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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.
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.
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).
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
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.