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Microsoft Doesn't Care About Destroying Linux
techie writes "A latest column on MadPenguin.org suggests that Microsoft may not be really interested in killing Linux for mainstream users. It's after something else, and it's getting its way already. Read on to find out what it is. The author states, "Love it or hate it, Microsoft's IP attacks will continue, Linux user numbers will continue to grow and broad spectrum adoption throughout the rest of the world will grow and flourish. Microsoft's not interested in destroying Linux in the slightest. Why would they? it's been a fantastic vehicle for them to land a firmer grip on the corporations throughout the US."
For many business managers that went to business schools who know fuck-all about IT, it's very easy to believe that something that is "free" in both senses of the word is not good. After all, business is about control and profit, two things that are absent from "free".
Microsoft need to make money. Not kill Linux.
If they could see a way to make more money by working with Linux, they'd do that. Hell, they're not that stupid ;-)
Just stating the obvious.
monk.e.boy
Open source, flash charts
Google's Super Secret Search Algorithm: SELECT @search_results FROM internet WHERE @search_results = 'good'
That's one reason I respect Dell for having the guts to sell machines with Linux preinstalled.
until the corporate users realize "wolf" has been cried one too many times.
Well, back to rejecting software patent applications.
The article is pathetic. The author makes a haphazard attempt to explain the current situation then draws his conclusion. He does not explain how he arrived at that conclusion or give any evidence. The Psychic Friends network gives better supporting evidence.
Looking for a job?
Want your resume written professionally?
DON'T USE TUNAREZ!!!
Hell, they don't even have to frighten business users. Linux already does.
Look, hoping that Microsofts actions lead to more adoption of Linux isn't going to work. They don't have to do anything, its up to linux promoters to convince people that it will work AS WELL AS windows WITHOUT any interruption in their use of it, meaning that they don't have to think.
Until you can provide a "don't think about it - it just works" Linux desktop the users aren't going to switch. Even then it had best come preinstalled and have a near seamless way to run windows software that they might want.
Linux and Windows don't compete for the same people and the Linux people should understand that, it sounds like Microsoft already does
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
Redmond doesn't want to obliterate all comers such as Linux and Apple because that would trigger yet more legislation and court cases. Redmond has to 'suffer' a 10% or 15% market share to its competitors in order to preserve the illusion of a loyal opposition.
Linux provides Microsoft with a competitive reason to further intertwine its entire Windows software stack into a set of offerings targetted directly to different users. I imagine, in the future, there will be Windows : Developer Edition, that comes with some sort of Vista Pro and Visual Studio, or Windows : Home Edition, the comes with some sort of integration with XBox 360 integration and a slew of built in game subscriptions.
These moves would shut out or down Windows ISVs, but would provide a bit more revenue growth for Microsoft. Were someone to cry anti-trust foul, Microsoft could, and has, pointed to Linux as a real competitor. This isn't unlikely. When Linux couldn't even run with many kinds of mice and had little hardware graphics acceleration, Microsoft claimed they were a competitor during the Netscape trial.
It's the Dunkin Donuts defense, and it works. The backstory is that Dunkin Donuts drove Amy Joy out of business, but argued that it wasn't a monopoly because you could still buy donuts from Entemanns and other local bakeries. Microsoft is doing the same thing.
And, the other thing, too, is that the consumer OS space really doesn't have much room for MS. Consumers generally don't go to the store to buy operating systems, all the MS money is in preloads. So, if consumers do switch to Linux, MS has already collected its first payment. Then, as most consumers do, they switch back to Windows, by going to the store and buying a copy of something like Vista. In other words, the more frequently a user switches back and forth between Windows and Linux, the more likely they will make Microsoft even more money.
So they don't want to support Linux, but they don't want to quite kill it off either.
This is my sig.
TFA is a complete and utter waste of time to read. It doesn't make sense to itself. It's something like:
/TRIPE.
Microsoft doesn't care about Linux because people are starting to use it more and more, but not as much in America and America is going to hell in a handbasket so Microsoft really doesn't care if Linux eats their lunch if they do it slower and that helps Microsoft get to the corporations with Ubuntu in their back pocket.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
I disagree. There's tons of stuff you have to think about when using Windows. The difference, however, is that Linux makes you look at a command line, while Windows wraps it all in pretty GUI screens that all do essentially the same thing.
So Linux doesn't have to be "don't think about it - it just works" to succeed. It needs to be "don't think about it - just click OK" to succeed.
I'm in the hole of the broadband donut.
Microsoft is forever expanding into new markets because Windows and Office aren't the "revenue streams" they used to be, and eventually they will be trying to get money from people using Linux.
If they really wanted revenue from Linux users they would come out with Office for Linux. However, that's not what they want. The want to keep businesses locked into using Windows on the desktop and the server, hence the flood of patent litigation threats. This is just the latest iteration in their campaign to spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt.
