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Longhorn and the Linux long-game

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Longhorn

Cath Everett ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 09 Mar 2005 12:20 GMT

IBM, on the one hand, comes from a position of strength on the server side. It has a reputation for trustworthiness and reliability in the data centre, a growing developer base and it is pushing a development framework that it is not under its control, but which supports heterogeneous systems and works well in an open source environment.

IBM is also starting to make a play on the desktop by promoting its Workplace strategy and particularly the front-end Websphere portal piece, which supports Microsoft's Office applications. The aim is to try and use the portal not only to control the user experience, but also as a Trojan horse to sell its backend infrastructure offerings.

Microsoft, on the other hand, is coming to the fight from a position of dominance on the desktop. It has a growing presence in the server space, a strong developer base and complete control of the development framework in the shape of .Net, which is geared to a Windows-based world — although again third party tools and applications can plug into it.

While Microsoft is always careful to fudge the portability message, it is now pushing the idea of interoperability strongly.

As Quirk points out, Bill Gates, the company's chairman and chief software architect, even sent out an executive letter to customers a couple of months ago indicating the importance of just this issue. "It's not a change of heart, although it might be a change in industry perception that we support interoperability."

"We've always had one of the most integrateable [sic] platforms, but the change has been in integration models. In the past, you had lots of middleware pieces gluing proprietary systems, but these days we use XML as a way of describing data. The old way of thinking of Windows as a proprietary system that only works with our products is no longer true," he claims.

But as Macehiter indicates: "The battle is not going to be won by locking customers in, in terms of interoperability protocols as in the bad old days with Corba and Dcom, so both parties want to co-operate here. They know that the battle will be won at the server and client level, so it's going to be an interesting one."