[QD-Filosofia] Microsoft ponders how to annihilate Linux

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=24496

Microsoft ponders how to annihilate Linux
MS Partner Conference 2005 Well, maybe next year
By Charlie Demerjian: sábado 09 julho 2005, 16:56

THE THEME OF THE SALES keynotes at the MS WWPC was on how to sell: sell 
against Linux and sell to small businesses (SB).

The small business side had a new announcement, the Linux side was really 
light on ideas. There was also the usual sales cheerleading, but last time I 
talked about it, it was so sugary, it put three diabetic readers into a 
coma, about par for the course at a marketing conference.

Lets start with the good: the SB sector, something that has been largely 
ignored by larger vendors. There may be more money per account in a Fortune 
500 business, but there are many more SB accounts. Part of the push today 
was to tap those accounts.

To do so, MS announced the Small Business Specialist, which is about what it 
sounds like. You need to get some training for the market, pass two 
technical tests and, from what I gathered at the keynote, you get a shirt 
proclaiming the achievement. Well, maybe you don't get a shirt, but they do 
exist. Meanwhile, the world gets people aimed at an underserved niche.

They also announced a bunch of mid-market initiatives, the one that stuck 
out is a new licensing model for the sector. While that is nothing new, they 
threw out the previous three models and replaced them with a single one 
called Open Value. You can spread payments over three years and, they said, 
there is a perpetual as well as rent-to-not-own model. The really great 
thing is they cut the contract down from 35 pages to five.
And said they are vastly decreasing the time it takes to order the software.

One thing they kept talking about was reducing cost, and reducing the 
initial cost. Maybe I am reading to much into it, but I distinctly heard 
Orlando Ayala say, "We are too expensive," several times. With that, they 
went into a talk about MS financing, and from now to the end of September, 
they will finance you for 101%, IE you finance through MS and you get a 1% 
kickback.

This all brings us to value, and something I didn't know or, at least, 
didn't realize. When talking about Linux, Kevin Johnson kept referring to 
the Get The Facts web site. They kept talking about how using the site and 
getting people, "engaged around Get The Facts". This would not bother me if 
they didn't keep referring to several thoroughly debunked, and mostly 
MS-funded studies. I was hoping for a real reason not to go for Linux, but 
nothing factual was presented, just spin. Color me stupid for expecting 
reality, but I didn't know how they used that site.

They did present a few interesting numbers though. First is a couple of 
winback case studies, with National Enterprise Systems and Independence Air 
named as now ex-Linux users. They also quoted some IDC numbers about 
shipments of Linux on x86 hardware, they showed MS at about 65% of the 
market in 2000 moving to about 75% in 2004. At the same time Linux went from 
about 10 to 15%. The take-home message was that partners can win against 
Linux, and it's growth is not at MS's expense. Without fine print, I can't 
go any deeper than that, but I am sure someone will it that after reading 
this.

Overall, for a pump-up, the resellers conference it was well done. The right 
things were said at the right times, and the sticky issues were glossed 
over. The only thing lacking was a coherent anti-Linux strategy. Maybe next 
year. µ

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