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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."
Free publicity :)
Tho I personally believe Microsoft's biggest threat are themselves. They sometimes do make cool stuff (Media Player 6.4) but then quicky ruin it (Media Player 7+).
I wonder how long it's going to take Microsoft to figure out that it's not Linux that's the threat, it's open source. Linux is fine, but what do you DO with Linux? Linux is just a platform (like BSD), the other things you do like run a webserver, file server, database all require some sort of software (Apache, Samba, PostgreSQL). Most of the really good software packages aren't specific to Linux.
By even giving away Windows CE, they lose nothing. It is highly outdated, but by getting hardware manufacturers to stick to the MS line of products, their monopoly is secured. Is a device running WinCE more or less likely to ever have Linux drivers?
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Considering how MS deals with problems, it can't possibly win.
1. MS can't buy the economy
2. MS can't buy Linux
So traditional MS strategies don't work.
There sure is. Not only that, but "Linux" -- or rather, the universe of free-software Unix-like components -- is not entirely a noncommercial space. It contains a lot of commercial competitors to Microsoft, such as Red Hat, Zope Corporation, IBM, and so forth -- it isn't just volunteers hacking code for fun. It's these commercial competitors -- not a bunch of random hackers -- who will eat Microsoft's lunch if they get the chance.
("Commercial" is not the same as "proprietary". There is plenty of commerce possible, and existent, in the world of free software.)
It doesn't have to be that way. Because the portability barriers between GNU/Linux and Solaris are low, customers can migrate easily, yes -- but so can good code. For instance, Apache is often thought of as "Linux software" by people who don't know very much, but it also ships with Solaris.
Sun has to compete more closely with free-software systems than Microsoft does ... but Sun can also benefit much more easily from free-software innovation than Microsoft can.
(Of course, portability is not the only reason for this; ideology is, as well. One of the planks of Fundamentalist Gatesism is that free software doesn't do anyone any good. And they call us fanatics?)
Good point, but still, I remember an article on the front page of the business section of the USAToday about Linux a while back. Not exactly my favorite news publication, but obviously there were a huge number of non-geeks reading about Linux vs. Microsoft that day. You never know who's going to pick up the story.
Sun has to compete more closely with free-software systems than Microsoft does ... but Sun can also benefit much more easily from free-software innovation than Microsoft can.
That is an excellent point.
One of the planks of Fundamentalist Gatesism is that free software doesn't do anyone any good. And they call us fanatics?
Oh, Gates has no problems with "free as in beer" - look at IE, for example.
Let's realise that Linux is successful 'cos MS divided the h/w folks, and that led to competition and commodity pricing, at the same time market aggregation.
:->) and put Palladium on it, that could cut off Linux entirely, since this XXBox would be $150 for h/w and s/w would be $50 per year!
Of course, this is also why MS is successful; if they had tied themselves to a single hardware vendor who was therefore also capable of selling with fat profit margins and little competition, many more of us would be using Macs right now.
OTOH if they make a modified XBox, say XXBox (what about XXXBox
They've already got the equivalent of Palladium on the XBox, and it's already been cracked. The XXBox would be cracked too, as will Palladium for the PC. In order to make Palladium work, even if they had magic reverse engineering proof hardware, Microsoft would need to only sign software that is 100% free of exploitable errors. I doubt they could write software like that themselves, much less expect everyone else in the world to write it, if they still expect to sign other companies' software to maintain a facade of market competition.
Large forces and trends ultimately win; like the desire to be free. MS has simply begun to recognize that the inputs required to overcome the market's natural forces will soon exceed the outputs. this is partly due to an increasing realization that consumers have become satisfied with existing technology.
what will MS do? they have hundreds of very talented programmers, incredible distribution & support capacity, not to mention $30 billion in cash. after all, customers simply want the outputs of all that technology.
if MS would embrace OpenSource as another input to its products and add credibility and customer service they would have an incredible value proposition.
i predict an MS-Linux release in 2-3 years.
Yes, many Linux distros are good desktop OSes. It's important to realize that the UNIX aspects of it are why we geeks use it.
I'd rather have Linux with no dos/windows/macintosh emulation on a nice UltraSparc than Lindows on a PC, even if that latter had a perfected fork of Wine installed.
I think that Microsoft knows they can't best Linux in the server market, where buyers are more educated. They are more afraid of losing bundling with the smaller PC companies. How many people are running a $199 Walmart C3 with an illegal copy of Windows?
As for the Windows CE source, where is it? If they expect us to pay money to work on their code for them, they are sadly missing the beauty of OSS.
You can't judge a book by the way it wears its hair.
Microsoft doesn't let anyone but itself re-compile the code to Windows
I may freely build my Open Source executables, along with any changes I've made to it.
If re-compiling Windows where an option, the DRM and Palladium would not be possible.
Essentially, Microsoft has had to make the concession in order to rally their own troops to fighting Linux aggressively. To continue saying, Linux is worthless and not a real credible answer, is to look like you have your head in the sand. The Munich deal made them realize that Linux is no longer being used to just squeeze a better deal out of MS, but people will actually implement it if MS doesn't come up with a good deal up front. I think that is what surprised them: they probably never believed that Munich was serious about putting in Linux.
