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."

Comments

Article has a flair for the dramatic

[Dante Shamest]

Microsoft's revenues/profits have been positive so far. Maybe they will face "oblivion"...but not in this decade.

Re:Article has a flair for the dramatic

[16K Ram Pack]

The trouble with a "pile of cash" is that unless you are paying dividends and/or getting good stock growth, investors will start looking at it.

Re:Article has a flair for the dramatic

[Richard W.M. Jones]

People seem to forget that if Microsoft were to completely pull out of the Operating System, Office, games and internet markets (and just about everything else) and devote themselves to say... selling sol.exe (Solitaire for the non windows persons) for a dozen different platforms... even without a single sale, the pile of cash they are sitting on, in addition to their assets would be sufficient to keep them afloat for many many years.

Not true at all. If Microsoft did this, their shareholders would demand the cash pile be given back to them immediately. If they didn't comply, the investors would get rid of the board and install another one with a sensible business plan. Microsoft could well implode under such extreme conditions.

Rich.

Re:Article has a flair for the dramatic

[DenDave]

You may be right. However, just imagine for one second that a serious competitor succeeds in taking over 50% of the desktop market. How much in terms of annual revenue will Microsoft have to "make-up" with alternative business in order to uphold it's credit rating and cashflow? Billions, you are correct in assuming. How easy is it to come up with a business plan that can generate billions within the short to medium run? Not!

Unless you play dirty, and by dirty I mean attempt to gain control of consumer behaviour in a proprietary sense, that is. to proprietarize behaviour that is currently non-propriety.

You have guessed it: entertainement. Microsoft is aware of the potential revenue loss due to encraoching platforms and wishes to maintain revenue by getting control over music and movies and forcing it's proprietary format to maintain billions in revenue..

Re:Article has a flair for the dramatic

[Foofoobar]

Truly fascinating when you consider that they had to cut millions from employee benefits in order to declare a profit last quarter. Speaking as a someone who works across the street from them and whose company depends on them directly for 90% of their business, these guys are bleeding all over the floor. Sure they are an 8,000 lb gorilla but even they are not filled with an unlimited blood supply.

But that's not the problem. The problem is that people in the industry have just seen Linux and Open Source strike that blow and are now realizing that if they ever questioned Microsoft's leadership, they have a new ally... and an ally that has the ability to hurt Microsoft. Camp lines are being drawn and the gorilla is hurt. This is when he's the most dangerous of course.

Of course, OOS and Linux have not yet achieved maturity but they have established unbreakable inroads so even if the gorilla wa able to stave them off, they could not truly reduce the size and interest in it at this point.

Open source effectively checkmates Microsoft's 8000 lb gorilla; Because Microsoft is heavily reliant upon maintaining a shrinking monopoly, they must focus all their energies on keeping it from growing.

The patent wars have already begun and they will wage for probably another 10 years and there is only one obvious way to go and that is a better patent process and the negation of existing patents. This will strike a SERIOUS blow to Microsoft and the best that they can hope for is to influence the process because by this point, supporters of OOS and Linux will effectively have a greater combined strength.

Microsoft's best hope is to entrench themselves in the desktop. As programming evolves, people will be spending far less time making products work together and more time building tools using tools (rather than the raw materials of machine language, etc). As a direct result of this, people will be developing for solely for environments. We already see this now with .NET and LAMP in that people are using tools built to interact with each other and to help them build other tools that can effectively communicate unhindered in a specific environment.

By focusing on the desktop alone (and abandoning the server market), Microsoft can force Linux developers and supporters to focus their attention on the server side and while they fight amongst themselves for dominance, Microsoft can effectively move away from the server market and further entrench themselves in the desktop market/environment and effectively split computer science education into server side development and client side development.

Microsoft DOES need to embrace the inevitable otherwise risk losing it all. But they must also throw out a large enough bone for the open source community to fight over to effectively remove their attention from their combined enemy and allow Microsoft to steal one last toy and make their getaway.

