-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 M Harris wrote: > On Sunday 13 May 2007 21:20, M Harris wrote: >> Well, the other shoe has dropped. The leopard in Redmond is really >> desperate... > MICRO4OFT'S OPEN SOURCE FETISH > > This is another take on the same theme... this guy blogs that M$ will > never > sue because they can't afford it... read his three reasons why. This guy's > ire is really up... > > http://weblog.infoworld.com/openresource/archives/2007/05/making_sense_of.html > > >
Both articles are interesting and relevant in terms of the American Marketplace as being the largest in the world. I would view this article as an analysis intended to keep investors and shareholders on board, and the business equivalent to the Haka(*) before the big (rugby) game. MSs major cash cow is the OEM distribution of the OS to the consumer sector, if this should dry up, or MS fail to make an impact in growing markets such as China, India, and the Russian Republic then they could be in major trouble. MSs attempts to move in to other sectors such as game consoles or mobile devices, no matter how successful will not make for such a failure. (One should remember the IBM PC success effectively destroyed the market for the very much more profitable RS6000 series which was a major factor in precipitating IBMs later financial woes). There is further issue that the home PCs marketplace may be stagnating (no new PCs bought no Vista sold). Vista is not exactly setting the world alight, and I would suspect that very few of MSs major account players are contemplating mass migration in the near future, many were still migrating from NT4 to W2K when XP came out, and the pain of that particular experience is probably still fresh in their minds. At the moment Linux is having more success at replacing UNIX than MS deployments in the corporate world, and the actual level of Linux deployment is very hard to determine given the nature of the distribution. At the moment the Open Source community is in more danger of shooting itself in the foot by showing unreasoned hostility to the pragmatic deal that Novell and Microsoft have hammered out than it is from the deal itself. The critics ignore the fact that the business sector in general is positive to the deal, and the kneejerk reaction of some elements of the community will do more harm than good in the mid to long term to the reputation of the open source community with that business sector. Ideological purity often comes with the price tags of extinction or isolation. For the home machine, Linux is nowhere in the serious gaming space, but for home office, education and some multi-media functionality it a serious player. However, one best ways of bringing things forward is to have both environments on the same box. MS may want to rule the world, but does the world want it to rule them. MSs american centred approach to its product has, and continues to irritate outside of US real estate, many parts of planet would prefer not to do MS simply because it is too (USA) american. MS is also having definite problems with the EU on a variety of issues. (*) The maori haka is a ritual hurling of abuse and threats before getting down to the serious business of mutual brain bashing... used by the All Blacks in Rugby Union for much the same purpose... [NZ members of the list may wish to elaborate] -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.5 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Using GnuPG with SUSE - http://enigmail.mozdev.org iD8DBQFGSCvMasN0sSnLmgIRAvlwAJ9hHgBNuUtkkX2aHPqfFYX5x8I5CwCg3zt1 HIpTWtUBzhJjADKG9Ldkx80= =Wu4N -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- -- To unsubscribe, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] For additional commands, e-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
