“IBM and Linux combined represent a threat and inspiration as Microsoft Corp drives into enterprise computing, top company executives said yesterday. Computing giant IBM wages war against Microsoft in lucrative corporate accounts while Linux, the low-coast threat to Windows, wins supporters in fertile developer communities.” Read the article at TheRegister.
Microsoft: IBM and Linux our Biggest Threats
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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I’d agree with that statement but it seems a bit obvious. The real issue is what will MS do about it? Now that is interesting.
Sound like Microsoft trying to say they don’t own the playing field. Anyway, does anyone have more information on Sun Microsystems’ future Linux distribution?
I am not sure that there is a going to be a Sun distribution per-se… Sun has said that some of the Solaris code will go into the Linux kernel though.
This is what a Sun employee said a few days ago on our forums regarding Microsoft, Linux and Sun:
http://www.osnews.com/comment.php?news_id=1393&offset=135&rows=141#…
Oddly enough, IBM is also one of Microsoft’s biggest friends.
Oh the irony. MS screws IBM with the OS/2 and NT thing, now IBM is a serious threat.
MSFT is too smart to actually BELIEVE what they said. IBM is no threat to MSFT whatsoever, because though IBM has a lot of great technology, they are small thinkers. Why does IBM still sell IBM PC’s (a business they lose money on , by the way) instead of REALLY committing to LINUX. Because they FEAR the Redmond beast. They have been shamed by Walmart, a company insulated from MSFT’s wrath by virtue of having no stake in whether their low-cost LINUX boxes succeed. It is just one more thing they sell.
LINUX is no threat to MSFT because even if succeeds, LINUXers have spent insufficient resources on moving it from the server to the desktop.
“.Net” is the next “bob”. Though some might find stuff to like about C sharp, few will be dumb enough to deploy it. Who’s left who hasn’t been BURNED by Microsoft? You deploy “.net” and it will be full of undocumented API’s known only to chosen MSFT engineers.
Also, you can ALREADY use Java without fearing the wrath of SUNW– and you will be able to deploy to EVERYBODY– not just Windows slaves.
No, if I were Ballmer the thing making me quake would be a UNIX distro already in the hands of 10E6 happy USERS and getting rave reviews (though 10.2 ought iron out some of the remaining warts). I you know the UNIX I mean…
Have you not yet understood the concept of misdirecting someone’s attention? They said 640k was “enough for anybody” to minimize the efforts of competitors while they themselves were building the ultimate memory hog OS. They said that manufacturers of the chips used in Macs would be bankrupt “in a year” to get leverage while they were scheming to get IE onto every future I-Mac. Now they’re pretending IBM and Linux are a threat, while the rest of the computing world is predicting that future security measures will lock Linux out of the web for most practical purposes, and trying to copy the Net standard with Mono, thereby validating Net, while Loser distributions band together in a pathetic attempt to survive, with interfaces designed to look and work like Windows without in fact being able to run Windows apps, making their very existence quite frankly unnecessary. You’re being jerked off again people, don’t be blinded by your ego-needs to think your crappy OS is a threat to anything but newbies trying to use it, because it isn’t. You’ve had more chances to get it right than any other OS in history, and you couldn’t pull it off. Now you’re getting pulled-off by Microsoft again, and you can’t see it. If they’re trying to line up their competition behind IBM and Linux, then you can BET they’re about to pull something that makes IBM and Linux no factor at all. You read it here first.
Why would MS worry about apple?
They barely even compete with each other…MS Office…the real cash-cow is on Macintosh mostly for historical reasons, I believe it predates even Windows.
OS X and Windows do compete in a very basic sense, in that they are both Operating Systems, but they run on mutually exclusive hardware…you wanna buy a mac box…you can’t run Windows…you wanna buy a PC box…you can’t run OS X
I think MS is perfectly happy with this arrangement and Apple will not take away considerable market share until they find a way of cutting costs down to sub-$1000 levels.
MS owns the desktop…now they want the server…Sun and SGI don’t really compete with them either (wayyyy above them)…so who is on their level? IBM and Linux…this is definitely the logical target for them.
-bytes256
Linux has a lot of momentum behind it. I wouldn’t rule it out. It is the only thing that can compete with MS on the x86 architecture because of its decentralized nature and strong core of volunteers.
Now as for MS trying to use misdirection well, i stand corrected. Few firms like to admit their true weaknesses and MS is capable of anything. Assuming MS has another true enemy is sound logic. I don’t know about apple though. Steve jobs seesm to be showing more of a backbone regarding attacking MS but apple will need to do a lot more to compete with MS. Cute computers that lack expandability/flexibility and mini-towers that are $300 or so dollars above the pricing sweet spot won’t cut it.
“You’ve had more chances to get it right than any other OS in history”
are you talking about microsoft? they didnt get it right till win 95? it took them 10 years!.KDE and gnome are barely 4. and servers? Microsoft still hasnt gotten that right!
Now Beos definitely got it right the first time.
“are you talking about microsoft? they didnt get it right till win 95? it took them 10 years!.KDE and gnome are barely 4. and servers? Microsoft still hasnt gotten that right! ”
But KDE and GNOME had the chance to learn from Microsoft’s mistakes. That should have cut down on development time.
“Now Beos definitely got it right the first time.”
And the obligatory comment: and you see where that got them…
Gullible Moron: Have you even READ the article? it speaks nothing about linux on the desktop. Linux as a server is VERY capable. Sysadmins are not your gramma, they dont need point and click everything. KDE and GNOME do not belong on a server.
Also heard, the Boston Red Sox are saying “the New York Yankees represent a threat to their World Series Championship this year”.
Most of your points are true, Microsoft won’t be able to compete with Linix servers in cost or speed, only features. They will get people hooked on .NET by offering it open source for Linux, then be sure to offer superrior .NET server support on windows and slowly leave Linux support in the dust. .NET for Linux is a baited fish hook. Also, the path for desktop linux is through the server market.If MS manages to outdo Linux in the server market, it will be a _long_ time before they see any real compation.
Most of the comments I’ve seen here assume Microsoft is refering to Linux on an x86 platform. I’m not real sure about that. IBM is doing quite a tidy business with Linux on the mainframe, as well. This strikes me as potentialy more threatening to Microsoft. Switching to Linux over Windows on the x86 platform may offer some advantages, but objectively, only incremental ones. Now, consider some shops with huge server farms. This is a situation where running multiple instances Linux on a mainframe under VM offers considerable savings. Worse, it shuts Microsoft out completely from some very large accounts – Microsoft doesn’t play on the mainframe.