[Gllug] Microsoft was distributing Ubuntu

[Bernard Peek]

In message <20070625095045.GC8109 at bitfolk.com>, Andy Smith 
<andy at lug.org.uk> writes
>Hi Martyn,
>
>On Mon, Jun 25, 2007 at 10:43:00AM +0100, Martyn Drake wrote:
>> On 25/06/07, Richard Turner <richard at zygous.co.uk> wrote:
>>
>> > How? What would they muscle-in on? Do you imagine that "Microsoft Linux
>> > 2007" would be a big success? If it was, how would it make them revenue?
>>
>> The usual way when it comes to Linux - support?
>
>Do you feel that Windows support is currently a profit centre for
>Microsoft?

Yes it is. They don't make a lot of money from selling Windows, except 
to the home users who will pay full price. They make a lot of money from 
selling books and training-courses. If they write a few nice apps and 
port MS Office to Linux they will clean up. They have to be planning to 
do it, their OS and Office cash-cows are suffering a lot of 
price-pressure from the free alternatives. Bill Gates is no fool and he 
knows that he can make more money from Linux than from writing his own 
OS. As soon as I saw the new license agreement for SQL Server 2000 I 
knew that Microsoft was starting up an exit plan.

>If it isn't (and I'm fairly sure it's not), wouldn't it be rather a
>huge departure from their current strategy, and if they were going
>to do it then wouldn't they start with doing it for Windows first?

It would be entirely consistent with Microsoft's previous business 
practises for them to produce their own GPL'd kernel.



-- 
Bernard Peek
bap at shrdlu.com

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