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[News] [Rival] Microsoft's Anti-competitive Virtualisation Strategy Unfolded

  • Subject: [News] [Rival] Microsoft's Anti-competitive Virtualisation Strategy Unfolded
  • From: Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
  • Date: Sat, 15 Dec 2007 06:02:54 +0000
  • Newsgroups: comp.os.linux.advocacy
  • Organization: Netscape / schestowitz.com
  • User-agent: KNode/0.10.4
Microsoft Fights VMware As it Flirts With Linux

,----[ Quote ]
| Microsoft partially funded the Xen project. In a big way, this is why the 
| beta release supports Linux interoperability. Microsoft plans to support some 
| enterprise Linux distros in the long term -- the first one being SUSE 
| Enterprise 10 with SP1.    
| 
| [...]
| 
| Xen runs deep inside Hyper-V's veins. Hyper-V provides components for 
| synthetic network adapter, synthetic storage controller and Xen's Hypercall 
| adapter. When running a Linux virtual machine, Xen calls are translated into 
| Hyper-V hypercalls.    
| 
| [...]
| 
| Hyper-V is also an integrated service in Windows Server 2008, so it is not a 
| hosted platform. The integration gives Microsoft a huge advantage over VMware 
| because customers can get two products for the price of one.  
`----

http://www.crn.com/software/204803585

Xen deal/hijack.

Novell deal for GPL poison.

Integration/bundling/dumping of own solution.

It's the recipe for more antitrust lawsuits. Microsoft continues to abuse its
monopoly.


Related:

A Software Maker Goes Up Against Microsoft

,----[ Quote ]
| When quizzed on Microsoft's plans, Mr. Ballmer replied, "Our view is
| that virtualization is something that should be built into the
| operating system."
`----

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/02/24/technology/24soft.html?ex=1172898000&en=bbca645a927ef7f8&ei=5099&partner=TOPIXNEWS
http://tinyurl.com/35jkur


Microsoft Declares War On VMWare

,----[ Quote ]
| Canaccord Adams analyst Mark Kelleher said that the risk for VMware is that 
| Microsoft decides to add virtualization as a feature for free in its 
| products.  
`----

http://www.forbes.com/2007/12/13/microsoft-virtualization-vmware-markets-equity-cx_cg_1213markets32.html?partner=yahootix


For Citrix, Target Acquired

,----[ Quote ]
| You said earlier this year that Citrix is an "admirer" of Microsoft for its 
| innovation, Adobe for its strong brand and Apple for its easy-to-use 
| products. After watching your swift acquisition pace and the kind of 
| companies you target for acquisition, I would argue Citrix is patterned more 
| after Cisco Systems. Do you think that's a reasonable argument?    
| 
| You are thinking of the acquisition point of view instead of the comments I 
| made. Those were about role models. Cisco has not been a role model for our 
| acquisitions. They are a fabulous company. We love Cisco. When I talk about 
| Microsoft, Adobe and Apple, they are role models for the things I cited.   
| 
| I happen to be a huge believer in role models. It's pragmatic: If someone 
| does something really well, study it and translate that into your own 
| business. I think it applies to companies and people. The way you better 
| yourself is to find someone you want to be like and try to be like them. That 
| impacts the way we work at Citrix.     
`----

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1759,2213318,00.asp


Ballmer: Microsoft Will Buy Open-Source Companies

,----[ Quote ]
| "We will do some buying of companies that are built around open-source 
| products," Ballmer said during an onstage interview at the Web 2.0 Summit in 
| San Francisco.  
`----

http://www.crn.com/software/202404305


Is Microsoft Hijacking Open Source?

,----[ Quote ]
| What really worries me is what looks like an emerging pattern in Microsoft's 
| behaviour. The EU agreement is perhaps the first fruit of this, but I predict 
| it will not be the last. What is happening is that Microsoft is effectively 
| being allowed to define the meaning of “open source” as it wishes, not as 
| everyone else understands the term. For example, in the pledge quoted above, 
| an open source project is “not commercially distributed by its 
| participants” - and this is a distinction also made by Kroes and her FAQ.      
| 
| In this context, the recent approval of two Microsoft licences as 
| officially “open source” is only going to make things worse. Although I felt 
| this was the right decision – to have ad hoc rules just because it's 
| Microsoft would damage the open source process - I also believe it's going to 
| prove a problem. After all, it means that Microsoft can rightfully point to 
| its OSI-approved licences as proof that open source and Microsoft no longer 
| stand in opposition to each other. This alone is likely to perplex people who 
| thought they understood what open source meant.       
| 
| [...]
| 
| What we are seeing here are a series of major assaults on different but 
| related fields – open source, open file formats and open standards. All are 
| directed to one goal: the hijacking of the very concept of openness. If we 
| are to stop this inner corrosion, we must point out whenever we see wilful 
| misuse and lazy misunderstandings of the term, and we must strive to make the  
| real state of affairs quite clear. If we don't, then core concepts like “open 
| source” will be massaged, kneaded and pummelled into uselessness.     
`----

http://www.linuxjournal.com/node/1003745


Will Microsoft Buy the New Citrix?  

