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MS To Become Open Source Friendly Post Gates
ruphus13 writes "Now that Gates has 'retired' from Microsoft, ZDNet is speculating that Microsoft will become much more Open Source friendly. From the article, 'We already see quite a different approach to dealing with OSS and OSS companies from Sam Ramji's group [which is] doing a great job in establishing dialog,' said Rafael Laguna, CEO of Open-Xchange and a former marketing exec at SUSE Linux. 'With Gates' departure, the only mammoth remaining is Ballmer. With him away in a near future, Microsoft will definitely open up. They have to.'" Microsoft could become the world's largest open source company; they've certainly made some concessions to it lately.
Vista financial success... Fortune has an article on Bill Gates and his next move, plus one on Microsoft. In the years that Gates has been transitioning out (about 10 years now, in 98 Ballmer named President, in 2000, named CEO, and the last 8 years Gates has brought people in for his other senior roles), MS revenues have increased 5-fold and the company has diversified.
Microsoft's problem is that the stock is in the doldrums because they aren't seen as a growth plan, so their P/E ratio has dropped about as fast as they've increased earning. Their other problem is that their brand is tarnished... Original Xbox was a disaster, Xbox 360 had a good run but is being beaten by the Wii. The Apple commercials, while silly, are trashing Microsoft as old and lame. They are seen as part of the boring business infrastructure. They make plenty of money, but they don't have a good consumer brand right now. This isn't inherently a problem, plenty of companies have a lousy brand but sell industrial services... combined with monopoly rents, MSFT can remain a Fortune 500 company that way... however, that's a 10% growth, PE 12 story, not 25% growth, PE 50 story.
Further, growth will get harder, Linux keeps getting closer to being good enough for more and more stuff. Apple is carving out an increasing niche... all of these slow MSFT's financial growth....
Gates without Microsoft
Microsoft without Gates