Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft Names Linux its Number Two Risk
Jorkapp writes "Microsoft has officially moved Linux up to the Number 2 Risk to the company (With Economic Environment at No. 1). Bill Gates has taken the threat very seriously, and has identified Linux and non-commercial software as 'out there and very pervasive.' In response, Microsoft has dropped the price of Windows CE and opened the embedded OS to developers. This will not only allow developers to view and modify CE, but also distribute software incorporated to the modified code."
Watch what comes up with, say, an article about spam. Slashdot has been tailoring ad placement for some time. (Not that that's a bad thing.)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
This is just MSFT trying to act all big, oh pshaw, Linux, one can hardly muster a whim about it. Well, it is a tried and true method. I mean, at Coca-Cola back in the day, they barely even considered a little startup called Pepsi. They mocked it internally, thinking that they were the big guy and the "P-cola" would never amount to much. Of course, when it gained steam by targeting a younger audience, they panicked and launched "New Coke". Yeah. I think we know the rest of that story.
I predict that very soon MSFT will have to lower substantially the cost of Office, further eroding its margins. Better start cashing in Bill.
Microsoft profit up 26%. No sign of any eroded margins there!
I still prefer the taste of Dr. Pepper.
(-1, Irrelevant)
n0nsensical :"Isn't Microsoft just making more and more people aware of Linux and how good of a Windows replacement it's becoming? Seems sort of counter-productive to give your #2 threat a lot of free publicity. Doesn't seem like the sort of thing a huge company would tell the public. But hey, I'm not complaining. "
:)
Microsoft made Netscape their # 1 threat back in 1996...and as they say, the rest is history and so is Netscape
Look what happened to them.
Microsoft also zeroed in on Palm back in 1998. Today, Microsoft has gone from 0% share to some 32% and rising share in the pda market, meanwhile Palm OS share has been falling every single year sine.
As for Linux, figures from Netcraft this week are shwoing Windows 2003 taking share from linux in the web server market, with some 8000 linux servers having switched to Windows 2003 already!
I wouldn't be so pleased if I were you.
From what I have seen , Microsoft has trained its guns on linux but good. Watch out!
The rest of the story is that coke still holds a tangible advantage (about 10 percentage points) in the US market while it has about 90% marketshare in the rest of the world. So, while Pepsi may be a big company, Coke still isn't really threatened by it.
Time makes more converts than reason
Microsoft only makes profits on two things. Niether of them hardware.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
You can get a similar version of Windows Media Player 6.4 by typing mplayer2 at the run dialog box.
Sunny Dubey
Given that Microsoft is publically held, it's management will disclose information on competitive threats to the shareholders. Those filings are all public. They can try and spin it however they like, but claiming that Linux doesn't threaten their desktop OS monopoly wouldn't pass the reasonable man test.
Thus the lower prices. Now that Microsoft has to seriously compete, they're dropping prices and will probably improve the quality of their software. Capitalism is a rather nice thing when it works.
Microsoft is brilliant(as usual) in encouraging people to start making comparisons NOW as opposed to later, because if people are turned off by the complexities of Linux now, they are unlikely to revisit the issue anytime soon. Once Microsoft has their dollars, the battle is over for at least a decade.
/. crowd isn't as stupid as you think they are.
Home users don't care who Microsoft thinks is a threat. Only corporate people do, and they're not the ones who deal with the complexities of computers. I've been selling and supporting IT solutions to small and mid-size businesses for over 7 years, and customers do understand that Linux is the best value out there.
Maybe the
Ruby on Rails Screencast
When the economy is in recession, it is shrinking. Because the U.S. economy is not shrinking, it cannot, by definition, be in a recession.
It's not growing as much as all of us would like, for sure.
Napster-to-go says "Fill and refill your compatible MP3 player", which is a lie. It's not MP3. It's WMA with DRM.