Why is Microsoft interested in linux?
By Justin Silverton
Earlier this month, Microsoft announced that they have taken an interest in the php language and would be working closely with the Zend corporation to make it more efficient and scalable on the windows platform.
Now, Microsoft has announced that they will also co-develop a version of linux with Novell (based on the SUSE distribution).
In a Recent Article from InfoWorld:
“Microsoft will offer sales support for Suse Linux and will co-develop with Novell in the areas of virtualization, Web services management, and document format compatibility between Microsoft Office and Open Office. The collaboration will make it easier for users to run both Suse Linux and Microsoft Windows on their computers.”
At first glance, this sounds like a great thing. Microsoft will now be supporting the open source community. This could bring: better driver support, interoperability with office formats (and other proprietary formats), and even more wide-spread usage at the enterprise level (large companies might see Microsoft as a more viable support option).
We also might see something I have been wanting for awhile now: A good desktop distribution. Linux works great in a server environment, but I have had many issues when attempting to use it as a desktop machine (driver support..or the lack of is one of the biggest problems).
The downside of this new interest is the fact that Microsoft is still a corporation. A corporation has only one thing in mind: making money. One of the main objectives here is to get back the marketshare that is slowly being lost to linux servers. Looking at their past history (Steve Ballmer once said that the GNU is a “viral license”) leads me to believe that they will try anything in their power to control the one thing they cannot buy.
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I had downloaded OpenSUSE 10.2 to try out on my laptop. As soon as I heard that Novell and Microsoft were spotted in a cheap motel making sloppy noises, I threw those freshly burned CD in the garbage. I’ll stick to Kubuntu for now, thank you!
yes intolerance is the wave of the future :rolleyes:
Piss on Microsoft. And you too for that matter.
They want to screw Red Hat (IP FUD/lawsuit )and then betray Novell. Wait and watch.
Frightening, yes, but interesting too. I’d love to see broader industry support for Zend. PHP is very robust and MSFT, if you stay on the right side of the fence with them, can be very supportive of development organizations and of course have very deep pockets. .Net never delivered on the vision so maybe this is their ultimate bridge play.
It’s all about the V - virtualization. M$ customers want it, and now they can get it without going to a competitor. Screwing the linux community and redhat are just a bonus.
[…] What will be interesting to see is if there are any invisible lines drawn in the sand between the Linux guru’s of the world because Microsoft is now venturing further into their worldWhy is Microsoft interested in linux? […]
“A good desktop distribution.”
With all due respect, you wouldn’t know a good desktop distribution if it walked up and chewed on your eyebrows. To merely scratch the surface of Mepis, Mandriva, Ubuntu, or Xandros for hardware compatibility or Elive and Suse for sheer sexy looks, to say nothing of the XGL 3D desktop, Linux left Microsoft in the dust years ago but all the FUD-suckers just keep lying about it.
I have never had a Linux distro fail to run on a desktop PC, whether I bought it myself brand new this year or salvaged a shivering wreck of a Win98 box from a yard sale for five bucks. Does it not seem ludicrous that Linux powers everything from smart phones to supercomputer mainframes, but mysteriously cannot talk to an inkjet printer? You have merely fallen to the tide.
“The downside of this new interest is the fact that Microsoft is still a corporation. A corporation has only one thing in mind: making money.”
Understatement?
The downside of this new interest is the fact that Microsoft is MICROSOFT. Microsoft has only one thing in mind: making money by screwing over everyone else, ESPECIALLY THE OPEN SOURCE COMMUNITY.
There is no upside to this. And we certainly DO NOT want (or need) Microsoft behind a desktop Linux.
I’m really torn about this whole deal. For Linux to succeed it needs some group to really fix this whole windows compatibility debacle.
However. Novell knows that Microsoft will try to screw them over, and Microsoft knows that Novell knows that so they’re being extra careful to make sure they don’t get screwed out of screwing them over. Makes perfect sense… right?
I think that we all suspect Vista to really be “ME2″ or “MESquared” and Microsoft really just needs Vista to tide them over till they can release something completely different. Like their switch from dos based to NT based. It makes perfect logical sense, to switch from a NT base to a Linux base, and if you look at what’s been cut from vista Monad (power shell) Win FS it just seems like if you switched to Linux you wouldn’t need them.
As of now the deal is good, as long as Novell can either prevent themselves from being screwed over or manage to screw over MS in return then it’ll be worth it.
And I hate these people who are ditching OpenSuse because “Novell’s in bed with Microsoft.” Who gives a crap… whatever benefit you’d see in opensuse you’d see in EVERY other free version of Linux. And if you’re using SLED you’ll only see the benefits of this partnership. It’s just dumb, not using the free distribution isn’t going to affect anyone but your self. And companies probably couldn’t be happier that SLED is going to be more windows compatible, and IT sure isn’t going to complain. I probably did a terrible job of explaining that but it’s 6:41am and I still haven’t slept so i apologize.
Bryce
Microsoft is a singularly schizophrenic (only a slight contradiction there) organization. Their many divisions act towards the outside world in very different ways. Their windows division is renowned for being particularly xenophobic. Maybe this is a different deparment trying another way, of course it might also be “embrace and extend” all over again.
We can’t stop then so we just get to watch and see.
Yuk, That’s one Distro I won’t be using anymore :-p
“With all due respect, you wouldn’t know a good desktop distribution if it walked up and chewed on your eyebrows. To merely scratch the surface of Mepis, Mandriva, Ubuntu, or Xandros for hardware compatibility or Elive and Suse for sheer sexy looks, to say nothing of the XGL 3D desktop, Linux left Microsoft in the dust years ago but all the FUD-suckers just keep lying about it.”
why not one with both hardware compatibility and sexy looks?
I have tried almost all of the distros you mention and there are still certain important things missing (such as good pcmcia 802.11X support). I want to be able to pop any network card I buy at my local computer store and be able to use it (either built-in support or a downloadable driver). I just don’t see this happening unless there is major commercial support.
“I have never had a Linux distro fail to run on a desktop PC, whether I bought it myself brand new this year or salvaged a shivering wreck of a Win98 box from a yard sale for five bucks.”
I haven’t had a distro fail either. It ran well, it just didn’t support all of my devices.
“Does it not seem ludicrous that Linux powers everything from smart phones to supercomputer mainframes, but mysteriously cannot talk to an inkjet printer? You have merely fallen to the tide.”
smart phones are specialized devices and those specific distributions are designed to work with that set of hardware. Linux doesn’t magically support all devices. You either need support from the manufacturer or someone needs to hack one together through reverse-engineering.
Micrsoft products have the clear advantage here. You can pretty much take any device off the shelf and it will just work (or it includes a supported driver).