,----[ Quote ]
| VMware, holding some 85 percent of the market, with its VI3 technologies 
| offers a fully integrated stack and represents a third generation of 
| virtualization technology, while Viridian and Xen-based products, including 
| SUSE Linux Enterprise Server 10, Red Hat Enterprise Linux 5, XenEnterprise 
| and Virtual Iron, remain second-generation products, the report stated.    
`----

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,1895,2171434,00.asp


Heady Days for Virtual Systems

,----[ Quote ]
| The former Microsoft Latest News about Microsoft general manager is
| now vice president of XenSource, a Palo Alto, Calif., virtualization 
| company with a growing outpost in Redmond, Wash.
`----

http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/59088.html


What the XenSource deal says about open source

,----[ Quote ]
| This is what Citrix is paying for. That and a close relationship with 
| Microsoft that looks likely to get closer. “We will be building dynamic 
| virtualization services and management tools on top of Viridian,” Levine 
| added. “We will build the same set of products we’ve built on top of Xen for 
| Viridian. We’ve already hired a team to go do that up in Redmond.”    
| 
| While Citrix maintained it will continue support for the Xen project, this 
| deal is not about a proprietary vendor getting open source religion. It's 
| about grabbing an emerging player in a rapidly expanding sector of the 
| market.   
`----

http://www.businessreviewonline.com/os/archives/2007/08/what_the_xensou.html


EU: Microsoft's EU patent pledge 'incompatible with Open Source'

,----[ Quote ]
| The changes mandated by the European Commission in Microsoft's 
| interoperability licences will continue to block Open Source developers, 
| legal experts on this type of software say.  
| 
| "The agreement is going to run foul of the GPL," IT news site VNUNet quotes 
| Mark Webbink, the director of the Software Freedom Law Center. The GNU 
| General Public License is one of the most used Open Source licences.  
`----

http://ec.europa.eu/idabc/en/document/7261/469


Microsoft and open-source backers: best 'frenemies' forever?

,----[ Quote ]
| "Microsoft appears to have accepted that Linux - on servers and devices at 
| least, if not the desktop - cannot be completely stopped," said Daniel Egger, 
| CEO of consulting firm Open Source Risk Management.  
`----

http://www.techworld.com/opsys/features/index.cfm?featureID=3762&pagtype=all


Microsoft's EU patent pledge incompatible with GPL

,----[ Quote ]
| Linux vendors will be unable to license Microsoft's interoperability patents 
| under the terms that were mandated by the European Commission, open source 
| legal experts argue.  
| 
| It is claimed that the the terms are incompatible with the General Public 
| Licence (GPL), the licence that governs the Linux operating system. 
`----

http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2201856/microsoft-eu-patent-pledge


Is Microsoft’s Europe agreement a big deal?

,----[ Quote ]
| If open source developers find greater protection for their work and its 
| results in Europe than in America that’s where they will gravitate. That’s 
| the kind of regime the EU is trying to create. We ignore that and dismiss 
| that at our peril.   
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1584


Half A Loaf

,----[ Quote ]
| Yes, open source will have access to the interoperability information 
| on "reasonable" terms (ask independent open source developers how many can 
| afford to cough up the $15,000 such access will cost), but nothing in this 
| statement indicates the Commission has overcome Microsoft's "refusa[al] to  
| make the [patent] licence compatible with the open source business model." In 
| fact, we can expect that nothing about that patent license will be compatible 
| with the most widely used open source license, the GNU General Public 
| License.      
`----

http://walkingwithelephants.blogspot.com/2007/10/half-loaf.html


EU tells open source to start paying MS patent tax

,----[ Quote ]
| EU Commissioner Kroes' deal with Microsoft creates real dangers to Europe's 
| growing open source economy, warns the FFII. Using patent licenses that 
| exclude businesses, the software monopolist has turned the EU competition 
| ruling into a victory, and now gets implicit support from the Commission to 
| proceed aggressively against its competitors.    
`----

http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/EU_tells_open_source_to_start_paying_MS_patent_tax


Late night baseball games, Microsoft concessions evoke big yawns at open source
water cooler

,----[ Quote ]
| It will benefit purveyors of proprietary software but not open source 
| developers, agreed Michael Goulde, analyst of open source strategy at 
| Forrester Research, Cambridge, Mass. “Some open source developers believe 
| that Microsoft should make its protocols available for use royalty free. In 
| some cases, there are open source license restrictions that make it not 
| possible for the software to include Microsoft licensed code – because you 
| can’t downstream the license. So, unless Microsoft goes way beyond what it 
| has agreed with the EU to do, only a subset of open source developers will 
| have much interest. They’ll continue reverse engineering Microsoft protocols 
| and doing the best they can."         
`----

http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=1582


Let's Make a Deal - The MS-EU Settlement

,----[ Quote ]
| The patent part is terrible. Worse than terrible. They are not blocked from 
| offering patent deals, only constrained as to how much to charge for a 
| license, which is not and never was the issue. So they'll beef up those 
| initiatives, I'm sure. However, the good part is that they were compelled to 
| separate the patent license offer out and make it optional. Thanks, but no 
| thanks.     
| 
| [...]
| 
| I'm guessing Microsoft lawyers are high fiving each other, having snatched an 
| important victory from utter and total defeat. The rest is excellent, of 
| course, and in no way do I mean to detract from the hard work and persistence 
| that the EU Commission has shown. However, I don't think they understand how 
| seriously broken the US patent system is currently, and how easy it is to  
| abuse it, or they don't feel it's their job to fix the US problems, or how 
| central patents are to Microsoft's current strategy against FOSS.     
`----

http://www.groklaw.net/article.php?story=20071022114731199

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