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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."
When you're getting something for free, [vendors] get a lot of "get out of jail free" cards. You see [people saying], "Oh well. We didn't pay for it anyway, so we shouldn't care too much about security. We'll fix it ourselves. Oh, there's no regression testing. Who cares? We'll do that ourselves." But once you start writing a check, you now have demands, and rightfully so.
And indeed, for me, this marks the start of Linux having the potential to be a threat. It means that if a commercial Linux is a viable option, then more commercial software will be written.
Get thee glass eyes, and, like a scurvy politician, seem to see things thou dost not.--King Lear
Could anyone explain that to me? This guy is explaining that people put KERNELS into DISTRIBUTIONS?
Yeah, because everyone wants to run their OS off a CD.
At least as far as this interview goes, it's all about corporate strategies AGAINST Linux suppliers and integrators. Little to nothing about OSS's/Unix's/Linux's strengths. Again, they are fundamentally missing the point in the interview.
That doesn't mean they aren't using their legal and financial blunderbuss to defeat the Linux vendors/integrators the same way they wiped out Netscape, though. If so, they almost certainly won't talk about it in an interview.
I didn't RTFA though so troll me if you wish.
http://jayceecorder.blogspot.com
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
Anyone who thinks Microsoft is going to announce its GENUINE thoughts about Linux to the public world is deceiving themselves.
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!
Total cost of Ownership ?
I thought and it was Microsoft and its BSA/SPA satellite that software could not be owned, hence the EULAs.
So, they imply one might OWN a system ?
Trolling using another account since 2005.
they think of Internet Explorer..
No one pays for that, so Microsoft "Get Out Of Jail" for that? I think not...
And also according to those click-through licenses my rights pretty much include "up to but not more than $5".. so that's a comfort is it?
Ahh but to a business it is. I'm not sure if you are aware but most corporate IT groups at some point in their chain of command end up reporting to finance. Accountants could care less about whiz bang technological tricks, they just want to know what it is going to cost.
Indeed, My guess is that this started right after you "funded" SCO's litigations and started to pantent every damn thing under the sun.
And you are surprised customers brought up something you brought on? Puhleeze..
-RG.
They're absolutely right. The major migrations in big corporations tend to be replacement of Solaris boxes, with I suppose HP and AIX getting a look in too.
The home user running Mandrake isn't what they're thinking about here, though I'm sure they spend some time on that too. No - they're thinking about datacentre stuff. But don't take my word for it - ask Sun. Ask 'em how their sales are recently, and why they've had to start offering Linux and x86.
Cheers,
Ian
I just setup a linux file server for my business. If I bought a windows server with enough licenses for the computers in my store, it would cost me $3000. Linux on the other hand cost me $0.
Now if a person who needed a server like this didn't know anything about linux, I'm sure he could hire someone for less than $3000 to set it up for him. $100 to hire someone for an hour would be reasonable.
I just thought I'd throw in that example...
Outdoor digital photography, mostly in New Engl
That's because Novell has withstood the onslaught from Microsoft and still managed to eke out a survival. The folks at Novell know how to fight back against Microsoft.
--
A neighborhood journal
Microsoft's anti-Linux strategist, on the contrary, will probably be recommending more changes to Microsoft networking to put more roadblocks in the way of the Samba people, more file-format changes to Word and Excel to screw OpenOffice, and stuff like that. It's rumored that Microsoft has in the past hired actors to behave like really obnoxious Linux fanboys at trade shows, damaging Linux's image - if it's true, no doubt he'll have a hand in that, too.
Just unreal. It sounds like he's basically saying that IBM, Novell and RedHat will start stabbing each other in the back, and fuck over customers in the process, pretty much for the sake of stabbing each other in the back.
In the real world, strategic alliances exist because you realize that by co-branding or working with another company, you can make more money, grow market share and benefit customers.
Apparently, that's not how it works at Microsoft.
Buy the President
From the linked article:
When I talk to customers and they say, "Hey, we can get better TCO with Linux," they're not always saying better than Windows. They're saying better than Unix.
Hardly surprising. For a customer migrating from a commercial UNIX version, the switch to the UNIX-like Linux will probably be much easier than the switch to Windows.
In this case, the difficulty of switching to a completely different environment works against Microsoft. But this merely balances out some of the Windows environments, whose owners find the switch to Linux too difficult.
