On Jul 25, 12:23 am, Roy Schestowitz <newsgro...@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
wrote:
> -----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-----
> Hash: SHA1
>
> Ballmer upset by Apple cart
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | He added that Microsoft “must continue to compete against Linux in key
> | workloads such as web servers and high performance computing” in the business
> | and enterprise space.
> `----
> http://www.theregister.co.uk/2008/07/24/ballmer_memo_online_war/
I found another interesting quote in this cite.
"Today, we’re changing the way we work with hardware vendors to ensure
that we can provide complete experiences with absolutely no
compromises. We’ll do the same with phones – providing choice as we
work to create great end-to-end experiences."
It sounds like Ballmer may be making deals to let hardware vendors
like Dell, HP, Acer, and Lenovo, to allow them to combine Linux and
Windows or Vista (the license ordered would be Vista Business, but the
software shipped might be either some sort of "Vista Lite" as a VM, or
XP, similar to what Apple gets with their VM solution.
This would actually be a very good move for Microsoft. After all,
this keeps Windows license revenue up, it keeps Windows on the
desktop, and it eliminates the need for the major OEMs to have to
chose an "Either/Or" situation.
Look at how well this approach has worked for IBM, HP, and Sun. In
each case, they have been able to sell much larger servers (lowering
the server count but increasing the capacity and capability) and offer
mixed environments containing both Linux and UNIX and, in the case of
Z Series, Legacy systems. IBM was almost ready to declare the
Mainframe to be a dinosaur, and suddenly Linux created a whole new
market, because large corporations with mainframe needs could not only
update their legacy system, but they could also consolidate servers by
using Linux VMs to replace obsolete towers and rack-mount single-
function servers.
The real question is which Ballmer is more committed to, trying to
maintain an iron-fisted control of the desktop/laptop and risking an
overthrow of their major customers by some newcomer competitor who is
willing to put Linux on a Laptop (Asus, Everex, Acer), or make the
comprimises necessary to make Microsoft a critical part of an overall
desktop strategy.
The irony is that Microsoft may actually get an accidental "win" by
letting Linux be the Native OS, taking advantage of the faster and
smoother scheduler, and eliminating some of the pauses windows does
for garbage collection and device reinitialization.
> Feeling the heat at Microsoft
>
> ,----[ Quote ]
> | A couple of years ago you reiterated that IBM was Microsoft's biggest
> | competitor and you said not just on the business side, but overall. If I ask
> | you who is Microsoft's biggest competitor now, who would it be?
> |
> | Ballmer: Open...Linux. I don't want to say open source. Linux, certainly have
> | to go with that.
> `----
I find it interesting that he did not go after Open Source. It seems
that Ballmer is feeling more pressure against revenue from Linux than
from OpenOffice. Perhaps that's because existing Office XP customers
are simply downloading OpenOffice and installing it, which neither
increases nor decreases revenue in the immediate sense. On the other
hand, over the long run, customers may be opting NOT to upgrade to
Office 2007, and to stick with Office 2000/XP and XP.
On the other hand, Microsoft is getting immediate and direct push-back
from OEM and corporate customers who have been exploring the
possibility of using XP on Linux or Windows 2000 on Linux as a VM.
Microsoft may also be noticing that there seem to be a lot more
systems installed on the VMWare and Xen "standard hardware"
emulations.
Even more interesting, Microsoft may be seeing more XP systems trying
to "phone home" but any attempts to reverse-connect using ActiveX are
being blocked by the Linux SELinux configurations.
Finally, Microsoft has one of the few multi-method measuring
techniques, with the ability to measure users connecting to partners
like CNBC, MSNBC, NBC.com, CarPoint, Expedia, and about 200 other
partners who use cookies, SSL authentication signatures, and user
logon sessions to uniquely identify every user/browser/OS combination
and make sure nothing gets counted.
In the first article cited above, Ballmer says he outsells Apple 30 to
1. He probably needs to revisit that number, because Apple seems to
be getting about 12% of the quarter-to-quarter market and is growing
40% year-to-year. That would mean Microsoft is outselling Apple 7 to
1, but they are also selling Windows VM for Apple, which is probably
where Ballmer gets the 30 to 1 number.
At the same time, in Markets where Linux has been able to establish a
"beach-head" Linux is outselling Windows 6 to 4. This includes the
"Mini-Laptop" market, and the server market, though Microsoft likes to
compare "boxes" rather than function points or cores. For example,
Microsoft will claim they have 30% of the market, based on Box count,
but the Unix boxes are typically 32 and 64 core engines, and the Linux
"boxes" are often 64 to 128 core blade arrays. Microsoft's boxes,
normally used as .NET gateways, are typically 2 or 4 core units. In
some cases, Microsoft is using Windows automated registration for
their "box counts" and the servers that are being "registered" are
actually VMs in a blade rack or HP Superdome that is primarily a UNIX
or Linux rack.
> http://www.news.com/Feeling-the-heat-at-Microsoft/2008-1012_3-6232458...
|
|
