Linux vs Windows - Conquering a Windows Based World

I guess this would further justify why Microsoft wants embrace and support Linux. It is now becoming obvious that there is a grass roots support growing for Linux that cannot be extinguished by FUD campaigns. This was reported by the www.theinquirer.net

“According to PCPro, HP’s sales tracking is apparently quite accurate and the outfit can confidently tell us that number 100,000 is a DL145G2 ProLiant featuring two 2.6Ghz AMD Opteron CPUs, 16Gb memory and Red Hat Enterprise Linux. “

I am not sure whether these sales are coming at the expense of Unix replacement (ie.. Solaris) or Microsoft server replacements. I’ll take a conservative guess and say that around 40% to 60% of these sales should have been a Microsoft Server License. Given that a 20 CAL Windows Server License goes for $629 at NewEgg. We can give an estimate that Microsoft lost between 24 million and 36 million dollars to Linux servers in the UK alone. These are just guesses and assumptions based from the sales figures, so take them with a grain of salt. Maybe its not so strange the Microsoft is now an advocate of Linux rather than an opponent, given than hundreds of millions of dollar across the globe are NOT making their way into the Microsoft coffers.

Irony, perhaps the best single word to describe the latest development with Microsoft. I find amusing that the most vocal company that is preaching about the true value of IP and patents, turns around and violates a patent of Prof. Lee Keung-hae of Hankuk Aviation University.  The following is a quote from the Korean Times.

Microsoft, the world’s top software maker, may have to stop selling its flagship ”Office” suite program in Korea temporarily due to patent infringement, according to a local technology transfer agent.

I would assume that since Microsoft is an advocate for patents and IP that they would honor those individuals or companies that possess them, wouldn’t you?

Irony as defined by wikipedia,

Irony is a literary or rhetorical device in which there is a gap or incongruity between what a speaker or a writer says, and what is generally understood 

Quite a gap indeed.

This will be the first time that a public French institution switched its Windows PCs to Linux. The change will account for 1,154 French Parliamentary work stations and will be equipped with other open source productivity software. The full article can be found at ZDNET.UK
Will be interesting to see how it finally works out.

I could not have made this up, It came straight from the Microsoft press release site.

“Microsoft and Novell have agreed to disagree on whether certain open source offerings infringe Microsoft patents and whether certain Microsoft offerings infringe Novell patents. The agreement between our two companies puts in place a workable solution for customers for these issues, without requiring an agreement between our two companies on infringement.”

So what kind of “agreement” or contract was signed? How is the public supposed to perceive this “agreement” if the two parties involved cannot even agree on what was in the “agreement”.

The FUD has now reached a frenzy point, and everyone is now looking over their shoulder, not sure who to believe or what is going to happened next. I think this reaction was anticipated by one of the parties. It was not a misstep, the community reaction was already calculated .
Mary Jo Foley and blogs.zdnet.com raises the real question. What did Novell buy for $40 million, if it was not for patent infingment claims?

Microsoft basically is calling Novell and other Linux vendors thieves. Under what circumstances would a pro-customer company encourage its users to buy software from a partner who was stealing its own IP? I’m having trouble coming up with any justifications for that kind of behavior. And Microsoft isn’t supplying any convincing ones , either.

That really sums it up.  Why would a company encourage users to buy software from a partner that is stealing its intellectual property?

A true testament to the reliability and availability of Linux can be seen from how companies are adopting it for mission critical applications, and not from the FUD generated by Microsoft. In fact, Nokia has just announced that it is choosing Redhat Enterprise Linux as its primary operating system for carrier grade server platforms, as noted from http://www.sda-india.com.

If you were to believe the Microsoft “Get the Facts” campaign, you would also believe that Microsoft is both cheaper and more reliable than Linux. If this were true, then there is no reason for Nokia to adopt Linux. Nokia is a fantastic company built on talented engineers that have great foresight with the capability to make sound techincal and business decisions.

“The Red Hat Enterprise Linux platform has long been known for high levels of reliability and availability in situations where downtime is not an option. Working with Nokia, we plan to make our solution for the telecommunications industry even stronger,” said Paul Cormier, executive vice president of Engineering, Red Hat.

So who do you believe?

Microsoft builds a an IP bridge to Linux so that there can be arrangement under which they (Novell) pay us some money for the right to tell the customers that anybody who uses Suse Linux is appropriately covered. This information was covered by Todd Bishop over at http://blog.seattlepi.nwsource.com. Guess I did not realize that Microsoft owns the IP for Linux.  Did you?  Below is a quote from Steve Ballmer.