C - the footgun of programming languages
Any other surprises? The surprising thing, a little bit, is how predictable our conversations are now with customers. ... One other thing that's come up more over the last 12 months is this notion of indemnification [against patent and copyright claims]. 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. ... Customers began introducing it and asking me about it more than I was introducing it to them.
The FUD is working, and working well.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
IBM has had a deliberate strategy of not having its own distro. This guy obviously thinks that is a bad idea. He is implying that IBM has no idea of where it is going with Linux. He seems to like what Novell is doing though. Personally, I think he is totally underestimating the enemy (IBM). IBM has shown that it can totally re-invent itself if necessary.
You got to love the title.
It's like:
Chinese government's Chief human rights activist.
Vatican's Chief birth control strategist.
McDonald's Chief vegetarian strategist.
What a great title!
It's kind of sad to me actually. If customers *are* talking (to Microsoft) about indemnification issues, then any of Microsoft's allegedly behind-the-scenes investments in SCO's legal actions have paid off for... for Microsoft at least. Another FUD issue successfully on the table.
And notice how the TCO issue is spun... "oh the real Linux TCO issue is versus Unix"... so one might overlook the savings one would have using Linux rather than Microsoft. Why do I run Samba rather than paying $1000 for Windows Server? Or Apache rather than $1000 for IIS+Windows Server? Why does Microsoft cripple their software so that "Software Update Services" (which allows me to check from a central workstation if the PCs running on our network are patched to fix *Microsoft's* security holes) so it only works with Windows XP Professional? In a small/medium business, I now have to run around to all the PCs to doublecheck them because Windows XP Professional on every desktop is one more expense we don't need. And one has to take care that all the laptops which come and go at the end of the day get checked. Compare that to remote administration of Linux systems where it's super-simple to login remotely in the middle of the day or scan programmatically...
Linux isn't strategic for businesses because it lets them reduce a few Unix expenses (although any shrewd businessperson will take what they can get)... it's worth pursuing so you don't end up beholden to one big vendor for all your software. Microsoft's prices *do* keep rising over the years you know...
--LP
It is a good solid distro using KDE as the default desktop environment. It has one feature that IMHO puts it at the head of the list for non-geek use, YaST. It makes maintenance a lot easier than the standard LINUX methods. Since YaSY is now GPL, maybe we will see other distros adopt it. Now if only SuSE would adopt apt-get from Debian. I hate resolving dependecies..... Luckily it doesn't occur very often.
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?
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I'm not sure, but MS Bob probably predates their love of the internet.
When MS first became aware of the importance of the internet (somewhere in 1995), they started up MSN. MSN was supposed to become a "Microsoft Internet", with all content provided by MS. Something like AOL or Compuserve before they connected to the internet.
Unfortunately for Microsoft, people prefered the "real" internet over a proprietary online service [1], and MSN had to be revamped into a regular ISP. Since they couldn't provide a real advantage, MSN wasn't very successful as an ISP.
[1] AOL, Compuserve and other services like them had to do the same.
WWTTD?
It's sensible in a 'spin' interview like this to focus on persuading people that windows is better than what's currently out there.
.NET API, Office/music/video DRM, putting increasing resources into the .NET versus Java battle, dropping the price of windows to emerging markets and encouraging the use of non-standard MS technologies by bundling new API's and apps into windows at every opportunity.
I'm sure they also have an anti-OSS strategy internally but this is likely to be very sensitive information. Probably their anti-OSS strategy includes creating new standards for the Web via Avalon/Indigo that become reliant on having the windows
These are the kind of strategies that are neccessary to discourage linux adoption. Every change to windows that makes it less easy to migrate to linux must be hidden as either eye-candy, ease-of-use or a DRM "feature".
Matt
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.
It should be Microsoft's Chief GNU/Linux Strategist, except if they feel that only the kernel threatens them.
To some extend they miss the point focusing on Linux only.
Firefox, OpenOffice on MS-Windows are very good mid term alternative on the road to the linux operating system.
Once a user is used to these FLOSS tools on MS-Windows, the cost of change towards Linux as the OS becomes marginal.
Microsoft's patches have been known to create quite a few problems, you would hope that a company with the resources they command would be able to perform a relatively compentant test of a patch.
I'd guess that this focus will end up biting MS in the ass, in the end. Currently, Microsoft is trying (well, still trying) to get Windows on servers, datacenters, etc. If it's not a desktop, Microsoft is trying to put Windows on it. Why? Because they've saturated their growth in the desktop market (that came about as a result of the mass computer buying of the 90s). The only way to continue their growth is to diversify. And the biggest and most successful brand name they have is Windows.
