Advice to Microsoft: Learn to love Linux (ZDNet) [LWN.net]

Disruptive technology guru Clayton Christensen thinks that Microsoft should refocus its market toward Linux on handheld devices, according to this ZDNet article. ""Where Linux takes root is in new applications like Web servers and handheld devices. As those get better, applications will get sucked off the desktop onto the Internet, and that's what will undo Microsoft," he said. The software company can respond to this market disruption by setting up a separate business that will "kill Microsoft," Christensen said. If it doesn't react to the rise of Linux desktops on handheld computers, it will miss a coming wave of new applications and market opportunities, he said."

(Log in to post comments)

Seconded.

Posted Oct 17, 2004 3:55 UTC (Sun) by leonbrooks (guest, #1494) [Link]

I'd use politer words to say so, but I heartily agree. After half a day playing whack-a-shark with malware on a client's home computer, I've done my quota of borgwork for the next month.

ZDNet experiencing a DDoS or /.ed?

Posted Oct 16, 2004 9:14 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

Well, yes, the article seems dead, but ZD/Cnet seems almost dead too. I
don't know if they are suffering a DDoS attack or what, but the entire
site (both CNet and ZDNet) seems to be taking minutes to respond right
now, often with multiple retries necessary to get a page due to timeouts
and/or errors on initial load that go away if one reloads .. and waits
minutes to see if it comes up, then reloads again if necessary. I'm not
used to this any more.. what with a cable connection and running my own
DNS to avoid ISP DNS issues..

Maybe they got /.ed or something?

Duncan

ZDNet experiencing a DDoSor /.ed?

Posted Oct 16, 2004 12:15 UTC (Sat) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

It seems to be back up and responding well. This particular article is
again available, altho there isn't a whole lot more to it than the gist
LWN captured.

Duncan

Advice to Microsoft: Learn to love Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 16, 2004 16:42 UTC (Sat) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Just from the headlines...

" "Where Linux takes root is in new applications like Web servers and handheld devices. As those get better, applications will get sucked off the desktop onto the Internet, and that's what will undo Microsoft," he said. "

But isn't exactly that what .NET is all about ?
It seems to me that is because 'Internet' is so much perceived as a dangerous place(and it needs security, no doubt), and a lot to thank to Microsoft for that, that applications, real applications, will never be Web-Service centriq... and after all it dosent make sense to have exponencial CPU power and build applications to run on VMs amd JITs,... no matter if you achieve commom 10Mbs(feeling happy!) in the next 10 years or so in commom 'down' bandwidth...

"The software company can respond to this market disruption by setting up a separate business that will "kill Microsoft," Christensen said. "

It's going to take a long awhile before Microsoft is killed... and its gonna be commom OSes and commom applications, in commom LAN or commom WAN environments that is going to kill it... because if Linux moves heavly to the desktop, and i hope it will,they(Microsoft) will be shorted out of manouverability power to try lock-ins in large scale... and the domestic and SOHO markets can't be a *reasonable* source of income to anybody, in a foreseeable future,... thanks again to Microsoft for letting piracy of their OSes, and applications related to their OSes, be so rampant!!...

...they where affraid that people try the unthinkable and change to an unamerican, communist, free OS, that cost nothing !... so make nothing to prevent the common anonimous masses of people from installing *illegal Windows* instead of *free* seemed a good way to make all those masses pro-american and anti-communist... urgh!...seriuosly, what is going to take more to classify this kind of behavior as religious fanatic and psychopat...

Ok, Ok,... i've no accusatory *material evidence*, though evidence is everywhere... but hey!, shouln't somebody just fund one such study ??... Microsoft is a real expert in that field, and they say anything they like, by the ways of that!!...

Advice to Microsoft: Learn to love Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 16, 2004 20:49 UTC (Sat) by kyuso (guest, #23894) [Link]

Is there a parallel between software OS and public utilities?

If enough computers become ubiquitous in our everyday usage, wouldn't an OS become a public utility? Only the applications, special-purpose OS, and the hardware will be commercialized.

Microsoft, if smart, would be successful in service-centric applications, unless they want to be like many other companies that hung on to something that was not to be, and disappear.