Unpossible

[MadFarmAnimalz]

I almost feel sorry for Microsoft reading this article. He's right, and what's more I'd be surprised if many people at Microsoft didn't know it.

But they can't; how precisely can Microsoft remain a profitable publicly traded company while embracing open source? Their software is all they have.

IBM was in a fortunate position of being a major hardware vendor and therefore capable of switching revenue stream focus.

But Microsoft?

Can anyone else imagine Microsoft five years from now being known more and more as that company that makes really nice mice and peripherals?

What this love will consist of

[DrXym]

Half-baked port of .NET to Linux w/ large licence costs. Half-baked port of various network management protocols such as WBEM, to allow Linux to be a node in network managed by XP. Re-animated mouldy, half-baked IE for Unix. New 'Services for Linux', half-baked Linux layer for NT. Ad Nauseum.

All of the above will receive scant support and will be axed after one release. A MS spokesman will cite 'no interest' for the reason even though the half-baked, shitty software and uncertain future has more to do with it.

Early days yet

[delta_avi_delta]

While I think this is encouraging, I feel that it's a little alarmist: Microsoft still have an incredible monopoly. Of you non-techie friends (if you have any unconverted) how many *don't* run Windows? How many are terrified by the prospect of having to learn something other than Windows? How many think that Windows, OfficeXP, IE, and Outlook are the only applications they need, apart from games, which lets face it, are mostly written for Windows.

I think Microsoft would have to play a lot of consecutive bad hands before they'll cede their desktop stranglehold.

Lessons from history

[e6003]

History is full of companies who fell out of the limelight because they couldn't or wouldn't adapt to new technology. One is happening right now as Kodak struggles to remain relevant in the world of digital photography (and it seems to me, they are trying to earn money from "traditional" photographic services such as printing, applied to digital photography - I'm not sure this will be successful). Where are all the typewriter manufacturers in a world of word processing? Despite the FUD and lock-in tactics (tactics that are becoming less and less successful with each iteration IMO), the same fate awaits Microsoft it they refuse to adapt. In contrast, look at IBM - in hibernation throughout much of the 1990s but emerging ready to do business with open source - and that's just one example of how they've adapted over the course of their history. Gates and Ballmer would do well to study this.

Re:Extremely interesting...

[HBI]

If Office were on Linux I could port all my end users to Linux without issue.

OOO /Star/Koffice/whatever just aren't good enough to prevent the person proposing the change losing their job once the end users have trouble interoperating with Windows clients. If it's Office, just blame Microsoft and keep your job.

And yes, I would keep a copy to stop from having to dual boot like I do now.

Re:Extremely interesting...

[prescot6]

If Office were on Linux I could port all my end users to Linux without issue.

I completely agree. Think about everything that your average user uses their computer for. You get internet/email and office, and a couple other programs such as Quicken... and games.

If you have Office, it makes it so much easier for the user because instead of having to learn ALL new programs, they just have to use a different internet browser.

Re: Extremely interesting...

[gidds]

Actually, the point is: how many Linux users would buy Office?

Even in the Windows world, where users are used to paying exorbitant fees for software, Office would still be in trouble without OEM deals, bundling, and other reductions. Without those, and in a market used to getting software for free, the prospects can't look good...

RTFB

[mangu]

If you read Christensen's fine book, you'll see that Microsoft is acting *exactly* as predicted. So did all the other companies mentioned in "The Innovator's Dilemma". And that's what makes it a dilemma. Why should a company abandon its business to start on another, apparently less lucrative line, which offers less utility to the company's clients?

Well, Christensen argues, according to many examples in many fields, ranging from excavating equipment to department stores, the new businesses, despite being apparently inferior in some ways, will end in dominating the whole field. That happens because the new way of doing business will evolve faster than the old, established way. Why evolve, if it's the best and most lucrative way? And, when the old managers wake up, it's too late.

Stop helping the beast.

[vettemph]

Please don't give microsoft any survival tips.
signed,
A guy who does not miss macro viruses. (or any viruses for that matter.)