First they claimed that Linux was unreliable. Then they claimed that it was insecure. Now they're claiming that it allows for intellectual property violations. This isn't a change in strategy, just an adjustment in tactics. Their long term goal is still to scare businesses away from Linux.
We all know what to do, but we don't know how to get re-elected once we have done it
I disagree with your disagreement. What most Linux users dont seem to understand is that the majority of Windows users dont even know what a Command Line Interface is. Microsoft understood that years ago and thats why everything is wrapped up in a "pretty GUI". If at any point my 60 year-old mother-in-law has to know where to find the CLI, that OS has already failed.
...perhaps because it's not a threat ? The linux end-users market share is a tiny one, and MS just doesn't want to spend money where there is basically none to be made.
____
nico
Nico-Live
It's a bluff - if Microsoft went after say, Red Hat, they'd have to name the patents that were being "infringed". That would cause:
1) Many of the patents to be invalidated due to prior art.
2) OSS programmers to code around the "infringing" patents.
3) IBM (and it's huge patent portfolio) to come after Microsoft. Since
IBM has a huge vested interested in Linux.
4) Enormously BAD publicity for Microsoft, and call for actual enforcement
of the antitrust ruling against them.
It would be an extremely self-destructive move. By talking about infringement (but not doing
anything), they cast doubt over the competition and even get some gullible corporations to cough
up some cash (woah! free money!). It's a FUD play, fairly standard in Microsoft's (anti-)
competitive playbook.
[Insert pithy quote here]
But the more fragmented the Linux market is, the better MS looks as a corporate choice. The Linux community is way fragmented, like the Unix market was 15+ years ago. Right now, I'm burning CentOS 5.0 because I don't want to pay RedHat to test and play with a new OS that I don't need support for, and it is only one of a few different RH clones.
A clone of a clone.
Microsoft has to be liking what it is seeing, with every day a new distribution of Linux coming out, and no single standard. Different files in different places...
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Yes, but you are presumably already using Linux. And so are most of the other people who like to use the command line to get things done. The point is, making things less reliant on the command line will be essential for growth, because the majority of computer users would rather have a GUI. Most distributions seem to understand this perfectly well. Look at Ubuntu, for your average user, a lot of the average computer tasks can be done purely GUI, and I suspect that this trend will continue in the future.
So I'll just come out and say it:
Linux is NOT hard to use. That's very old FUD. T there are only about three possibilities to explain your post:
1. You haven't tried using Linux recently or maybe not at all. This means you don't know what you are talking about.
2. You are a Microsoft shill/astro-turfer.
3. You are one of the crappiest programmer's in the world and really too stupid to be using a computer. You should find a different line of work.
So, which one are you?
The race isn't always to the swift... but that's the way to bet!
Conor "You're not married,you haven't got a girlfriend and you've never seen Star Trek? Good Lord!" - Patrick Stewart
rpm
apt
slackware's pkgtool
gentoo's emerge
And learning them would be included in the single day it would take for anyone familiar with any distribution to learn a different distribution.
So it seems that you're trying to define "fragmentation" as "choices".
Why is that?
No one refers to the car market as "fragmented" just because you can buy a Ford OR a Chevy.
And if you buy a Chevy you can get a sports car OR a pickup truck OR an SUV.
And you can get them in manual OR automatic.
"Choice" is not "fragmentation". Learning to drive a manual pickup truck does not prevent you from learning to drive an automatic sports car. And the learning process will take less than a day.
You make an interesting point. Part of the tradeoff is level of service to the users. If it's OK to have the Exchange server offline 1% of the time instead of 0.1% of the time, then by all means go get a batch of MCSEs and turn 'em loose. I would rather have a small number of very smart, well-paid people than a large number of mediocre certificate holders. I prefer 99.9% uptime to 99%. I prefer to work someplace where people can tell the difference.
I see many businesses where management takes a commoditized view of IT. This must be a popular concept in MBA school; those people seem to be the worst offenders.
Although MS would like to market itself as an upscale competitor of Linux, they are actually a mid-level player. At the low end, you have businesses that can't afford the license costs. At the high end, you have businesses that can't accept the stability/security/licensing problems. In the middle, I can see how there is just enough money to pay for licenses and MCSE salaries.
As you say, there is a certain category of software customer whose primary objective is the commodity replacement of internal IT support. That kind of thinking rarely leads to growing a business to the level where MS is no longer suitable.
Package managers? 2 major ones. (that interoperate)
Desktops? 2 major ones. (that interoperate)
X servers? 1
Linux is hardly a good example of "fragmentation".
Commercial Unix is a far better example of fragmentation.
Compared to HPUX vs AIX vs Solaris a couple of corporate Linux distros that share 99.9% of their inner workings is not so bad really.
A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.