[Sussex] Steve Ballmer using Linux in public

[Geoffrey J. Teale]

Paul Tansom <paul at aptanet.com> writes:
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> I quite agree with you, and to be honest I don't see MS as ever doing a
> Linux distro. Let's face it, for them to do one of their "let's embrace
> this internet thing we dismissed before' style U-turns they would have
> to be an already broken company :) Perhaps if their percentage of the
> desktop market fell below 50% and people could freely purchase a PC with
> any compatible OS they chose, but it would be a major climb down for
> them and pretty much admitting defeat!

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Absolutely.  Microsoft are going to fight the battle for a lot longer
yet.  Their responsibility is to their shareholders, and that means
they have to generate growth in profit - to do that they have to
continue to be in absolute control of markets which for them means
they have to destroy open platforms, not embrace them.  

It's no coincidence that Microsoft are chasing consumer orientated
markets now - the worlds of film and music positively embrace
oligopoly and welcome the idea of monopolies in consumer technology so
long as they can conspire to lock out their competitors by using it.
These are growth markets with customers who care more about abstract
notions of "cool" than about technical merits or long term fiscal or
social cost.

That's not to say that they're going to abandon business users,
they're going to fight for that market tooth and nail, but they don't
see them as growth areas. 

Microsoft's marketing material seems to focus a lot on TCO - this
leads me to believe that they think they are in a price war with Linux
vendors.  This effectively cuts off (for the short term) the prospect
of charging existing customers more.  OK, they're can look to emerging
markets for organic growth in "seats", but they're loosing badly in
those markets right now.

-- 
Geoff Teale
CMed Technology            -   gteale at cmedresearch.com
Free Software Foundation   -   tealeg at member.fsf.org