Microsoft keeps its open source enemies close

Matthew Broersma ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 30 Jun 2005 17:00 BST

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Outside of the open source world, Microsoft has made efforts to begin engaging with other former foes, a notable example being a detente with Sun in April 2004 that settled Sun's antitrust suit and led to deals to share patents and make sure that the companies' products interoperate. Microsoft has also settled antitrust matters with software maker Burst.com, Novell and Time Warner's America Online.

Peaceful coexistence
Could it be, then that Microsoft is Linux's new best friend? Maybe not, but there are many practical reasons for the company to cool its rhetoric and begin a dialogue instead. One is the general climate, as O'Grady observes — in Europe, particularly, where Microsoft is involved in an ongoing antitrust appeal, the company has an interest in appearing to be less of a bully.

Andrew Morton, lead maintainer for the Linux production kernel, says such political factors seem to be getting in the way of business at Microsoft. "I've talked to a lot of people whose decision to move to open source was political and not economic," he says. "In other words, some people are avoiding Microsoft software as a matter of principle."

By far the biggest factor pushing toward dialogue is the increasingly heterogeneous reality of the enterprise. Linux accounts for about 23 percent of the revenue-producing server shipments, a figure that doesn't include the many installations of non-commercial Linux distributions, according to IDC. It even has a noticeable share of the desktop, with 2.6 percent of revenue-producing shipments. In the real world that means that nearly all enterprises are going to be running some mixture of Linux and Windows within three years, says RedMonk's principal analyst James Governor.

"That's the customer reality. Microsoft can whine about Linux or they can find ways of engaging with it," he says. Heterogeneous systems mean interoperability is a growing concern, and much of the talk from Redmond has aimed to reassure customers on this point.

The distinctions between open and closed source companies are breaking down, with nearly all software makers heading for a combination of both development models, and a mixture of business models. "It's all converging, it's not either-or. Even Microsoft is going to be using some open-source methods by default," says Governor.

Not that engagement is Microsoft's only response to the increasing prevalence of open source in the marketplace — the company's "Get the Facts" anti-Linux marketing campaign is also telling. "'Get the Facts' is an excellent indication that (Microsoft's) field sales force was running into open source left and right, and needed to respond," says Red Monk's O'Grady.

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