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They don't have a choice. Linux has already won. Heard of Android? Yeah that's the Linux kernel right there, over a billion mobile devices. Heard of Mac OS? Tha
by x5n1 11y ago
They don't have a choice. Linux has already won. Heard of Android? Yeah that's the Linux kernel right there, over a billion mobile devices. Heard of Mac OS? That's a Unix kernel right there. Microsoft makes a proprietary operating system with cumbersome licensing restrictions. Microsoft is 10 years from death if it does not embrace Linux.
- tracker1 11y agoMicrosoft is not going to die if it doesn't embrace Linux... that said, they are much more open today than a decade and a half ago. .Net Core is making a lot of progress and has respawned interest in C# cross platform. I think a lot of this is in the light of what happened with Oracle v Google. There's also, XBox itself and Azure, which are key points to the future of MS along with Office, which will now grow to other platforms, as it should have some time ago.
- pakled_engineer 11y agoThis assumes tomorrow MS doesn't drop a BSD licensed Android clone of their own and clean up in that market. I thought Facebook was going to die out too then they became defacto telecoms in the developing world through WhatsApp/Internet.Org, and now have a billion users.
- SmellyGeekBoy 11y ago> Microsoft is 10 years from death if it does not embrace Linux. FWIW, I remember people saying this in 1999 as well...
- astrodust 11y agoDon't confuse "death" with "irrelevance". There are companies out there still shambling along that used to be dominant but are now ghostly memories of their former selves.
- npsimons 11y agoThe IBM comparison is really apt. IBM hasn't died, they used to dominate like Microsoft, with all the same underhanded tactics, and they eventually came around. There's also the "culture wars" to consider, where many (myself included) revered IBM for superior alternatives (OS/2), while old timers would just shake their head at anyone trusting them. Now, I shake my head at anyone trusting Microsoft, although they've tamped down their rabid attacks on open source and Linux, and they do offer some things that aren't complete garbage.
- MaysonL 11y agoI used to work with a guy who used to be the DP VP [what's called CIO these days] at the only Fortune 100 firm that didn't have a corporate IBM mainframe (although a subsidiary or two did, IIRC). IBM tried a number of times to get him fired (such tactics as golfing partners of the CEO saying that he was really incompetent, etc.). They played hardball, and probably still do, when they can.
- scholia 11y agoIBM at its peak was much more dominant than Microsoft ever was. Microsoft -- thanks to IBM (via PC DOS and Basic) -- eventually became the IBM of software. But Intel became the IBM of processors, Cisco the IBM of routers, Google the IBM of the web, and so on. IBM was the IBM of everything. Incidentally, Microsoft co-developed OS/2 and there were only three problems with it: (1) you couldn't sell PCs running OS/2 -- IBM tried; (2) you couldn't get software houses to write programs for OS/2 -- except maybe Lotus; and (3) you couldn't get end users to install it. You had to install a whole OS to run OS/2, but Windows installed just like any other DOS program, and you could delete it if you decided you didn't like it.