Can This Man Reprogram Microsoft?, Dec 12, 2005

The Internet, Round 2, is now under way. Again, the computing terrain is changing remarkably, helped along by free software like Linux and the spread of high-speed Internet access.

I had to pinch myself several times this week and I have found that the frequency of pinching over the years has increased. The problem is the logic of this industry seems to be based on another planet, one on which rationality has not yet landed. I would like to invite you to consider the following two news items issued contemporaneously a couple of weeks ago.

South Korean antitrust regulators Wednesday ruled that Microsoft Corp. abused its market dominance, fined it 33 billion won ($32 million) and ordered the software giant to offer alternative versions of Windows.

The head of Microsoft Corp's Linux and Open Source Software Lab is taking on responsibility for the company's shared source initiative after its former manager, Jason Matusow, stepped up to the role of director in the corporate standards strategy team.

Microsoft has posted a free trial of Virtual Server 2005 R2, the latest version of the Redmond, Wash.-based developer's virtual machine software that went to manufacturing in mid-November.

When Microsoft Corp. chairman Bill Gates begins a four-day visit to India on Tuesday, he'll see a country moving increasingly toward open source operating systems - the chief rival to his company's Windows software.

CEO Steve Ballmer managed to foil a plan by some Linux demonstrators to upset one of his speeches at the University of Massachusetts by showing up on time

Although Linux-driven servers increased 34% in the quarter year-on-year, the growth was less than the previous quarter. Unix servers accounted for 0.5% less sales in the third quarter.

Some time has passed since I last revisited the titanic struggle between the "Open Force" (or is that open source) and the Empire, loosely known as Microsoft.

How many times does Microsoft have to lie about being open before people get it?

Microsoft will on Tuesday announce it is opening up access to its Office file formats to competitors, as part of a move to ensure the software giant does not lose lucrative government markets for its Office software.

Asked what its strategy is toward the Linux and open-source community, given Linux's dominance in the HPC field and the fact that Microsoft is including the MPI (Message Passing Interface) in the product, Kyril Faenov, Microsoft's director for HPC said Microsoft has no such strategy per se.

Many American conservatives recoil when people bring up the issue of persecution. They call it un-American. We quote the US Constitution when it serves our interests. But when someone is in the minority, reminding the majority of our rights under the constitution means encountering verbal abuse.

Plenty of Linux users want you to know that technology drew us to Linux. We didn't adopt this platform because we found it less capable than Windows. We didn't adopt this technology because it was unreliable and prone to security risks. We didn't adopt this technology because we love re-booting our servers every few days.

At IT Forum in Barcelona on Tuesday, Microsoft announced the results of a study it commissioned which concludes that a foundational design problem in Linux prevents that system from being as reliable as Windows in real-world scenarios

Microsoft added formal support for Linux to its Virtual Server product, but its hypervisor is still at least two years away

IBM's on-demand model is crazy and the open source movement is just people dorking around with source code. So says Microsoft's Charles Fitzgerald

Every time I read an article suggesting that Linux cannot budge Microsoft off the Enterprise Desktop, I have a private laugh. If you knew what I did, you would laugh too. The only problem I can see: It's not a laughing matter.

The technology industry shift's to Internet-based software and services represents a massive and disruptive "sea change," Microsoft Chairman Bill Gates wrote to top-level executives in a memo aimed at rallying his troops against the new competitive threats the company faces.

So, is Microsoft's patent license — which prevents sub-licensing of its patents — compatible with open source, or not? It's apparently a matter of interpretation.

According to experts, the dominant operating systems in the data center by the end of the decade will be Windows and Linux -- and Microsoft is getting ready for that standoff by learning from the competition.

Microsoft Corp. has threatened to withdraw its Windows software from South Korea if the country's antitrust agency orders it to unbundle its Instant Messenger and Media Player from the operating system.

Last week, Microsoft announced a set of new Shared Source licenses. Normally, new Microsoft licenses wouldn't be cause for the open source community to pay attention, but the new Shared Source Licenses have gotten praise from open source proponents such as Tim O'Reilly, and even the Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has weighed in with positive comments.

Chief executive Steve Ballmer yesterday outlined how Microsoft Corp plans to lure customers away from Linux and pledged to provide IT execs with more frequent products and upgrades from the company in the future.