The problem is, while they're busying trying to still penetrate the server market, which Linux is doing a nice job at expanding into (at the expense, mostly, of Unix machines), Linux has the real potential to encroach on the desktop market. I'm sure Microsoft realizes that. I'm sure they also realizing that "circling the wagons" to "weather out" the Linux threat won't work. That's the whole point of Longhorn. The fact that WinFS *still* isn't coming in Windows is a real disappoint/problem, though. It's both a sign of a core problem (backwards compatibility, both in the outside appearance but also in the code itself which is surely a major reason it was put on hold) and a sign that Microsoft's strategy of adding in tons of features (vapor or otherwise) isn't working.
In the past, the FUD/vapor of a perspective product launch, even if it kept being pushed back, would end up killing or crippling the competitor's product. Instead, Linux really hasn't done anything but slowly grow in the desktop space. Without an actual strategy to combat Linux, a sudden burst in people using Linux could severely cripple the Windows money stream for Microsoft. Then, Microsoft will have to use its massive cash reserve to try to come up with a way to continue to make money.
Of course, if Microsoft develops another highly profitable department, this becomes less of an issue. But, the only thing that's even close to that is XBox. Maybe that'll keep Microsoft alive, but then Microsoft will only be known as a #2 or #3 console maker. I don't think the CEO of Microsoft would like that too much.
Eurohacker European paranoia, gun rights, and h
>Linux doesn't even come close
That is until you put in n+1 active configurations. We went from a shop of purely big iron, SGI Origin 2000, Sun 6800, HPUX, Sequent. And have replaced it with Linux and have a higher overall stability, scalability and performance.
Compared just 1 linux to 1 big iron the big iron will beat it, but all I've got to do is buy 1 or 2 additional linux box and my availability is better (and been proven better over the past 2 years in our environment) than just 1 big iron box and a much better capital price point.
That's because Novell has withstood the onslaught from Microsoft and still managed to eke out a survival. The folks at Novell know how to fight back against Microsoft.
Or perhaps thats how they want it to be. One big target is much better than many small ones.
Think Napster. Its was much easier to sue Napster (they even disrupted the service), than to sue individual users in decentralized p2ps.
So, they probably expect one linux vendor to dominate the market, so then they hit it (patents, advertisement, whatever), and damage linux image (because whatever they do, we will always have non commercial distros).
Okay, let's look at the XP license:
That's really backing up your software guys.
The MS guy was comparing what novell offers "stack-for-stack" to what MS offers. Novell has things like Directory Services (NDS) and ZenWorks that are as good or better than MS's Active Directory stuff. With the acquistion of Suse and Ximian they get things like OpenExchange & Evolution that also potentially challenge the Exchange-Outlook team. Add in the fact that Ximian's Mono could help break any MS stranglehold over .Net. The question is whether Novell can get their act togather and integrate all these *potentially* great things into a coherent and polished suite that would let you run a complete "Novell Shop" with a Novell server-OS (e.g. Suse), Novell manangment solution (e.g. ZenWorks/NDS), and Novell application servers (e.g. OpenExchange) in the backroom and a Novell client-OS (Suse Desktop) and applications (Evolution) on the desktop. Add in the ability to itegrate a "legacy" windows enviroment and tie it all togather with Mono. That is Novell's potential. We will soon see if they can live up to it.
Step one, ignore Linux.
Step two, bad mouth Linux.
Step three, file patent suits against anyone who uses Linux.
BTW, we're at step two now.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Microsoft commissioned analyst firms to do reports to help you "get out the facts" about Linux. Are you still doing that? If someone says, "Hey, Customer X says, 'If I had this data, it will help me make a decision, comparing Microsoft to Linux.'" And I basically hop on the phone with all the folks [at the analyst firms] and say, "Hey, I talked to four or five customers in the last two months, and they all care about x versus y. It's something that I think people care about. Can you guys go do something?" And sometimes they come back and say, "Yup. We've heard that, too. We're going to go do some analysis." Or, they come back and say, "Actually, it's not that interesting to us, but if you care about it, we'll use our methodology and stand behind it, but you have to fund it, because it costs money to get the samples, get the customers, get everything." That's going to continue to be my process. If there are facts or things that are needed, I'm going to hope that I can entice the analyst firms to go do it on their own because they think it's also important. But if they don't, then I'll commission it.