Advice to Microsoft: Learn to love Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 18, 2004 2:44 UTC (Mon) by khess (guest, #21687) [Link]

I have thought for some time that MS should embrace Linux, but they won't. So, what they should really do is focus on the Desktop and make it truly interoperable with Unix/Linux in every conceivable way. Linux should be focused toward the datacenter as a server, something it does far better than MS.
MS isn't a bad company, obviously, the richest men in the world own it, so say what you will but really it was all we had for a long time. They should give up the Server market and focus on applications and the Desktop, for as long as there is a traditional Desktop.
Someday soon the only things that will exist in IT are the Server/DataCenter Device and the Personal Data Device (Handheld or whatever). It is a quickly changing world and MS needs to, and will, evolve with it.
Don't sell MS short folks, they are not the company they are by being stupid...and this is coming from me, a Linux advocate, Linux Consultant, and starter of my local Linux User Group.

Advice to Microsoft: Learn to love Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 18, 2004 15:54 UTC (Mon) by AJWM (guest, #15888) [Link]

MS isn't a bad company,

Tell that to the DOJ and the 30-some odd States that found Microsoft guilty of criminal abuse of their monopoly status, not to mention similar findings in other countries, various successful (or settled) lawsuits for patent infringement, copyright violation, etc, etc.

really it was all we had for a long time.

You need a history lesson, sonny. For starters, research: DR-DOS, OS/2, BeOS, DesqView, DesqView/X (for operating systems) and Borland, Lotus, WordPerfect, and others for applications.

Don't sell MS short folks, they are not the company they are by being stupid Not entirely, no. Criminal, yes; stupid, no.

Advice to Microsoft: Learn to love Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 18, 2004 16:21 UTC (Mon) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

" They should give up the Server market and focus on applications and the Desktop "

I belive, they always had focus first and above all in the Desktop... and yet they own arguably 50%( perhaps a little more in reality) of the overall server market... so why should they drop the server market anyway ??

It is clear to me, that changing the paradigma of the internet from document centric to applications centric is in reality *too much* even if we had 10Mbs of download bandwidth!!... Why move arround all those Mbs of application bits when they can reside localy, and move only what is important, *the data*, *the information* ??

Strick as evidence that web-sercices centric applications is a perfect way to make customers to pay more for their applications, specialy those huge masses of anonimous Microsoft *True Belivers*, in the domestic and SOHO markets, that seem very happy with their, most probabilily, illegal WindowsOS installations and other related applications.

Its a situation that makes the IT world a very cinic world... because most of those people dont have a clue in hell of what is really proper and the best for any particular computacional task... they think they know something about computers because Microsoft has marketing brainwash them, but most of that anonimous masse dont know nothing... they are confused, and dont even consider installing an illegal copy a crime, because is what everybody is doing, its easy, and Microsoft hasent complained or really prevented that (Xp activation is a joke long passed by everybody in the world)...

So its not a question of selling short, or of if Bill Gates is the richest man in the world... its a question of the *huge*, *ungratefull* task of educating those masses that lay uppon Open Source... and thinking about it only in a "merchandizing way", only keeps Microsoft on top, the people ignorant has ever, and the IT world cinical as usual.

Advice to Microsoft: Learn to love Linux (ZDNet)

Posted Oct 19, 2004 3:53 UTC (Tue) by khess (guest, #21687) [Link]

To AJWM

I don't need a lesson "sonny", as I have been around for a while and having worked with every OS since CP/M, I think I speak with authority.
OS/2, never really took hold, and you mention BeOS...LOL. Damn dude you are grasping. DR-DOS, yeah like MS needed any competition for DOS. DeskView was a pseudo graphical interface for DOS, so I am not sure what the hell that has any relevance for.

My point was, if you didn't get it, that MS isn't bad,...it is a company made of people like you and me. Yes, they had some practices that were unethical/illegal but I think that is pretty much par for business don't you? And we won't even go there on politics.

I am not a fan of MS. But all of this rhetoric will be moot in about 3 years when there are no more American IT companies that actually employ any Americans. I am disappointed in this new direction and am trying to exercise all of my options in getting the hell out of a dying industry.

Not sure what we will all do when the Republicans allow unchecked offshore outsourcing of professional positions like programming and accounting for starters...and the Democrats allowing unchecked immigration. Where does that leave us all in the middle? There are almost no jobs in this world that can't be offshored, if you think about it...so I am glad that I am at the age that I am and won't have to worry about it for much longer.

AMF