"We are not anti-open source," says Martin Taylor, Microsoft's general manager of competitive strategy. In fact, he makes a point of hiring people with Linux and open source skills for his R&D team and Linux lab.

You can give people free software, but they won't have the expertise to use it, says Microsoft Nigeria's manager

At least for the moment, the open source and open standards worlds (the Rebel Alliance) appear to have joined sides against the proprietary warlords, led by Microsoft. Both on and off the field (where negotiators have failed to broker a truce), the engagement has not been pretty. But this is war. For the first time in the battle's history, the Rebel Alliance has dealt the warlords a stunning blow.

If there's one thing I learned from my recent sojourn into the depths of Microsoft Corp.'s future vision, it's that the concept and popularity of open-source software has shaken Redmond to its core.

Product activation has been driving students and others on shoestring budgets to Linux, and this is a real problem for Microsoft. After all, Linux is a great environment for software developers.

"If Microsoft starts to lose customers because of a lack of ODF support they will offer a plug-in before you know it."

Speaking at a private dinner with select captains of German industry on Wednesday, Steven Ballmer, chief executive of Microsoft, may have felt a small sense of triumph in his company's battle against open source software.

Google has confirmed that it will launch free spreadsheet and word-processing software online and take on Microsoft in one of its biggest markets.

...South Africa's second-in-command (our deputy president) is signing deals with Microsoft's number two and yet the South African government has a Cabinet-level strategy to use free and open source software.

Microsoft may have opted to port Office to the Mac but it has no plans to do the same for Linux even if the open source OS overtakes the Apple platform

Windows and Unix users evaluating Linux should read all studies on Total Cost of Ownership (TCO), even those from Microsoft, according to Linux champion Novell.

Looking to blunt the success of Linux in high-performance computing, Microsoft is ramping up its commitment to make Windows a better fit for data-intensive computing grids.

Recent research into these versions by large government departments indicates that for many sites, it is now 10 times cheaper to migrate to the new OpenOffice.org 2.0 than upgrading to Microsoft Office 12.

Ballmer said governments should not necessarily opt for open source alternatives over proprietary software like Microsoft, even in developing countries where expensive software can impede the rollout of computer access to poorer communities.

Accordingly, according to the Journal, Microsoft then went down the Linux path of first developing a solid kernel for what's now called Vista.

When will Microsoft stake some of its resources on open-source software? When the product in question helps Windows sales and takes market share from IBM.

The University wasted a whopping $2.7 million recently by purchasing licenses of Microsoft Office and Windows XP Pro for each registered student as Don Parris pointed out in his Sept. 15 letter.

Just about the only thing that's changed over the last decade is that Microsoft's amorphous nightmare has a name: Google

Microsoft has accused Linux of having "support issues" as the Redmond giant unveiled the first beta of its Windows Server 2003 Compute Cluster Solution operating system for high-performance computing (HPC).

In a move that shows just how far Microsoft Corp. has come, and how pervasive open-source software is in certain areas, the software powerhouse is, for the first time, including open-source technology in one of its shipping products.

Microsoft's other challenge in China is the growth of Linux. A government-sponsored alliance of open-source companies known as Red Flag Linux has lured some customers away. Red Flag Linux has also won support from global tech giants, including Hewlett-Packard, Oracle and IBM.

The German Linux Association is calling on Germany's ARD, the public Channel One, to remove the Microsoft logo from its reports on the elections.

Microsoft on Friday issued a mea culpa for not doing its due diligence before sending Linux and open-source luminary Eric Raymond an e-mail expressing interest in having him work for the Redmond software giant.

Microsoft Corp. may be softening its rhetoric against Linux and open-source software, but that doesn't mean the company is ever going to be able to hire Eric Raymond.

A senior Microsoft executive has played down the threat of Linux in China, claiming that local vendors are not making a profit and that Windows is growing faster than Linux in the Chinese server market.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer took written questions from the audience of partners and customers during yesterday's Business Summit on the company's Redmond campus. One of questions wasn't the type you'd ordinarily expect from such a crowd: "How should we think about Linux in our long-term IT strategy?"

 View older news this year: Jul Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan
 View news from other years: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000, 1999
 View older news in category Microsoft this year: Jun May Apr Mar Feb Jan
 View Microsoft news from other years: 2007, 2006, 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001, 2000