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.
After TWENTY FIVE years of effort.
2009-1992 = 17
The reason for targeting Ubuntu is simple. Its getting attention as a credible desktop alternative by the main stream. If one Linux destop is a credible alternative than its only a short leap for the public to make that any Linux desktop solution might be a credible alternative. At that point products start getting evaluated on the merrits and how well they suit a the purchasers organization or individual needs. Windows may or may not come out on top if subjected to any rigor in the decision process.
Apple is one company and the sole provider of a Mac OS solution. They can be controled; there is a specific target to go after if they become more of a problem. Microsoft can deal Apple a good deal of hurt buy just shutting down their own Mac Business unit. Ubuntu on the other hand if allowed to become to popular can't be stopped so easily. If that popularity speads to Linux desktop distributions more generally then Microsoft no longer has a specific entity to go after. The want to make sure desktop a meaningful desktop Linux business remains something that is going to be still born so to speak.
Repeal the 17th Amendment TODAY! Also Please Read http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/right-to-read.html
Yeah but if the growth goes exponential, it could be bad news for Redmond in a short amount of time. With other big vendors starting to use Ubuntu on their equipment (see HP and Dell), Microsoft had better be careful.
Personally, I think in the next 5-10 years, the market is going to go through a big equalization. Microsoft will still be important but not the huge Monopoly like they are now. The current recession is a good way to get the ball rolling on that. A lot of places are interested in switching to Linux-based OSes, but they don't want to deal with the costs associated and their current Windows stuff works.
But with Vista and Windows 7 being lackluster, it makes good business sense to start looking at migrating to other solutions. Linux is really the only other game in town. You can't "upgrade" to Mac OS X like you can upgrade any machine to Ubuntu and have it just work. And Ubuntu has made the GNU and Linux systems easy to use for anyone from Grandma to business drones.
Mod me down, my New Earth Global Warmingist friends!
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?"
Mac OS X doesn't run natively on all PCs, so Microsoft doesn't have anything to be afraid of. Plus Microsoft has software already developed for the Mac, so they could still make money even if Macs dominate PC sales.
Microsoft doesn't have that with Ubuntu, not only does it run on the same hardware as Windows, but it's being offered as an alternative to Windows by a major player in the PC market.
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.
We'll arbitarily assume Microsft is targeting Ubuntu specifically, then post the question: what is it about Ubuntu that's making Microsoft target them specifically?
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.....
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.
That Ubuntu is not only well supported, but secure...something they themselves have not been able to manage.
A friend is bringing his system over today for me to install Ubuntu on. Why? Because he is just sick to death of the malware.
You know what? Sick to death is one thing, but sick to death with a good alternative...Microsoft can't have that now, can they?
Doctors destroy health, lawyers destroy justice, universities destroy knowledge, religion destroys spirituality
If Microsoft would put half the effort into R&D that they put into "owning" the market they would crush everyone. I cannot believe that a company with their resources cannot come up with great new ideas in computing. They are being threatened by a bunch of "kids in their moms basements?" (I know that is BS) Really? If that is true then it is time for them to move aside.
All points of time and space are connected.
:)
But seriously, I installed Ubuntu last night. I've been a diehard RHEL/CentOS user for years. It just plain worked out of the box for me on a relatively new laptop. It found the Wifi,sound, my bluetooth mouse, asked me if I wanted the "non free" binary accelerated Radeon X1600 video driver, etc. Pretty slick.
I realize that I'm not a typical clueless windows user, but I think this is downright easy to migrate to for a Windows user, especially when Firefox 3.x and Openoffice are bundled along with it. That's enough to satisfy a huge swath of userbase and it's completely free. The entire install only took about 10 minutes too.
Kudos to the Ubuntu team.
Microsoft is indeed in danger of losing some marketshare to Apple in the U.S. and I would say that's mostly due to college students. Microsoft is not doing nothing to counter this like the summary suggests, it's just that they haven't been very successful yet. They realize by now that they're screwed up with Vista and even their marketing efforts haven't been great, but they should be able to get back on track if Windows 7 actually turns out to be good.
As for Linux (on the desktop), that is a serious threat to Microsoft from abroad, not so much in the U.S. Face it, most (by far) Americans are not going to fiddle with Linux, even if they're told it's free and superior, merely because they don't want to relearn anything that was hard enough to learn the first time, and they just want to use whatever is on their computer (Windows). Abroad, developing countries choosing Linux for school and government is a threat because it raises generations of non-Microsoft users who they will have less control over.
This author takes full ownership and responsibility for the unpopular opinions outlined above.
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?
This is slashdot if you are going to post something like that we require proper regex syntax.
m/(ba|c|tc|k)sh/
Thank you
Microsoft views Ubuntu migration as one way. Once someone starts using Ubuntu, chances are they'll never buy Windows again.
