I agree with you that it would be a mistake for MS to release an inferior distro. The danger is that they could release a good distro with MS Office for Linux bundled with it. They're working on a port. The current Linux faithful wouldn't give it the time of day but it would suck in all the newbies wanting to try out Linux but who want to keep their familiar MS Office environment. Once they built a user base then it's divide and conquer time a'la Java. Not to mention inserting some of their proprietary standards and even more MS only apps along the way. They'd probably make a lot of money on it too. More than they do off WIN98. They could also point to it and say "See we're not so bad. We support Linux too" and would fool a significant number of even the Linux faithful -- certainly the clueless press. Might even help them with the DOJ. A Linux-friendly MS is a worse case scenario to me.
I agree with you that it would be a mistake for MS to release an inferior distro. The danger is that they could release a good distro with MS Office for Linux bundled with it. They're working on a port. The current Linux faithful wouldn't give it the time of day but it would suck in all the newbies wanting to try out Linux but who want to keep their familiar MS Office environment. Once they built a user base then it's divide and conquer time a'la Java. Not to mention inserting some of their proprietary standards and even more MS only apps along the way. They'd probably make a lot of money on it too. More than they do off WIN98. They could also point to it and say "See we're not so bad. We support Linux too" and would fool a significant number of even the Linux faithful -- certainly the clueless press. Might even help them with the DOJ. A Linux-friendly MS is a worse case scenario to me.
Microsoft Linux Distribution.
Look for it on the shelves in October.
This person doesn't know what there're talking about!!
Flame, flame flame.....
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