Slashdot Mirror
Microsoft May Be Targeting the Ubuntu Desktop
mjasay writes "Microsoft is advertising for a new director of open source strategy, but this one has a specific purpose: fight the Linux desktop. 'The Windows Competitive Strategy team is looking for a strong team member to lead Microsoft's global desktop competitive strategy as it relates to open source competitors.' For a variety of reasons, this move is almost certainly targeted at Ubuntu Linux's desktop success. With the Mac, not Linux, apparently eating into Microsoft's Windows market share, what is it about desktop Linux, and specifically Ubuntu, that has Microsoft spooked?"
Reader christian.einfeldt notes Microsoft's acknowledgment of the FOSS threat to their business model within SEC filings, and suggests that this job posting could instead be about maintaining Internet Explorer's market share lead against Firefox.
Maybe Microsoft has finally realized what the rest of the world knows. They simply have nothing new to offer. They have to find some way to beat Linux because they can't compete with it. It's only the momentum of their monopoly, 20+ years in the making, that is keeping them ahead now.
After releasing Windows XP-ME, er, Vista, it's obvious to see that Microsoft, despite its numerous "reboots" in the development process, is still so mired in its Soviet-style bureaucracy and upper management that thinks it is entitled to its 90%+ market share.
They are going to have to fall back on FUD more and more as more people (like me) are sharing success stories of unburdening themselves from Microsoft's shackles, even if the actual percentage of users is still small. What Microsoft is realizing is that number of people who are now seeing them as we've always known them to be, arrogant to the point of blindness, utterly contemptuous of users and completely beholden to their shady business practices and monopolistic behavior to be able to do anything else.
In short, time for more FUD.
You are in a maze of twisty little passages, all alike.
Actually no it doesn't. When did this drive to the desktop actually start? in 1992? not likely..... Try maybe 1998 or something. So we are talking 10 years and developed by "volunteers". I would say that is a formidable threat to a multi-billion dollar international corporation. So laugh all you want, but if I were you I would get by (ba/c/tc/k)sh skills up..... Your gonna need them when your company says we are going linux. Windows admins need to get their resumes together.....
Probably the over 10 million desktop user base is my guess..
I bet the netbook market has their attention. I can walk into a Target, Best Buy, or Wal-Mart and purchase a sub $300 netbook loaded with Linux. That's damn near the cost of Vista Ultimate -- sans computer.
If you try to start thinking straight for a second... ...you might start wondering about the correlation between the lowering prices of hardware and the impact this has on a company which depends on software license fees. There is a hard bottom limit to the price of any computing device with for-pay software: the price of the hardware (design, manufacture and distribution) + the ongoing costs of supporting said software + the desired profit for the software distributor. In case of Microsoft those profit margins are traditionally very high for the operating system and application software business, and that is the software which we're talking about here. The same hardware with for-free software can be priced much lower. Now that the for-free software is largely equivalent with the for-pay alternatives (and hold the incessant 'aslongasitdoesnotlookandworkexactlylikewindowsorofficeitisnotreadyforthedesktop' complaints) it is a very attractive proposition for a hardware manufacturer to use the for-free alternative. They can either keep the prices similar and reap much higher profits or lower the prices and most likely see higher sales, again leading to higher profits. They also don't have to bend to the will of an unreliable business partner which has shown time and time again that it has no qualms about backstabbing its partners.
Now I leave it to you as to whether free software is better than, worse than or equivalent to proprietary software. The answer to that question wholly depends on what you expect from the software, what you use it for, what you have used in the last few years and in what discipline you use the software. It has however become clear that for many common purposes there is free software which is fully adequate, and in several cases the free software is better than the closed alternatives.
--frank[at]unternet.org
A mac is expensive (i know, not always) and since OSX only comes with apple hardware (in theory) there isn't as much to worry about. With Ubuntu, any Dell, HP, Acer, etc, can have Ubuntu installed. That is a threat, since it runs on the hardware made by your best partners. Not to mention, new versions of Ubuntu (or other linux flavors) run great on Netbooks with a very small flash drive and ram. The only comparable Microsoft product is 9 years old, and about to be two versions behind.
What are we going to do tonight Brain?
Why is this always seen as a battle between linux and Microsoft? Who said that we 'have to beat Microsoft'? Linux has a perfectly good but small following. I see no reason why that wont continue regardless of whatever Microsoft decides to do or not do. I do not see this as a fight to remove Microsoft from the market place. If Microsoft feel threatened, then so be it, but I do not recall anyone ever claiming that the purpose of linux is to defeat Microsoft in the market-place. Those that want to continue with Microsoft software and all that it entails - lock-in, regular 'upgrades' that break compatibility with older formats, costs etc - are free to do as far as I am concerned. BUT, Microsoft has no reason to try to stop me from using whatever software I chose and, from where I sit at the moment, I do not see how they can stop me. They cannot 'uninvent' linux, they can only try to keep their own business share. However, nothing that they seem able to produce will entice me away from the OS that I want to use. Why can't they both exist in the market place?
Have a look at soylentnews.org for a different view
When you buy a DVD, can you watch it with friends? Or do they have to buy their own copy?
When you buy a book, can you loan it to friends? Or do they have to buy their own copy?
When you buy a CD, can you listen to it with friends? Or do they have to buy their own copy?
I'm sorry, but the license on the microwave doesn't allow other people to eat any of the food I heat up in it. And while I'm eating these nachos, I'll watch this DVD that can only be played in this DVD player attached to this TV.
Oops. The TV fell down and broke and it is out of warranty. Looks like I will have to buy all my DVD's again.
Yeah, that might be the wet dream of the execs at the movie studios. But real people don't see a problem with sharing things that you've just put down cash for.
actually with that FOSS is your friend. Open Office works better with Office 97 documents than MSFT word 2007 does. Up until at least 2003 a lot of legal departments were using Corel office as that is what they had all their stuff for the past decade.
you want to open tons of random and obscure formats then only FOSS apps supports them all. Comapnies that are stuck with MS Office are begiinng to realize that archiving it requires tons of secondary apps that either cost lots of money or FOSS products that can be upgraded to new hardware/software combinations faster and with minimal effort.
You have a format that only worked in Red Hat 5.0's version of star office. you have the source. you can pay someone to install that app to run, or pull out the format from the source and make a converter for it.
When office 95 doc's don't open for you right you can only beg MSFT to fix it, or try to manually convert them all, however they are giant binary blobs.
i thought once I was found, but it was only a dream.