This is because Linux can only get better. The idea behind open source is that quality never digresses, because if something sucks, it just gets changed or forked. So, the evolution of Linux is one way. It will always be better and better. This means it's users will always be more and more. It may be slow at times, but it's inevitable. Microsoft is beginning to realize that Linux's market share will always be increasing, and eventually that share will be larger than theirs.
I think they can fight all they want, but unless they can figure out a way to nullify the GPL, the progress will continue.
I can tell you exactly what has them spooked. We have Ubuntu desktops in our office and users get along on them just fine. No massive retraining costs, no one whining they can't get their work done, no software licensing to manage, we can create a custom installation image and drop it on a network drive that comes complete with productivity software, graphics software, web browsing, everything you need. Combine that with corporate Gmail, PHP and MySQL and you have an office that runs just dandy without any Microsoft products or .NET in the mix.
That's what they're afraid of and for good reason. Because running a Ubuntu office is low-cost, low-stress and we can run twice the number of machines per admin we could with Windows. And we don't have to dance on MS's string for product activation, put up with their DRM, pay extra for anti-virus or site licensing. We don't have the virus/trojan of the day suddenly interrupting our day and we're free to focus on productive labor rather than putting so much effort into serving the software and MS.
And my wife, the most potentially destructive computer user anywhere, a person who can trash almost any computer and almost any OS. Always by accident. Ms. I wasn't doing anything and the screen just went black...the hard drive started making a funny noise...it just died...is the screen supposed to be all blue like that? A person who couldn't tell you what a command line was, let alone type anything into one. She gets along just fine on Ubuntu. I haven't had to work on that machine since installing 8.04.
MS should be worried. Ubuntu is a great product.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
I think you're partially correct in your statement. They *do* put a LOT of money into research, and do actually grind out some interesting ideas, prototypes, etc. Where they seem to be dropping the ball is turning those ideas into marketable, usable commercial products.
Microsoft has been actively fighting FLOSS since at least 1998. Just read Halloween documents or internal documents regarding EDGI group from Iowa case (dated 2002 IIRC) with ist infamous "under NO circumstances lose to Linux" quote.
You may also read Bill Gates' concernes about how they can cripple ACPI so Linux won't be able to use it (they have made their own DSDT compiler which allows for much more errors than industry-standard intel compiler Linux uses).
They were afraid back then and fought tooth and nails, they continue to do it now. And if you read the documents I mention, you'll see that they have understood that the relative success of Linux on servers was due to open standards. What we have now is that main reasons which hinder Linux' adoption has nothing to do with Linux itself. Office formats, Exchange, DirectX, ActiveX -- all of the above are closed standards and technologies not to mention crippled HTML. Combine that with iron grip on OEM's and you'll get some more reasons for relatively slow growth.
Ultra-cheap netbooks and falling hardware prices have changed the landscape though. Now MS isn't able to threat OEM's with raising per-CPU lincense costs if they sell something else pre-installed. They have prolonged XP's live and give it away for a bargain price instead. They will be able to maintain their grip for some time but this time they'll have to lower the prices. Sure, they remain profitable as all they sell is hot air, but they'll raise much less money than expected.
The threat from Apple is somewhat contained because OS X only runs on premium-priced Apple hardware. Windows is still the OS of choice for the corporate sector and [ironically] the computer illiterate people who call upon their MS-based colleagues, friends and relatives for free tech support. I always found it amazing that the platform that needs the most tech support was so popular with the people who need the most assistance.
Ubuntu is a big threat, and it goes way beyond price. Nobody is going to take their existing Dell or HP machine and reformat it for OS X. But they can certainly do it with Linux. Ubuntu has the slickest packaging of the various Linux options, making it a "Poor man's OS X that can run on the hardware I already have." Historically, only a small percentage of users have abandoned Win2K or XP in favor of Linux. But Vista is another matter entirely.
Microsoft is a company built on the principle of Moore's law. Exponential increases in hardware capability means unlimited new possibilities for new features and a fresh desires from the user community (sometimes fueled by marketing hype but desires nonetheless). Each version of Windows was more bloated than the one before, but nothing stopped the users from merging a new version of Windows into their upgrade cycle.
Three events changed everything:
1. Vista "jumped the shark" on bloat while the rest of the market moved the other way.
2. Cheapie Ubuntu netbooks can do almost everything people really need to do.
3. The iPhone is threatening to turn itself into a hand-held OS X machine.
Running Windows XP on a netbook is like fitting a 350 pound driver into a golf cart. You can do it, but you won't carry many golf clubs. Running Vista on a netbook won't even pass the giggle test.
Windows Mobile was their only lightweight option but it never picked up enough traction to seriously compete with a "real" operating system. Apple had more apps running on the iPhone in the first six months than MS ever had for Windows Mobile.
Microsoft needs to slow down the adoption rate of Ubuntu netbooks while they figure out how to exist in the small, light, low-powered world of ultra-portable hardware. They will need a community of people other than themselves to provide a robust portfolio of applications.
MS is one of the few companies that tries to win a race by slowing the other guy down. In this case, they need to speed themselves up and get in the game.
