[CLUE-Talk] FW: [SGVLUG] MS promotes Linux from threat to 'the' threat - Memo

[Dave Anselmi]

Crawford Rainwater wrote:

> > MS promotes Linux from threat to 'the' threat - Memo:
> >
> > http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/22770.html

Very interesting.  Traditionally, the PC has not had the types of
reliability features of Sun, HP, or IBM.  Perhps that's changing.  But I
used to do development on a Sun E450, and for the more than $20,000 it cost
us, it seemed that 10 cheap PCs would have served us better.  There's a
tradeoff in administration (and heat output, as our server room was
undercooled), of course.  Still, though M$ on Intel can be cheaper than a
Sun, I wonder how well they provide what's important to production systems.

In any case, Neil Stephenson has a book called "In the Beginning was the
Command Line".  Humorous and a light read.  In it he talks about Apple's
failure to win the hardware battle against cheap PCs dragging down what was
the best OS of the time (MacOS).  If Apple had dropped their hardware and
promoted their OS on PCs, their history may have been very different.  Then
he says that MS's insistence on being an OS company, when there is a better
and cheaper (free) OS out there, will drag down their excellent applications
business.  Since the fair market value of an OS is $0, MS will start losing
market share.  Since their apps only run on Win, loss of OS market share
will automatically cause a loss of application market share.

Seems that MS realizes the danger and is mobilizing their sales force to
combat it.  Will they realize that dropping their OS could be a better
option?  A Justice Department breakup might have been their salvation - the
OS piece could whither and die and the app piece could have ported to Linux
and prospered.

Hmmm...

Dave