Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft's Chief Linux Strategist Interviewed
sl0wp0is0n writes "Computerworld has published an interview with Microsoft's chief Linux strategist, Martin Taylor. It's interesting to find out that Microsoft thinks and predicts Novell (SuSE) will be the dominant Linux distribution they'll have to compete against. The interview also has Taylor talking about indemnification, IBM and his realization that customers generally adopt Linux to get a better TCO than Unix, not Windows."
As you can see here with this little nugget:
And you can end up with Linux not being Linux, but Red Hat Linux being different than Novell SUSE Linux, Debian Linux and Mandrake, or whatever the case is.
Very nice. His teacher at FUD school must be beaming now.
Oh well, did you really expect a MS Linux Strategist (nice title btw) to say or do anything different then what we read in the article? The same would be expected from a Linux MS Strategist (if there is such a thing) doing spin on Windows.
Circle of life...
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
customers generally adopt Linux to get a better TCO than Unix, not Windows
While that may be more or less true in the US, from what I've read it seems like a lot of foreign countries are switching to Linux from Windows for the better TCO as well.
In the US, it seems like a lot of big Unix companies are switching - but eventually there will be a large Windows to Linux switch here to.
Looking for hardware (Currently need: Large Etch-a-Sketch) Have one? See my journal!
Oh well. We didn't pay for it anyway, so we shouldn't care too much about security.
the funny part is that their so call expert has no clue.
My company is trying to migrate to linux to get away from the nightmare that is windows security. we have the best firewalls you can buy and buy all the software scanners we can yet spyware sneaks into the machines because of the gigantic security holes that windows 2000 and XP has in them. none of this crud should get installed, yet it does, it bypasses the security settings and wiggles in there because of the flaws in IE and outook and Word.
we Had a Regional VP visit here during the last virus outbreak and he saw that the research department was working away without being bothered while we had to run around and fix machines because the patches and fixes would not reliably push out to the windows machines. He asked why, and the response from one of the IT guys was, "Oh, they run linux and are immune to all this."
cince that day he has increased our support in the company for researching linux migration 10 fold.
Companies are looking at linux on the desktop to get away from the nightmare that is computing today.
granted, it's only a matter of time until the spyware and viruses are written for linux, but I'm betting that having the core web-client-tools open source will keep it under control as things will get fixed.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Personally, I think Microsoft is going to underestimate the abilities of Red Hat and their business model (the subscription based thing) the more and more I talk to higher ups from various companies, thats what they want. I mean Novell is definitly going to be a comptetitor, but MS has taken them before, they've never had to go "toe to toe" with Red Hat and they've never had competition that used a different business strategy then they did. As far as I know, Novell uses the typical model, the same one MS follows, the same one that MS has had to crush before. Dealing with RH's model I think will be a bit harder. All of this is in reference of course to budiness related needs. Home users will typically use whatever they work with, but home users won't want to subscribe (or will they? afterall you have people paying for radio now), so novell probably is MS's competition in the home market, but RH is definitly a threat in the business side of things. I think MS is just hoping that RH is the new kid on the block and will lose. They've taken Novell before. MS is underestimating their competition just like they did with Mozilla, they never expected what has happened recently. I have a feeling that we'll see this trend occur more often now.
Regards,
Steve
One other thing that's come up more over the last 12 months is this notion of indemnification [against patent and copyright claims].
...
Yes I wonder who is making it an issue.
More and more customers are asking us, "Help me understand what you do from an indemnification perspective versus HP or IBM or Red Hat or Novell." That's weighing into decisions more and more.
Yes because again Microsoft are trying to tie people down with fear that what they will touch they will loose again because the big Microsoft guys will spoil thier fun.
Customers began introducing it and asking me about it more than I was introducing it to them. And I began to say, "Wow. We really stand behind our technology in a pretty aggressive way.
Hahahah yes you are plenty aggressive, like a cornered animal, even the Ministry of Truth could learn from you guys.
We should make sure that we get credit for that compared to Linux in many ways." And it's actually been something that tips the scales sometimes when people are on the fence.
Is that the barbed wire elecrified fence of 10 year supply deal, licensing terms, special backhanders, propriatary formats et al.
Lets all hug this guy. Anyone notice how Microsoft are finding security holes in its own software right when it wants you to upgrade?
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
To make this quick (and hopefully readable/coherent), as long as there are quite a few Linux players (and even *BSD ones) competing with each other, multiplying centers of FLOSS development, M$ will have a hard time dealing with the FLOSS movement, especially if volunteers keep playing a significant role, because Bill & co. just can't wrap their minds around the whole phenomenon (sp?).
As long as the various Linux distros and the BSDs don't play in the "traditional way", in the way that M$ understands, as long as *anyone* can contribute to the FLOSS movement, "we" will stay an elusive, hard to kill target. This was said repeatedly over the years, that what makes GNU/Linux a nightmare for M$ is the fact that there is no single company to buy out or to Netscape (the "cutting the air supply" thing).
The minute you shrink the field to only two (big) companies behind GNU/Linux (doing the bulk of the heavy lifting in development, BTW), you've just ~agreed to play on M$'s terms. M$ understands other, traditional, companies following a traditional business plan and getting traditional results/objectives/whatever.
The minute M$ can understand you, the minute they can "frame" you, you are f**ked.
This is why I sincerely hope that Novell will only be one of many players in a field where the loss of one of these players will not be a significant loss to the FLOSS movement because it will be able to pick up and continue more or less as if nothing happened. The same goes for Red Hat.
I want to go back to a world where I can choose between 4 or 5 shrinkwrapped distros updated at semi-regular intervals, each contributing in his own way to The Movement but not being *the* cornerstone of FLOSS.
If Novell or Red Hat become too important, if they "become GNU/Linux", M$ will simply have to kill them off (which should be easy in the case of Novell, sadly) and simply sit back afterwards, reaping the rewards of having killed off yet another (potential) competitor.
We just cannot let M$ define the playing field and play by its rules. Not to sound too much like ESR, but prior/current behaviour on M$'s behalf leave no room for peaceful coexistence unless they've been kicked in the nuts very hard and brought down a few notches, just like IBM was in the '80s and early '90s. We, nor anyone else, cannot compete in any traditional fashion with M$: they only way to do battle with The Beast From Redmond is gerrila tactics, more or less like the FLOSS movement has done up until now.
Change tactics, start playing the traditional game and see your dreams go down the drain.
Sun
Apple
Red Hat
Also have there fair share of issues
The frequency of problems is the lowest on the Red Hat side, but the others are no better than Microsoft. Business practises are another matter, and the reason I won't touch their stuff with a barge-pole.