It demonstrates one simple, incontrovertable fact that is absolute poision to Microsoft's business model: operating systems aren't all that important.
Oh,back in the day, when you couldn't shoehorn a real operating system onto a machine with a sixteen bit address bus, it was a given that operating systems for personal computers were horribly inadequate. Every time a new version of the operating system came out, it'd take advantage of something that was now affordable on a desktop that never had been before. So you looked forward to an OS release as a release from some piece of pain or another. So an operating system release was a big deal.
We are in the era of diminishing returns when it comes to new OS releases. Oh, they maybe handle new version of hardware that are marginally better than they old hardware, like Sata vs. ATA, or going back farther in time, more convenient support for things like wifi. And, of course, the OS developers fix mistakes they made way back in the old days.
The problem for MS is trying to drum up the old excitement (with its influx of cash), like when we went from Windows 2 to Windows 3, which made it easy to run more than one application at a time (which was not a concern back when you'd only had 256K of RAM). You've got to add features and treat them like they're revolutionary.
Ubuntu is not without its problems, the biggest of which is getting to work on notebook hardware whose manufacturers consider getting the BIOS to work with Windows getting the job "done". But, once you get it running, you don't sit down to work at your computer and say, "gee I'm working on Ubuntu." Good Linux distros fade into the background, where they belong. Operating systems are just packages of functionality which make it easy for you to get at your data and manipulate it with your preferred tools.
What's scary about a distro like Ubuntu is that it doesn't compete against Windows. That's how Microsoft has won for years, when competitors look at MS products and decide they have to follow Microsoft's lead, even if they were first. With each new Linux distro release, you don't get an attempt to revolutionize the desktop experience. What you you do get the same experience you had yesterday, with a few problems sorted out and a couple of modest refinements. In contrast, with each new version of Windows, MS seems to scrape the bottom of the change barrel a bit deeper, down to renaming and shifting around control panel applets so there's absolutely no way you could mistakenly think you didn't get an upgrade.
Of course, MS has a great deal of opportunity for just fixing the mistakes of the past, which is a good thing. Vista could have been the best Windows ever, except it had too many competing agendas. Windows 7 is shaping up to be the kind of incremental release on Vista that we're used to in the Linux world, and by contrast it will seem wonderful with the XP to Vista transition.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In Soviet Mircrosoft the Operating System owns You.
If builders built buildings the way programmers wrote programs, then the first woodpecker would destroy civilization.
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.
I cannot believe that a company with [Microsoft's] resources cannot come up with great new ideas in computing.
Microsoft employees come up with all sorts of new ideas, but the company they work for consistently fails to execute.
I sometimes wonder if it's because the smartest people (those who have the luxury of ethics) usually choose to work elsewhere, and if they don't, their brilliance is stifled by the fools around (and especially above) them.
I think Microsoft will make an intriguing case study for years to come.
http://outcampaign.org/
Why is everyone assuming that Microsoft can do only one thing at a time? Microsoft is a damned big company and, you know what? They can do multiple things at once.
Right now, Microsoft's operating system units are focusing their energies on overcoming the bad press from Vista (Mojave Experiment), shunting the effectiveness of the Mac v. PC ads, and putting oil in the hype machine for the release Windows 6.1 --- err 7. The fact that Microsoft is hiring a single guy -- ONE GUY -- to look the open source competition stuff, is hardly "ditching what is most likely one of the biggest competitors".
Fact is, Microsoft is looking at ALL their competitors, which is *exactly* what they should be doing. Linux might not be a Desktop threat today. What about in 5 years? What about 10? Microsoft is smart enough to think that far ahead.
The
You know, usually things that are 17 years old are very ready for my desktop. If I like the performance, I may just take it to the kitchen table!
m/(ba|c|tc|k)?sh/
Facebook is the new AOL
I think the world is waking up that these kind of practices are anti-competitive in any market. For too long people seamed to think IT was an exception and ignored 'nerds' pointing to problems with anti-competitive practices. I think MS are going to find foul play harder and harder to get away with. They will be forced to competitive on equal terms. Lack of competition equals expensive and rubbish, which even the most docile consumer will notice. One day the question will come up how can you ever compete equally with a company's software if they do the operating system too. As for MS targeting Ubuntu, no publicity is bad publicity, and people will question why are they so bothered?
"f you've got a legacy of MS documents that you can't easily move, you're kind of stuck with MS."
There's a lot of truth in this, but just the same, for the vast majority of organizations it's the content of those documents which is really important, not the exact layout (think about how quickly in real terms most large organizations managed to transform all those business-essential forms and documents from paper to electronic form - less than a decade for most - and that was a much more costly transition in terms of the human hours involved than merely reformatting some .doc-formatted files).
My suspicion is in years to come there's going to be a lot of demand for tools like the (open source) Australian government-funded Xena, an "XML Normalizing tool" for converting almost any digital document format you care to name to an open XML format for archiving and re-use.
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.