I have an enormous amount of difficulty believing this guy when it comes to his answer to a question on Microsoft's FUD tactics. Him claiming that Microsoft is nice and easy going about the methodology used in Microsoft commissioned analyses and that Microsoft doesn't use financial pressure (or that Analyst firms don't offer to cook the report in exchange for cash) on analyst firms strikes me as a total lie.
For example, the most well known example of Micorosoft's lower TCO claim (and the one displayed prominently on MS' website) was made by comparing Linux on a mainframe vs. Windows on cheap x86 commodity harware. There was no mention of the reasons a customer would go for a mainframe (reliability, bandwidth, scalability), just the FUD about Win2k3 on a dell box.
I think this is just the new (old) MS tactic of pretending to be nice in public and fucking everyone over in private.
Yes, the lower TCO of Linux versus Unix is a valid argument. I agree that Linux adoption is seen as a means to lower the cost of providing services on Unix systems. However, these services are generally provided on Unix systems in order to provide sufficient power, at a lower TCO than a suitable Windows system. So, ultimately , Linux is just a cheaper Unix, which is cheaper/more capable than Windows.
There exists no way of exchanging information without making judgments. --Bene Gesserit Axiom
If I may revert back to high school, "No, duh!" Man, it is totallly revealing how clueless that Microsoft is regarding Linux that it took them this long to figure that out. It was obvious to me about four years ago, despite ALL of the industry rags saying otherwise (i.e. saying Linux is a threat to Windows) that Linux's first victim would be flavors of Unix that had ossified and weren't innovating but were charging huge fees.
.NET). The biggest threat to the current installed base of Linux is generally recognized as .NET. Linux developers need to develop a competitive offering (Mono, Java, whatever) as a purely defensive move to maintain share, assuming .NET allows developers to do things that they cannot do on any other other platform for a comparable price.
The primary reason is that the people supporting these ossified Unixes already had the skill (for the most part) to support Linux. As Linux gained the requisite features it was a relatively simple substitution for the Unix in question.
In order to switch from Windows to Unix, all of your admins would need to be trained or replaced and their salaries would go up. The cost of salaries can in some cases (especially in small to medium sized deployments) add more to TCO than the licensing. That's why some of the first companies to switch to Linux from Windows were huge companies that were paying millions of dollars in licensing fees. They couldn't care less if they were paying a few hundred thousand more in salary when they were paying millions less in licensing fees.
Of course, this begs the question of why they were using windows at all, but it may relate to the cost of development on windows. It is still easier to develop on Windows than on Linux or Unix. That's why many developers prefer Windows and that's why Windows is so appealing. It has tons of software available. Therefore more people are willing to deploy it. That's why Billy Borg Gates is always saying "it's the API, stupid."
Anyhow, Windows will only move upmarket where Unix and Linux rule now, if it can lower its licensing fees, which it is doing (note Malaysia Thailand, etc) or get such a critical mass of software developed on its platform that customers feel compelled to deploy it, which it is doing (note
If Linux wants to eat Windows' lunch, it has to become easier to develop on. An IDE needs to be developed that is comparable to Visual Studio. Once the software is easy to develop it will start to happen. It also needs to be at least as easy to use as Windows 2000. People can point out all of the flaws that they want about 2000, but it is good enough and it wins on ease of use for most people. Linux is getting there on ease of use, but it's not quite there yet.
Although, I have to admit that ease of use is less of an issue than getting developpers. Incidentally, this is why Apple hasn't grown share. There is nothing special about MacOSX other than ease of use and that is not enough to get it in the door of any corporation. Apple hardware and software are more expensive and in many cases cannot do as much as the competition or are simply comparable and not significantly (i.e. order of magnitude) better.
So, in sum, it's not Linux that will kill Microsoft. It is the insular, narcissistic, navel-gazing culture that has its blinders on to the rest of the world. They were blind-sided by the Internet, then Linux, and most recently by the "search paradigm". Linux just needs to not fall into the same trap. It can't be just software written by geeks for geeks, assuming people want Linux to succeed, where succeed means being ubiquitous and spreading freedom to everyone. Of course, on technical grounds, Linux in itself is already a success, but so was the DEC Alpha. Listen to the customer!
He says the conversations are predictable, he says they are saying those things.
THIS DOES NOT MEAN IT IS HAPPENING EVERYWHERE.
Just because this guy says there is a trend toward these FUD items, does not make it so. What else is he going to say?
Don't get me wrong, I think the FUD is having a negative effect. However, you can't simply take his word for anything really. He is a paid spin doctor. The first interview posted here demonstrated that.
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