Ballmer on Linux

theodp writes "'In the Linux world, nobody stands behind patent claims,' warned Steve Ballmer, saying that Microsoft customers would be protected from the $550 million Eolas patent infringement judgment. 'I'm not trying to spread fear, uncertainty and doubt,' said the CEO of the company who earlier cried wolf about breaking IE in the wake of the Eolas judgment, prompting the W3C to go to bat for the software giant."

Comments

OS at odds with MS again, no surprise there..

[Space cowboy]

It's interesting to note the arguments on groklaw that an OS strategy might actually have *less* to fear than a closed-source one, compared to Mr Balmer's "It's not really FUD, honest" intellectual property FUD.

Also, reading the article, either the writer is unsympathetic to MS, or Balmer is really putting out some mixed messages ... eg:
"Ballmer scoffed at arguments that his company's operating system creates a computing monoculture" vs his statement "Microsoft's platforms offer better interoperability with the company's other technology".

Sounds like he's been spinning so much, he's dizzy :-)

Simon.

The next great thing?

[neomac]

Ballmer singled out XML and Web services as the "big breakthrough" of the next decade that will spur innovation.

Puh-lease. I was at the introduction of XML and CDF back in 1996/7 by Microsoft. They also handed out 4.0 beta disks of IE 4.0 at the event. I think it was called World Wide Live.

MSFT's gone nowhere fast with XML, while the rest of the developer world embbraced and extended it. They (MSFT) finally decided on a strategy for it what, three years ago? And now it's going to be the next big thing of the coming decade?

No wonder Linux runs circles around the Redmond Behemoth...

Re:Linux to Ballmer

[big ben bullet]

i've only got one 1 to add

developers
developers
developers
developers!

and that's that!

Necessity is a Mutha

[ackthpt]

Avast, ye bloomin' brine-swiggin' picaroon!

it'll stink for a few years, and then it will fizzle away as developers agree that there's a better solution than the patented one anyway.

Which, when you think about it, has been the intiative behind lots of great development, if you don't like the toll road, dig your own and many fine things have come of this. Further browsers like Mozilla and Opera progress while IE stagnates.