Linux vs Windows - Conquering a Windows Based World

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.