Microsoft alters message to counter Linux (The Daily Camera) [LWN.net]

LWN's local newspaper, the Daily Camera has an article on Microsoft's changing strategy for dealing with Linux. "Microsoft can tout potential savings and commission studies, but those efforts won't be any more effective in securing customers than its past tactics, Enderle said. "To make that argument it really needs to be made by practitioners, not by the vendor itself," the analyst said. "To make it stick you really need company (information technology) managers to stand up.""

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MS will partner on Linux, avoiding the MS brand name directly..

Posted Dec 27, 2002 14:22 UTC (Fri) by Duncan (guest, #6647) [Link]

The article points out again that one analyst predicts MS will come out with
limited products for the Linux server market by the end of '04. While it's possible,
they aren't going to be able to do it directly, and keep a straight face about all the
claims of Linux being the IP cancer. What they'll do instead is what they've done
before -- as when porting TCPDump to their platform, for instance, but going the
other way -- partnership with a third party. This will allow them into the Linux
market without risking their vaunted IP, or name or claims, since it would be the
partner's name on the product, and their IP, directly at least. MS will then be
ablel to claim it's limiting its risk and the risk to it's IP, and that it's the partner
risking it all.

Hmm... that might be about the only way a company could partner with MS,
without fear of its products being subsumed into the Borg itself -- at least for a
couple more years, until MS DOES decide to reverse itself and put products out
there directly, due to the increasing market share of Linux and as it is faced with
becoming just another bit player, otherwise.

The thrust of the rest of the article has already been discussed here and
elsewhere at length b4. It's covering MS' changing tactics, going for the TCO
claim, as in the recent study they sponsored, claiming that under certain
carefully controlled conditions, the five-year cost of Linux is higher than that of
MS. The LWN quote was the article's summary on that -- that MS probably
won't get a lot of traction there, either, unless they can get integrators to make it
as well, just as they've failed to get traction with the other claims. It IS nice to
see the lack of traction MS has had so far had getting covered in the wider
press,
now, though.