Slashdot Mirror
Meet Martin Taylor Of Microsoft's Open Source Test Lab
securitas writes "Martin Taylor was recently appointed as Microsoft's open source and Linux strategist and is responsible for Microsoft's open source and Linux test lab, mentioned on Slashdot last week. Taylor says his goal is to change Microsoft's competitive strategy by pursuing a fact-based approach instead of continuing the previous discredit-and-undermine strategy that was characterized by calling open source and Linux software 'a cancer, un-American and bankrupt' among other things. Taylor says he plans to focus on (and fund) studies that 'will highlight Microsoft's advantages in areas such as security, feature-completeness and total cost of ownership.'"
I find it funny that Microsoft is actualy going to attack linux by learning it. They still have a strangle hold on the market, I don't even understand why they're going after linux as a 'competator' but hey everyone wants to rule the world right?
I am full of goo... black evil goo
Though I'm sure their "new approach" will still contain a fair measure of FUD, actually hearing factual arguments from MS will be a nice change of pace. I respect arguments based on fact, even if I disagree with them.
That Microsoft telling the truth about security would pretty much boil down to: "Please, don't buy our product."
Okay, enough M$ bashing. So what DOES Microsoft do right?
Well, okay, they have developed a pretty reasonable method for getting patches and security fixes out the door. They do so for free (as in prostitutes) and though they could have completely shut out Apple's MS Office line, they continue to develop it.
Apple and Red Hat both have competing systems to the Windows Update schema, and I have to say I like Apple's better. I haven't had much interaction with Red Hat's. Anyone?
Open Office I'm really really really really hoping goes Quartz native soon, but according to this posting it's not likely do to API updates. *sigh*
Karma: Chameleon (mostly due to the fact that you come and go).
The back of my old Linux Hardware Solutions t-shirt has the following quote from Ghandi next to the penguin:
First they ignore you,
Then they laugh at you,
Then they fight you,
Then you win.
I'd say Microsoft has now reached the third line regarding Linux. This is a good sign.
I agree, except I'd expect Microsoft to deal with Linux on a couple of different fronts. I mean, what company out there uses the totally honest approach? Everybody does what is in their power to keep customers.
.NET, Server 2003 seem to steps in the right direction. Linux probably hasn't hurt this effort.
Early on they could deal with Linux via FUD (although I'd argue there was a good deal of FUD flung from both sides.) Now they are going to start investigating other methods, heck maybe down the line offer Office for Linux? Who really knows? Would it kill Microsoft to offer a version of Linux, as well as keep the Windows platform if the future requires it? I mean, say Linux grabs 20-30% of the market. Microsoft is extremely big and powerful company with a lot of smart people and could offer a good distribution. So they'd have to decide between their ego and their bank account.
Microsoft has always been able to deal with changes in the market, and this is one of them. How fast they change depends on adoption of Linux.
I'd also say the MS platform has been moving along well -
Of course, maybe this is all a dream and they'll never touch linux. The future is exciting!
Bingo.
I recently got a development contract with this exact argument.
My customer is getting a fully tailored, customised solution to thier problem - a solution based totally on open source technologies. (Nice Linux server, PostgresSQL, etc.) To boot, all of that custom work came in at a price significantly less than anyone else who bid for the job. Significantly less.
I get a very nice paycheck, once it's done. Should be more on the way, too, since I get to re-sell the solution and customise it for other customers. And support contracts if the customer so chooses, will supplement my income, too. (BTW, they don't need to pick me for support, since they have the code, and that code is based on known OSS tools, etc. Certainly makes one pay attention to customer service.)
Microsoft got squat. Well, this time, anyway. I might need to throw Bill & Co. the odd scrap (if the customer gets new desktop machines, for example, and insists on XP) down the road, but that depends wholly on the customer. They can use Windows if they want, but they sure don't need Windows. Customers seem to like that.
Soko
"Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm." - Anonymous
What this really means is that Microsoft is smart, and has hired someone who will now find much better reasons to poo-poo open source and Linux. Maybe not good reasons or reasons anyone here would agreee with, but reasons that will make sense to the IT departments and executives that make up Microsofts customers.
