Slashdot Mirror
Google is Microsoft's New Open Source
Robert writes "Steve Ballmer told investors recently that Microsoft's biggest challenge is embracing software-as-a-service business models, as
embodied by rival Google Inc. Investing in software as a service and advertising-supported businesses is a challenge
like that which the company faced at the dawn of the open-source movement. To paraphrase
him heavily, the takeaway was: Yes, we're investing a lot, but it's riskier, long-term,
not to do so. We have a lot of cool stuff coming up and, yes, we are also playing catch-up
on a couple of fronts. His speech came a
month after Microsoft revealed that its R&D budget for fiscal 2007, which ends
mid-2007, would rise to $6.2bn." From the article: "We've
got to make this transition, which our industry is making, from software as a product to
software as a service ... If you want to be a leading software
company, you've got to be a leading software-as-a-service company."
Sure they're going to spend 6.2bn but that money could probably save a lot of poverty strickens kids in the 3rd world. Let's face it, it's a waste of money and Microsoft may make a few "good" products, and I mean a very few, but I think good PR would get more business.