Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.

Microsoft exec dissects Linux.

Author:Chuck Shotton
Posted:3/5/1999; 6:50:16 AM
Topic:scriptingNews outline for 3/5/99
Msg #:3617 (In response to 3607)
Prev/Next:3616 / 3618

Is it me, or does Microsoft seem to be increasing its pace down the market path to destruction that IBM followed? The PC Week interview with Ed Muth was yet another Microsoft voice in the confused babble coming out of Redmond. It really seems like nobody there can get their hands (or minds) around Linux sufficiently to issue a cogent, corporate-wide response. This sounds so much like IBM's dismissal of the desktop market in the late '70's, it's uncanny.

Muth tries to treat Linux as a commercial competitor and dismisses it out of hand, citing "value proposition" and "application integration" marketing buzzwords as the reason. I can't say for certain since I have no way of knowing, but if I were a betting man, I'd say Ed Muth has never used Linux and is reciting nothing but water cooler conjecture in this interview.

Everytime an uninformed marketing exec from Microsoft steps to the plate on the Linux issue, they come across looking unprofessional at best, biased, and definitely out of touch with a serious, large segment of their customer base. Microsoft is full of smart, talented people. They've consistently come up with good answers to radical new "threats" like the Internet, GUIs, and competition in the application arena in the past. I cannot understand why they can't come up with a consistent, customer-friendly response or direction to take with Linux.

Maybe it's the nature of the beast and they are beyond the point of no return in the demise of large, dominating corporations. The corporate landscape is littered with the husks and shells of large, monopolistic corporations that were forced to remake themselves after dramatic crashes (IBM, AT&T, etc.) It's definitely the natural order for this cycle to occur. Maybe it's just time for Microsoft to fall apart, slough off the dead and dying bits, and remake itself. Linux and the DOJ may provide the catalysts.

IMO, the no-brainer solution for Microsoft to "survive" Linux is to embrace completely the implementation of the Win32 APIs on top of the Linux kernel. There is already a very complete GNU implementation under way. If the value proposition for Linux is weak because of a lack of tight integration between applications and the O/S, this would certainly solve the problem. They'd own the application space for this new O/S and could even get out of the O/S business altogether if they so chose. (And given the way they handled their court case, that might not be their decision to make!)

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