent 10% of their time on core OSS projects it would be more than enough to provide a nice stable feature-rich desktop and server environment. Interesting.
When was the last time someone didn't starve because someone else wrote a new text editor and gave it away with the proviso that if anyone else does anything with it, they have to give away their work for free too?
http://iccf-holland.org/click5.html
Vim, arguably the worlds best text editor, does exactly that. Bill Gates is worthy of some respect for giving money away, but when compared to his net worth and rate of capital growth (never mind it's a tax deduction), you would be suprised what it's comparable to.
..don't panic
I live in Russia where developer market is similar to one in India. I can tell that we dont need special coaching to switch to any particualt form. The demand for software is compltely external, meaning we just work on whats is outsouced from the States and Western Europe. All the develoepr tools and OS are "free" meaning you can buy the lates V svs studoipn .net enterprise edtion 6 cd set at any software kisook for 15 bucks. Most currently specialise on win soft but its alo possibl;e now to male money doing compltely Linux/FreeBSD shit.
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
Then they'll regularly send someone by to see how things are going, talk up their latest "inno-cough-vative" offering, and see if the target company is _motivated_. Sometimes, if they're lucky, one of the new programmers will have some "happy fun intranet site, or happy joy widget" made with said technology to show off (you know, the port of something which has already been working in PERL, PHP, or both using Sun, or Zeus) that will probably score them some nifty t-shirts, a mug, or hey, maybe another dousing with the developer-cd firehose.
And then if they really want to see how things are going, they'll ask for a tour of the _server room_, the holiest of the holies for said company. The annointed one will be walked around, and they'll look for familiar names, like Compaq, or Dell. But, if they see "SUN", or beige boxen then the annointed one will carefully steer conversation towards determining the nature and purpose of these boxen. Depending on the cluefulness of the tour-guide, things could either go well, and the annointed one will leave, only making note of a possible hardware upgrade deal, or they will become wrathful, and the sales-calls, port-scans, and off-hours questioning through "chance meetings" will take place until they have enough information to confront the president of the company. They will act hurt, or betrayed, and say interesting things like,
"I thought we had an understanding that you were a Microsoft Development shop", or
"How can we help you fully become a Microsoft Developer?", or my favorite,
"How has Microsoft failed to meet your needs? We are eager to help you in any way we can."
Of course, years later when the BSA sends out their letters to the less-than-faithful, and begins bringing in the police to follow up on portscans and megabytes of downloaded header logs showing all of the boxen development-only copies of software running. there will be those who remember these honeyed promises aimed only at the hearts, minds, and struggling companies or schools.
M$ has much to gain, but in the end, as they squeeze diversity and skill out of developing countries, they will also loose these possibilities forever. Linux is safe, becuase just like the smart people in Africa who refused flawed crop-seed to avoid a hideous cycle of dependency, developers in India and around the world know that freedom is more important than easily made promises. Held to a hard-line of artificial ability and capability(M$ API's are Black-boxes...no lookee, no touch-ee, no-feelie) with brittle security, smart developers and business leaders will realize that there is no get-rich quick incentive to supporting a core of fatally flawed intractable components supplied by a company which is really incapable of doing anything more than strong-arming hardware and software developers(even savvy developers need support--and when they become the support they are no longer developers), coercing companies with hideous licensing schemes by buying legislation and counting coup on the legal system of the United States. Companies seeking to get rich by suckling at the four-paned teat would do well to remember that M$ eats it's young, and often the young of others too.
Every new form of media has it's own Requirimento
That's what I've been telling people... 100 years from now Gates won't be remembered as the founder of Microsoft... He'll be remembered as the founder of the Gates Foundation, and revered for what that foundation has accomplished (which hopefully will include stamping out AIDS). Basically he's following the Andrew Carnegie model... Hmm, will we someday see a Gates Unverisity?
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
Here's an article where Bill Gates has taken a real interest in India... I don't think these two event are unrelated.
Bill Gates hands out millions to fight AIDS in India
1. India has an impending crisis that could potentially balloon to having more AIDS victims than all AIDS victims in Africa _combined_
2. The Gates Foundation already gave $250 mil to countries in Africa, with more donations coming up. Please don't tell me that this is to combat the growing amount of open source developers in Timbuktu.
" I wish to read where Bill Gates called "charitable work by open source developers" "communist" and "cancer". Please provide a reference to the quote so I can better understand your point of view."
He himself did not but other top level executives at MS have. I know you have read about them and a simple search on google would find you the resources you are looking for.
I gather what you are implying is that Bill Gates has no responsibility for anything his footsoldiers do or say. If that is your point then I disagree completely. Bill Gates and the head of MS, the most visible part of MS, the founder of MS, and the richest man in the world has to carry the responsiblity for what his corporation does and anything his top level executives say or print. I can understand if some low level joe said those things but it wasn't some low level programmer it was people holding VP level titles. The fact that Bill never punished them or even publicly rebuked them can only means that he agrees fully or that he put those words in their mouths.
"He doesn't. I do. I have this code of conduct, or morality, that seems hard to get rid of. I by default attempt to stick up for people being attacked. I try to lay out facts when I see someone being smeared by unqualified "truts". "
Really? Let me check to see if you defended open source developers when they are attacked by MS. Let me see if you defended any company when some MS FUD campaign was launched against them. If in fact you tried to defend people being smeared by unqualified truths you'd spend your entire like reading MS press releases, bought benchmarks and such and working hard to point out all their lies. Also you would hang out at ZDNET and gotdotnet to try and counter all the MS FUD there.
Why do I suspect that you haven't done any of the above?
War is necrophilia.