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OSS Nibbling at Microsoft -- In the Future
Posted by Paul Szynol on Tuesday, December 10 @ 00:07:11 EST OpenSource
META Group, a "research and consulting firm" that focuses "on information technology and business transformation strategies", predicts that Microsoft, in response to OSS' increasing market power, will release software for Linux by 2004.

More precisely, the firm's specialists predict that Linux will capture half of the server market by 2007, and, in anticipation, Microsoft will begin to migrate some of its apps to Linux some three years before then.

Indeed, despite anti-OSS cries from organizations like the Initiative for Software Choice (LawMeme's coverage is here), Linux is gaining market share--or at least the market's interest. Just recently, for instance, the European Union paid $249,000 to Netproject to conduct a study that would determine whether it is feasible to migrate "several member countries' governments to the Linux operating system from Microsoft's Windows OS." (CNET coverage is here).

Releasing software for Linux may be a smart (or inevitable) business move; but for Microsoft -- the company's lip service support of OSS notwithstanding -- it would also be a painful ideological (and economic) concession.

Forbes coverage of META Group's predictions is here.

 
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Speculation - software on Linux, but not from Redmond (Score: 0)
by Anonymous on Tuesday, December 10 @ 12:23:01 EST
So far the above is just speculation from META. Selling software for Linux would be one of Microsofts few remaining options. However, the world is heading one way and Microsoft, the other. Microsoft just has too far to catch up in interoperability, security, stability and ease of maintenance. Instead of addressing these issues, the only reaction has been spin and marketing bluff, rather than the badly needed fundamental design changes. Windows is falling further behind in technology each month, not because changes aren't being made, but that these changes do not reflect the real world conditions -- multi-user systems, interconnection, and interoperability. Windows and Office are their only two money makers, even then only because of monopoly rents. Linux and even Macintosh OS X are taking a larger bite out of the desktop market each quarter. Which means, regardles of the size of the bite, income from MS-Windows will decrease geometrically in proportion to the bite. Experiments with Microsoft products in the server room are being regretted. And those that tried are going back to regular Unix/Linux or Novell. That leaves Office. If OpenOffice and StarOffice improve as much in the next 12 months as they have in the last 12, then MS-Office will not be able to compete. It has too come from too far behind in interoperability and security. Interoperability is a direction they're not willing to go and security just isn't a priority (see also the FTC statement above) So what software does that leave? SQL-Server's boxed itself in so far on Windows-only. MySQL, Postgresql, and Oracle do the job better and on the platform of your choice. My speculation, to follow META's example, is that this flurry of hype is to distract from the various problems such as security gaffs, customer defection, and the profit warnings. Is this just smoke and noise to keep sMicrosofts tock prices up until the end of the year?


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