RE: HBS WK: Who will win Microsoft or Linux?

For one thing, I think it proves the old adage Garbage In - Garbage Out.
They've completely ignored that a main driving force of the Linux
marketplace is abject hatred of Microsoft, as well as people's deep
seated desire to avoid vendor lockin.

They are right that it would be nearly impossible to kill Linux at this
point short of global nuclear war.

I am also disappointed that they didn't suggest that Microsoft release
it's source code to everyone, as that is the basic thing they lack...
trust from the public.

I could go on for a while, but the bottom line is that while these guys
seem to understand the demand side of these equations, they have a long
way to go to understand the supply side.

How does it benefit Microsoft to have a lot of poor people using it's
systems? They make the argument that it does, but I just don't get that
one.

I do get how piracy could be helpful to Microsoft IF people then BOUGHT
other MS products, or bought an MS OS upgrade, but just having Windows
on a lot of boxes of people who won't pay for software... that doesn't
do Microsoft any good at all.

The thing that makes or breaks a particular operating system is how many
applications run on it. The one key thing that these geniuses haven't
computed for is the impact of systems like Mono that will allow Windows
software to run on Linux. That's another nail in the coffin of MS.

If creating the OS became unprofitable for Microsoft, they would stop.
They might start selling a Microsoft bundle called Microsoft Linux or
something like that eventually... but they can't throw billions down a
closed source toilet forever. 

-Kelly

-----Original Message-----
From: Anthony Long [mailto:[email protected]] 
Sent: Monday, June 06, 2005 12:01 PM
To: Free Software for Business
Subject: HBS WK: Who will win Microsoft or Linux?

I'm curious to know what people think about this article?

http://hbsworkingknowledge.hbs.edu/item.jhtml?id=4834&t=technology

Cheers,

Anthony








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