Thursday, February 21, 2008
Microsoft live.com, Yahoo attempted buyout
I have been following the attempted Yahoo buyout with great interest because I buy into the idea of universal access to online information using many types of devices: PCs, Macs, iPhones, Nokia N800s, secret decoder rings, etc.
In the future that I predict and look forward to, following and exploiting standards will be absolutely required for success. As part of my own research (and fun), I just about continuously try and evaluate every type of online information service (Amazon's web services, Google gdata, freebase.com, dabbledb.com, etc.)
Microsoft's live.com seems to be getting better as far as supporting Mac, Linux, Firefox, etc. The question to me is: how open is Microsoft willing to become?
If I were to sit down and enjoy a beer with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer (unlikely unless they are vacationing in Sedona, Arizona) I would have some good advice for them: do a sea change and embrace open standards, stop selling new versions of Windows and instead sell yearly subscriptions to Windows and Office (slow improvements, no more big "XP", "Vista", etc. releases), and use their resources to make their software and infrastructure flexible, standard, and valuable to users.
If Microsoft does buy Yahoo, it will be interesting to see if they try to force changing to Microsoft infrastructure: they certainly had problems after buying Hotmail and doing a major conversion to Microsoft server side infrastructure. Yahoo is doing some great things with Open Source (Hadoop, Javascript libraries, etc.) and it will be interesting to see if Microsoft will permit using competing infrastructure software for internal systems.
In the future that I predict and look forward to, following and exploiting standards will be absolutely required for success. As part of my own research (and fun), I just about continuously try and evaluate every type of online information service (Amazon's web services, Google gdata, freebase.com, dabbledb.com, etc.)
Microsoft's live.com seems to be getting better as far as supporting Mac, Linux, Firefox, etc. The question to me is: how open is Microsoft willing to become?
If I were to sit down and enjoy a beer with Bill Gates and Steve Balmer (unlikely unless they are vacationing in Sedona, Arizona) I would have some good advice for them: do a sea change and embrace open standards, stop selling new versions of Windows and instead sell yearly subscriptions to Windows and Office (slow improvements, no more big "XP", "Vista", etc. releases), and use their resources to make their software and infrastructure flexible, standard, and valuable to users.
If Microsoft does buy Yahoo, it will be interesting to see if they try to force changing to Microsoft infrastructure: they certainly had problems after buying Hotmail and doing a major conversion to Microsoft server side infrastructure. Yahoo is doing some great things with Open Source (Hadoop, Javascript libraries, etc.) and it will be interesting to see if Microsoft will permit using competing infrastructure software for internal systems.
Wednesday, January 03, 2007
Long term prediction: Microsoft loses its monoply power
This is not a prediction for the 2007 New Year, but I believe that in the next 5 to 10 years Microsoft's influence on the computer/IT industry will be very much diminished. The transition to open source and open data formats has already started in Europe and developing countries looking to save money and is picking up some momentum in the US.
The new DRM features of Vista will turn off many users who are more interested in using their computers for information technology than for watching movies and listening to music. Any security advantages of DRM will probably be countered by more problems with interoperability with third party software and other operating systems (dual boot!).
Some pressure for the transition from Windows to open source will be the fear of some foreign governments of security issues with a closed operating system. Several years ago Microsoft had to provide Windows source code to the Chinese government.
Microsoft has been very effective in fighting back against open source using threats of patent infringement and "influencing" government officials. All large corporations "influence" government officials, so I am not particularly picking on Microsoft here. I also acknowledge that Microsoft has a responsibility to their stockholders to make a profit. BTW, I sold my Microsoft stock in 2005 because I was unhappy with their pushing proprietary document formats - not a financial decision.
I believe that in the next five years that more local and national governments will either use more open source software or completely switch over to open source. I expect this to be a slow and steady process. I also believe that organizations not using open source software will eventually find themselves with both economic and technical disadvantages.
The new DRM features of Vista will turn off many users who are more interested in using their computers for information technology than for watching movies and listening to music. Any security advantages of DRM will probably be countered by more problems with interoperability with third party software and other operating systems (dual boot!).
Some pressure for the transition from Windows to open source will be the fear of some foreign governments of security issues with a closed operating system. Several years ago Microsoft had to provide Windows source code to the Chinese government.
Microsoft has been very effective in fighting back against open source using threats of patent infringement and "influencing" government officials. All large corporations "influence" government officials, so I am not particularly picking on Microsoft here. I also acknowledge that Microsoft has a responsibility to their stockholders to make a profit. BTW, I sold my Microsoft stock in 2005 because I was unhappy with their pushing proprietary document formats - not a financial decision.
I believe that in the next five years that more local and national governments will either use more open source software or completely switch over to open source. I expect this to be a slow and steady process. I also believe that organizations not using open source software will eventually find themselves with both economic and technical disadvantages.
Sunday, December 31, 2006
My take on Microsoft/Linux patent issues
Since the Novell/Microsoft deal, more of us worry about Microsoft legal attacks on Linux using some of their (unnamed) patents. This is troublesome to me for at least two reasons: Linux and other open source software allow me to build systems for customers at a lower cost point (good for my business), and I enjoy developing on a Linux box for Linux deployments.
For Linux on the desktop, I believe (but I am not a lawyer) that as long as I (and other Linux users) typically buy a commodity PC with Windows and then install dual boot Linux, then how could I possibly be infringing on Microsoft patents: I have a paid up license for Windows on the same PC that I am running Linux on. The situation for server side Linux is less clear, but server side Windows is much less important to Microsoft's cash flow than the desktop.
Accurate predictions are difficult, but I would not be surprised if through corruption of politicians some countries put up legal roadblocks to using free (as in GPL) and other open source software. Long term, I believe that these countries will be at a competitive disadvantage over other countries where businesses of all sizes and individuals can continue to lower IT costs while benefiting from collective software development.
It is really simple: diversity of commercial and open source software, with fair competition is good for business. As a reluctant Microsoft customer, I would ask Microsoft to publicize which of their patents that they think Linux violates - provide real details. Of course they will not do this because I believe that their strategy is to threaten but to not take action. Computer professionals can push back against Microsoft by favoring companies like IBM that take a more fair and balanced approach to commercial and open source software. We can all help by making small contributions to organizations like FSF and the EFF.
For Linux on the desktop, I believe (but I am not a lawyer) that as long as I (and other Linux users) typically buy a commodity PC with Windows and then install dual boot Linux, then how could I possibly be infringing on Microsoft patents: I have a paid up license for Windows on the same PC that I am running Linux on. The situation for server side Linux is less clear, but server side Windows is much less important to Microsoft's cash flow than the desktop.
Accurate predictions are difficult, but I would not be surprised if through corruption of politicians some countries put up legal roadblocks to using free (as in GPL) and other open source software. Long term, I believe that these countries will be at a competitive disadvantage over other countries where businesses of all sizes and individuals can continue to lower IT costs while benefiting from collective software development.
It is really simple: diversity of commercial and open source software, with fair competition is good for business. As a reluctant Microsoft customer, I would ask Microsoft to publicize which of their patents that they think Linux violates - provide real details. Of course they will not do this because I believe that their strategy is to threaten but to not take action. Computer professionals can push back against Microsoft by favoring companies like IBM that take a more fair and balanced approach to commercial and open source software. We can all help by making small contributions to organizations like FSF and the EFF.
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