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Microsoft Advised To Learn To Love Linux
mikael writes "ZDnet is reporting that the management guru Clayton Christensen (author of "The Innovator's Dilemma") has advised Microsoft to learn to love Linux. In particular he advises Microsoft to purchase "Research in Motion", otherwise they will see their applications sucked off from the desktop and onto handheld devices such as the Blackberry."
Microsoft advised to learn to love Linux
Martin LaMonica
CNET News.com
October 18, 2004, 09:40 BST
A US management guru has advised Microsoft to acquire Research in Motion and pay closer attention to open-source projects on mobile devices, or face oblivion. Management guru Clayton Christensen has a paradoxical answer for Microsoft to the challenge posed by open source: invest in Linux applications for handheld devices. Christensen, an associate professor at Harvard Business School, is the author of the 1997 "Innovator's Dilemma," a book that describes how good companies often fail because business managers don't embrace "disruptive" technologies. Open source is a clear disruption to Microsoft and the software industry in general, Christensen told attendees at the Future Forward technology conference here on Thursday.
"Where Linux takes root is in new applications, like Web servers and handheld devices. As those get better, applications will get sucked off the desktop onto the Internet, and that's what will undo Microsoft," he said. The software company can respond to this market disruption by setting up a separate business that will "kill Microsoft," Christensen said. If it doesn't react to the rise of Linux desktops on handheld computers, it will miss a coming wave of new applications and market opportunities, he said. Microsoft has already conceded that open-source software poses a significant challenge to its business. The company could not be immediately reached for comment on Christensen's remarks.
Christensen has observed that companies regularly stumble when they follow the well-established management practices of planning and listening to customers. To succeed, companies should not only cater to customers and continue improving their existing products, he argues. They should also set up separate business units to capitalise on new technologies, even though these may be poor-quality, low-margin products. Digital Equipment, for example, grew rapidly in the late 1980s by selling mini computers, which were a simpler, lower-cost option to mainframes, he said. But when other PCs began to take hold, the company didn't pursue that market for economic reasons: PCs offered substantially lower profit margins and didn't meet the technical needs of existing mini-computer customers.
In Microsoft's case, Linux applications on handheld devices are a threat to its lucrative business of selling desktop PC applications for its Windows operating system. "As computing becomes Internet-centric, rather than LAN (local-area network)-centric, their stuff runs on Linux, because it's all new," he said. He noted that people increasingly leave their laptop PCs at home when they travel and instead rely on handheld devices, such as Research In Motion's BlackBerry. Linux also provides a cheap, commoditylike alternative to Windows -- the basis of Microsoft's business. Although Linux didn't use to be as functional as Windows or Unix, adoption of the operating system grew rapidly because it met the needs of simple applications and is relatively cheap. A similar dynamic is now occurring in the database market with open-source products such as MySQL, Christensen said.
Christensen said that Microsoft should move progressively into Linux applications over the next six or seven years, because that sector will offer better opportunities for growth than operating systems or databases. He suggested that Microsoft acquire Research In Motion to accelerate the move, rather than continue to invest in making Windows run better on handheld devices. "As the BlackBerry becomes more capable, applications will get sucked onto it. Those are kind of places where growth is," he said. "If Microsoft catches it, they'll be all right."
Take what Christensen says with a grain of salt. I used to admire Clayton Christensen, but over time found he was more business pop culture than substance. John Dvorak put it better than I could when he wrote a piece ome time back http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1759,1628049,00.as p
Christensen's 15 minutes is up. Back to business.
The world is made by those who show up for the job.
MS Office is the only tool that can correctly render *ALL* Microsoft Word .doc documents. Anyone who collaborates with clients by passing Microsoft Word .doc files around needs to use Office, with the exception of those who do not use custom templates or other Word features.
2 21&tid=185) I tried to summarize some of the major points that were repeatedly mentioned, and a major point was:
.doc. Just like MS Word saves documents by defualt in it's (proprietary, closed-source) native format, .doc, to leverage all of Word's features (instead of .rtf or .xml or .sxw), OpenOffice needs to store documents in it's native (non-proprietary, open-source) format, .sxw, to leverage all of it's features.
.doc files. A simple PDF of their sxw document will do and it's a hell of a lot cheaper (free).
.doc support in OpenOffice is one of about three remaining things that keeps me from moving to Linux in the workplace.
In a recent thread about OpenOffice, (http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=04/10/13/1339
OpenOffice's storage format is not
However, OpenOffice is a great tool to give to developers, IT staff, and anyone else that does not have to collaborate with clients, executives, and managers by passing around Word
The lack of full
2) Assonine developers that insist on perpetuating Microsoft's browser monopoly and closed standards that use Internet Explorer only technologies to deliver their content. (ActiveX tops my list here). Unfortunately, to do my business, I am unable to boycott all of these sites.
3) The MS Exchange connector tools for Linux email clients are not yet capable of dealing with some of the features of Exchange / BackOffice that are leveraged by my employer.
- Have you ever noticed that the more you learn about technology, the more stupid you sound trying to explain it?
> If it's GPLed, we'd just fix it.
Sure. The problem, however, is that once you've fixed it, you have to shout louder than Microsoft to let people know that you've fixed it. Shout louder than Microsoft? Good luck.
And, sadly, doing this would not violate the GPL at all as long as the broken Linux was given away. As far as I'm aware the GPL doesn't specify any minimum quality requirement for permitted distribution. The type of attack described is, actually, a very real possibility and something which should be guarded against.
What if Microsoft decided to put some support behind Linux? Suppose they take the current source, fix the issues, get decent drivers and make it look pretty. They then slap their logo on it and release it. (Either by download or sticking it on a CD and charging for it.)
OK, they've lost money on it. But if they suddenly switch half the Linux community to Microsoft Linux (never thought I'd say those two words together!) they then control that market too.
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