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Microsoft Planning to Buy Open Source Companies?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the dabbling-in-everything dept.

mjasay writes "At the Web 2.0 Summit, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer admitted that Microsoft 'will do some buying of companies that are built around open-source products,' suggesting that to avoid open-source companies would 'take us out of the acquisition market quite dramatically.' Ballmer has apparently come a long way since dubbing Linux a 'cancer.' The real question, however, is which open-source companies make sense within the Microsoft product portfolio, both from a technology and philosophy perspective. Novell? 37Signals? Jive? SugarCRM? And, equally importantly, which companies could look their communities in the eye after selling to Microsoft?"

3 of 276 comments (clear)

  1. Well.. by Reece400 · · Score: 5, Funny

    Sounds familier to me... http://imdb.com/title/tt0218817/

  2. This could be funny... by downix · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Well, here we go, buying up this open-source company to kill competition. What do you mean our users "forked" our product? What do you mean the staff we just layed off just made a new company to support this fork? What did we pay umpteen gazillion dollars for?

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    Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
  3. Re:Through Money tinted glasses by shystershep · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Only problem with your theory is that Microsoft is a convicted monopolist. There would be an amazing number of regulatory hurdles it would have to jump through even to think about buying a company that makes a competing OS.

    --
    The bigotry of the nonbeliever is for me nearly as funny as the bigotry of the believer. - Albert Einstein