On the plus side, if MS does come up with technical reasons against using Linux or other OS projects, that means those reasons can be addressed by technical people. Either rebut, or fix, whatever issues this new lab comes up with. Easy, and good for open source too.
God, I LOVE competition.
Microsoft is going to have to start establishing a long term track record of having rational discussions and doing things right. At this point, most people associate Microsoft with that company that wrote the thing they use at work the reboots on them and gets slow. They MIGHT have heard about how they were judged a monopoly. Go a little higher to the technical manager level, and they might know about a few of the highly embarassing things that have happened to Microsoft like the lawsuits or the navy ship getting towed back to shore that was running NT, etc. The prevailing attitude has been:
"We have to like it. It's the only choice".
Or for the more hardcore fans,
"we have to love it and defend it because they have all the money and power and I always side with the winner because that's all I know to do. I am afraid of change".
And even though that gets them what they want in the end, market domination, not many people actually take them seriously. I can remember being at a coffee shop recently and 3 older, more mature looking suits were joking about how Microsoft was getting "more secure" and remarking on a outlook trojan problem they were having currently. Nobody buys it. They just have accepted that they have no choice. That's why a effort like this, no matter how much money they throw behind it, won't convince too many people. It will create some really great boilerplate for the zealots to recite. That's about it. They are going to have to actually make their products better and actually work very hard to clean up their public image before anybody takes anything like this seriously. Just look at the general body of the responses to this article already! If Linus submitted a story saying he was going to do some sort of security audit, he would pretty much universally be taken seriously. You'll never have that with Microsoft given the reputation they have forged for themselves. Windows Server 2003 is a good step in the RIGHT direction for once. It's the smartest thing they've done to DATE to combat Linux in any way. Why? They actually listened to what their customers wanted, and sorta did it instead of doing what THEY deemed right and push it on everyone. It actually looks to be a decent product. But, it doesn't help that Oracle put out their July/August 2003 magazine and there is a HUGE Penguin on the front cover. Pages 46-62 can be summed up like this:
"Get redhat and a dell and oracle9 or you are stupid."
They might as well have said:
"SCO is completely batshit. This is what you want to do now".
And they basically came out and said
"Federal Aviation Air Traffic and Control, as well as these hospitals are now running Oracle on Redhat on HP and Dell servers. We are now meeting the holy grail of reliability with Linux. You can trust it with your life, and the lives of your loved ones".
The message is pretty clear for any CIO or manager type that I've shown this issue to. With the momentum behind Linux at the moment, I don't see Microsoft being able to do much of anything to lower their TCO in time. Every time a CIO, CEO, VP, etc. hears about all the money Amazon have saved, They want some of that luvin.
For every annoying gentoo user, are three even more annoying anti-gentoo crybabies. Take Yosh from #Gimp for example.
Proof? They have just hired a PR firm to do the dirty work while they polish their image.
Before: "they are the cancer of IP"
Now: "they stole our IP"
Same message, just better wording.
By the way, every time the OSS community reads and discuss the MS FUD of the week, that is time wasted not focusing on its own strategy. Just as the Linux desktop needs to break away from the MS path and be innovative, the community needs to stop acting as complements and substitutions of MS products but as an autonomous end-to-end solution provider.
Fight Microsoft where it hurts: ignore them.
I know it is fun to ridicule them, but they provide a cheap entertainment that is working for them the long run: we get accustomed to their style, they shape the "industry standards" at that level, and we don't get our work done. And we learn about all of their products.
Do yourself a favour, stop reading about the MS crap, there is never anything really new, and take it to the next level.
I am getting really sick of surveys and studies that start with the answer, then search for the question. How about doing some unbiased research, then after studying the results, announcing the results and maybe inferring a conclusion or two?
I wish the press just wouldn't cover these kinds of publicity stunts. Next week: Gartner advises world to buy Microsoft because of results of microsoft funded, microsoft staffed antiopensource lab research findings...
-- $G
Surely if Microsoft does the research and points out 'facts' this will just give GNU/Linux developers a checklist of things to squash. The arms race that this will produce can only be good for GNU/Linux and ultimately backfire (again) on Microsoft. _Almost_ as good as free kernel patches from Redmond....