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.