Linux Foundation Calls for 'Respect for Microsoft'

kripkenstein writes "Jim Zemlin (executive director for the Linux Foundation) gave a talk at LinuxWorld saying that the open source community should stop poking fun at Microsoft. From the VNU article: 'Open source vendors have to recognize that Windows is here to stay and that together with Microsoft it will form a duopoly in the market for operating systems. This also requires that the Linux community respects Microsoft rather than ridicule it. "There are some things that Windows does pretty well," Zemlin said. Microsoft for instance has excelled in marketing the operating system, and has a good track record in fending off competition.'"

Comments

Marketing Strategy

[Blobule]

Microsoft's marketing strategy is actually quite simple. It follows the triple E system. Embrace, Extend, Exterminate. It also has another strategy is the triple B system. Buy Out, Bloat Up, and Bilk.

Re:Not just that.

[Anonymous Coward]

When it comes down to it, I don't really think I disrespect Microsoft. I might dislike Microsoft...

The same Jim Zemlin???

[alephnul]

I wonder what happened in between this article http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content/may 2007/tc20070525_325967.htm and today's comment.

Can you say "Big chunk of Microsoft change in Zemlins pocket"? I can.http://www.businessweek.com/technology/content /may2007/tc20070525_325967.htm

Re:Uh-huh.

[Cathbard]

Isn't this like a christian saying we should respect the devil because he's powerful and not going away? Respect is earned and M$ haven't earned it.

Re:Uh-huh.

[JohnFluxx]

Actually there was a leaked report from Microsoft from their marketting department that showed that customers were not impressed by their FUD, and that it actually encouraged people to take Linux seriously. It was why they stepped down the Get The Facts Campaign.

Re:I thought OS X Linux

[Ohreally_factor]

Other poster overreacted a bit. I wouldn't go so far as to say that you're biased, but I will say that you hold some very common misperceptions about Apple's suitability for the Enterprise. However, there is a basis for this perception, and it's not really that far off the mark, and further, Apple has not done much to counter this perception.

John Siracusa recently wrote an interesting bit about why this is so. His basic thesis is Apple has not made headway in the Enterprise because it focuses all its efforts on the end user, and focuses its marketing on the enduser. To make real headway in the Enterprise, one needs to focus on the IT department, whose needs, constraints, and goals are often very different from the end user.

You can rattle off a list of things that Apple does not do that makes its products and services a poor fit for corporate IT, and this list has not changed for years. [my emphasis]

Siracusa also notes that in the case where the IT department is the end user, Apple develops products and markets them to the IT department as if the IT department were the end user. Check out the Apple web page for IT professionals.

One thing worth mentioning about the suitability of Apple technology for running servers. Apple technology is used to run both Apple's website and iTunes, neither of which are what anyone could call light weight. Granted, Apple has to eat its own dog food, but didn't Dell run it's website for a while on WebObjects? And they had to make a painful transition over the MS technology at the behest of Redmond?

Anyway, I said at the outset that you held a common misperception, but I hopefully made clear the qualifications on that statement. You are partially right about Apple vis-a-vis the Enterprise and partly wrong. Also, in the case of an IT department that is very focused on the end user as customer (usually the focus is on management being the customer; the endusers aren't signing the checks), Apple might be a good fit. Read the article. It's not very long.

Re:Gates is the Chief of Grief.

[AndyCR]

Embrace, Extend, Extinguish This is called "pointless forking" and "not invented here syndrome" in the open source world. Feh, big deal. Name one time it was done to intentionally warp a standard, kill a technology, or otherwise harm computing as we know it.

The whole world is our beta tester Google does this. Apple does this. Every open source project ever released does this. Yeah, if they STATE it. The point is that Open Source BETA products are just as stable as Microsoft RELEASE products. I'm running Ubuntu Gutsy, and even though its months from release (with a 6 month development period total) it's more stable than Vista.

We can release sloppy, sloppy code because we have a virtual monopoly The open source version of this is "you have no right to complain because you got it for free" and "you got the source code so fix it yourself". And the open source version is true. I certainly expect higher quality products when I pay for them as opposed to getting them free; however, that that is almost always not the case makes the entire point moot.