[Gllug] Microsoft was distributing Ubuntu

[John G Walker]

On Mon, 25 Jun 2007 17:43:22 +0100 Richard Jones <rich at annexia.org>
wrote:

> Microsoft makes buckets of money on precisely two things: Windows
> preloads and MS Office (estimated to be 30% and 40% of their total
> revenue respectively[1]).
> 
> They make comparatively minor amounts of money on a few other
> business-y things like Exchange.  And they lose huge amounts of money
> on all sorts of other businesses from Xboxes to Tablet PCs to their
> useless "research" division.
> 

This is what I suspected, but I didn't have any figures.


> 
> What would Office-on-Linux achieve?  Linux has a very small share of
> the desktop market, so it would not be a money-spinner.  At the same
> time, it might be the final jigsaw piece in the puzzle for some large
> company or other which wants to switch their business over to Linux
> desktops.  If people start switching away from Windows, they lose
> revenue (the Windows sale), and worse still people might see all the
> free stuff on Linux and wonder why they're still buying Office.  So
> that's not going to happen.

Point taken. In fact, the reverse is happening anyway. My sister - who
doesn't actually like computers and therefore tries to be completely
ignorant of all things IT on principle - has just bought a new laptop,
running Windows Vista. But, because of the expense of MS Office, has
loaded Open Office and Thunderbird onto it. If she's doing this, then
its strikes me that Microsoft is in long-term trouble,

-- 
 All the best,
 John
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