They've simply been hoping that this point would never come, when they had to actually acknowledge Linux as a serious competitor (and not just for anti-trust reasons; they would call a Vic-20 viable competition in order to get DOJ to leave them alone).
In the article they state the number one risk is the state of the economy, and the number two risk is open source.
I would argue that Microsoft's number one risk is actually the free spread of information over the internet. This is something that can not be controlled (yet).
In the old days IT decisions were made with very limited information. Possibly Gartner group published recommendations, maybe from reading trade journals that were several months out of date.
A popular saying was "well nobody got fired using [insert company here] products". It was all about risk management. Go with the biggest baddest company, and at least you're protected in some way if things blow up. That was the theory.
With easier access to information folks are realizing that this theory doesn't always hold true. When the latest windows/exchange/internet explorer vulnerability is unleashed, now you're just part of the bigger collective that is screwed.
It becomes harder for companies to do damage control when the facts spread quickly and undergo so much analysis by people not on their payroll.
When the internet functions as a self regulating corporate BS filter, then it becomes the biggest single threat to Microsoft.
If there were no alternatives to Microsoft, the economic environment wouldn't matter much, would it?
That is actually a very good point but I would take it one step further. The economuc environment and saturated market are THE reasons for Licensing 6.0. Licensing 6.0/Software Assurance is an attempt by Microsoft to maintain an economy of scale in a stagnating market. They know that without Licensing 6.0 they will be unable to invest as much time and work into the further development of Windows.
Along comes Linux.... Now Licensing 6.0 doesn't look so hot to the corporate customer. Nor does product activation, etc. There are parts of these practices that actually *detract* from the use value of the software. So regardless, Windows becomes more expensive as time goes on.
So the real problem is that Linux restricts Microsoft's reactions to the economic times in ways that no other competitor can.
LedgerSMB: Open source Accounting/ERP
This story needs to be put in context with recent developments and crowing about Windows being chosen over Linux. The biggest story out of this surprising admission is that analysts and large organizations are starting to recognize the value proposition of Linux and Open Source, as described in the rejected post below. The most telling comment is in the quotation in boldface, which lends support to Mitch Kapor's predictions.
Microsoft Ranks Linux its Number Two Threat
While most media are focusing on Microsoft's growing sales and Microsoft Windows Server 2003 replacing Linux servers based on the June 2003 Netcraft survey, (also at SMH, but disputed by the Register) there's a more interesting story to Microsoft's latest earnings report and conference call. Speaking about the top five risks for Microsoft, CFO John Connors said, ''The general economic environment is risk and driver number one. Linux and non-commercial software is risk number two.'' The recent Munich win for Linux is partly credited for making Microsoft take Linux and OS software seriously. Said one analyst about future threats, ''People are underestimating Linux on the desktop. They're going to be surprised at how quickly Linux's threat will be an issue on the desktop.''
Well, maybe so, but there are limits to how effective any code base and methodology can be. There are reasons to suspect that the Microsoft approach will soon or has already reached a point of diminishing returns in terms of value added per unit effort. It can always be made better, of course, but that doesn't mean it can always be made better fast enough.
Even if true, this doesn't mean Stallmanesque pure open source will win either. I think a hybrid model (see OSX) may be the best. The point is less about morality or motivation, and more that Microsoft's high-pressure release-first fix-later approach has left it with a huge, bloated, unrepairable code base.
Look again at your analogy. You can add motors to your 18th century boat and make it faster, but it's not going to win a race head-to-head against a modern speedboat designed and built with modern methods and materials.
I can't believe you say you like Win2k better than WinXP.
I have seen my mother-in-law try to switch to XP from W98 to manage her photography hobby. The switch seems to have gratuitously confused her. In the end she is marginally less effective. As for me, when I get roped into support tasks for her, I have to deal with a smarmy and aesthetically revolting UI.
Even leaving aside the licensing and spyware aspects, I for one definitely strongly prefer older version of Windows to XP, and have no plans to move any of my Win9x boxes to any current Microsoft OS, nor to purchase any Intel boxes with any version on XP on them in future. I have occasion to run Win95, Win98, Red Hat, and Debian, but mostly I use OSX, sometimes with a Win98 VirtualPC.
By the way I have nothing against decent MS software. Excel is nice, and if it weren't a security risk Outlook, (which has some great features to outweigh its cluttered design) would be very appealing. I recommend MS Entourage on OSX + Palm as the best PIM combination at present, despite the many things I like about iCal. On the other hand I think MS Word is garbage and a curse on humankind. It cannot be repaired. The underlying data structures are too broken.
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For example, working for a small, university library, I have to deal with a small budget in a shrinking economy. I would love nothing better than to switch over to Linux. However, we still have a few programs that we rely on that requires Windows. Now, if our vendors were to write their programs for Linux, then the switch would be a real possibility. A pipedream? Maybe, but then again a lot of things started out the same way and are now not only a reality, we have come to depend upon them (e.g. computers, cell phones, etc.)
Oh, and I just can't leave this post without something funny, and considering the wording of the topic, it screams for this one.
Number One, I order you to take a Number Two. -- Beavis
It's all fun and games until someone loses the key to the handcuffs.