“So we built a technology bridge, and we built an IP bridge and a commercial framework that supports that. Novell said to us, ‘Hey, look, if you’re serious about this stuff, you better help us promote Suse Linux.’ To which we said, ‘You know we’re trying to sell Windows, that’s what we do for a living! Windows, Windows, Windows, baby! We don’t do Linux that way here.’

Their “bridge” reminds me more of a toll bridge. Guess anyone that uses Linux needs to pay toll!  Below is one more direct quote.

“Linux comes from the community — the fact that that product uses our patented intellectual property is a problem for our shareholders. We spend $7 billion a year on R&D, our shareholders expect us to protect or license or get economic benefit from our patented innovations. So how do we somehow get the appropriate economic return for our patented innovation “

Maybe we can just buy a Microsoft/Linux FastPass or something.

The biggest software company in the world just admitted that its promise not to sue open source software developers was a little off target. Just read this from an article on ww.cbronline.com. A nice quote from article.

“Microsoft Corp has admitted execution flaws with its promise not to sue open source software developers and invited the wider community to tell the software firm how it can get it right. “

I just don’t believe that this was an accident. Surely they must have teams of Lawyers and Strategy personnel going over their partner agreements with a fine tooth comb. This was not created by a single “rogue” person in the PR department who accidentally typed this into the contract. It was calculated, and sent out for a specific reason. You just have to think of a common sense reason why they made the generous offer “not to sue open source software developers”.

I think a just saw some little pink porkbellies flying over head with beautiful out stretched wings. If you believe that, then there is also good article for you over at the Redherring “Redmond Ends Linux War“. With this news also came the announcement of a new “Interop Vendor Alliance” by Microsoft. The most interesting piece of the article is

“Conspicuous in their absence from the list are two of the major server vendors, IBM and Hewlett-Packard. “

Big deal, Microsoft and IBM are always at odds, right? I have to give credit to Microsoft for their partner agreement with Novell was ingenious. It applies the classic war tactic “Divide and Conquer” that was used by such great generals as Napolean of France.

Just think IBM has backed Redhat which is the largest public company that supports Linux. The second biggest commercial backer of Linux is Novell with Suse. Instead of Redhat and Suse going in their own directions, they are now pitted against one other. With IBM standing behind Redhat and Microsoft standing behind Novell.

Now, as a CIO of a company, you were thinking about adopting Linux in some aspect of your business. It is a big decision that will affect your job and company for years to come. The vendor decision was somewhat minor before, between two good commercially supported releases, Redhat and Suse.
All of a sudden you see a battle looming on the horizon between the Microsoft backed flavor or the IBM backed flavor, which one do you pick? Or do you just sit down on the sideline, and say, maybe I’ll just wait a couple of years and see what happens next? I know I would sit down and wait. That is the best FUD that could occur, and it all started because Microsoft announced a “partnership” to support Linux. They have now created more damage with a “partnership” than they could have by bashing it. The Linux community will now become more splintered than ever before, and the battle will ensue for years to come.

Perhaps the most important piece of software that runs on Linux is crying foul, about the Microsoft/Novell partner agreement. The Samba software package, which enables users to share documents and folders, is integral in having any hetereogenous computer environment work seamlessy together.

In the deal, Microsoft and Novell agree not to assert their patents against each other. Sure that makes sense, they are saying lets move forward together and not sue each other into oblivion the process. What the crux problem is the wonderful little statement in the patent covenant that says…

“The patent covenant only applies to software that you develop at home and keep for yourself; the promises don’t extend to others when you distribute,” Bradley M. Kuhn, the law center’s chief technology officer, wrote in a letter to open-source software developers Thursday.

Developers must remain unpaid for their work in order to be covered by the pact, he said. And in any case, the pledge can’t be relied upon because Microsoft has the right to alter the terms, he said.

Trying to comprehend all of this, however I’m still dazed and confused about what is happening. Hmm, I think the FUD machine got me again. Also here is my favorite quote from the article.

“Microsoft has used this patent pledge to indicate that, in their view, the only good Free Software developer is an isolated, uncompensated, unimportant Free Software developer.”

From an interesting little piece by Dana Blankenhorn at ZDNET. He gives a little explanation of why we are seeing the big moves by Oracle and Microsoft towards Linux. I agree with him also, you would not being seeing Linux “shifts” by these two huge blue chip companies, unless there is a big momentum swing already underway.

” It shows that 83% of companies expect to support new workloads on Linux next year, against 23% for Windows. The move is slower for larger enterprises, but the direction is clear. At least in the server world, Linux has won. “

I agree with this on server end. However, there is no doubt that Microsoft is the clear winner on the desktop and will remain on the top for years, unless we see an innovative or disruptive technology introduced for the Linux desktop environment.