Ask Microsoft's Martin Taylor About Linux vs. Windows

Martin Taylor is Microsoft's global general manager of platform strategy, but he's best-known as the man the company trots out to refute claims of Linux superiority. Here are links to several interviews he's done in the past two years: vnunet.com; CMP; Computerworld; and one on Microsoft's own site. As usual, please submit one question per post. We'll present 10 - 12 of the highest-moderated questions to Mr. Taylor about 24 hours after this post appears, and we expect to publish his answers within the next week.

Comments

FUD

[Herbmaster]

Could Microsoft beat linux/open source software if they had to market their products without using FUD to undermine the credibility or quality of the alternative?

Linux = communism; Windows = Fascism

[mollog]

Gates equated the ever-increasing open source movement to communism. Since Windows is a monopoly, would it be fair to equate Windows to Fascism?

Re:following

[Blakey Rat]

At what point in marketshare would Linux need on the client before Microsoft would start porting their applications over to it?

I ask this because it won't be long before the Linux client marketshare will be greater than the Macintosh...

Generally, Linux users don't pay for things. If they can't get it for free, they either pirate it anyway or use something else.

In addition, Linux requires ten times as much support as any other operating system. There's (generally) three versions of Macintosh to support (10.1, 10.2, 10.3), four versions of Windows to support (98, ME, 2000 Pro, XP)... and how many Linux distributions? A dozen? Two dozen? And each Linux distribution has how many versions still in common use?

I don't see much incentive for ANY for-profit corporation porting to Linux, except perhaps for "goodwill."