4 ms·

I hate to throw cold water on an otherwise appealing idea, but this would make absolutely no business sense for Microsoft. Windows is Microsoft's core business.

by Aqueous 13y ago

I hate to throw cold water on an otherwise appealing idea, but this would make absolutely no business sense for Microsoft. Windows is Microsoft's core business. In fact, if anything, Ballmer's tenure was successful if only because of the fact that he grew Windows and Office profits by such a huge amount. If they start giving Windows away for free(which they would have to do in order to open source it, or give it away for free with support contracts) they would lose tens of billions of dollars in revenue immediately. Which would be tantamount to just saying 'Fuck it' and going home. I love open source, and there are times when it does make financial sense for a business to open source something, but this is not one of those times. The reason Google gets away with giving away Android for free is because it gives them a channel to promote their search business. The search bar on Android and Chrome, which always has and will always use Google by default, cultivates their core business, Google search. What third product beyond Windows and Office does giving away Windows for free serve? There is none.

astrodust 13y ago
Companies would still have to spend billions on commercial support for Windows. RedHat's built a big company on open-source software, as an example. Tech support alone could rack up billions. Microsoft would probably consider doing this at some point because piracy would shrink to zero by definition, and it'd be even more impossible to eradicate Windows from legacy systems because it would be possible to support it perpetually.
- nemothekid 13y ago
  RedHat is tiny compared to Microsoft, and I don't think RedHat is the model for MS to follow. RedHat does only a billion in revenue compared to MS' 77 billion. Granted there are different forces at play, but you can't really recommend a company like Microsoft move to RedHat's model unless you were 100% sure that Microsoft's licensing revenue was either 1.) a tiny fraction compared to their tech support revenue or 2.) by open sourcing they could make the money they lost on licensing through even more tech support. Doesn't seem likely given that there are companies paying for both the license and tech support.
  - astrodust 13y ago
    I'd be more concerned with revenue per installed copy of RedHat vs. Windows rather than comparing RedHat on the basis of revenue period. Microsoft has a significantly larger customer base. I'm not saying Microsoft could make more money through open-source, but it might be a way of making less money over a much longer period of time. Companies will eventually ditch the Microsoft stack when there's more affordable alternatives to pick from. Google, SalesForce, Oracle, IBM and others are working relentlessly to make these things happen. Making Windows "free" would certainly mess up their plans. After all, this very strategy worked amazingly well when they decided to give away Internet Explorer. Just imagine how entrenched IE would be now if Internet Explorer 6 had been open-source and had been continuously upgraded like WebKit. It's arguable that rendering engine would be at 90+% market share to this day.
nsmartt 13y ago
FOSS doesn't have to be free. It's entirely possible to sell software and provide the source. The real problem is that it's not clear how to charge for FOSS.
- lambda 13y ago
  Well, Red Hat somehow manages to make over $1B per year selling FOSS. So, I'm not sure it's right to say that it's not clear how to charge for FOSS. You sell a branded, licensed, and supported bundle of it to businesses, while simultaneously collaborating with the community on a free, unsupported, differently branded version that moves more quickly and is more experimental. Now, the question is, can you make as much as Microsoft makes on this kind of model? There are tons of people who are perfectly content to use unsupported, unlicensed versions of their software, in the form of CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora, or other distros which incorporate a lot of software that Red Hat primarily funds development on. Likewise, there would probably be a lot of people who figured it would be cheaper to stop licensing Windows, if possible, and deal with support issues themselves (or via other "distros" of Windows which were supported but cheaper or free).
  - teh_klev 13y ago
    Couple of things you have wrong here: 1. RedHat make pretty much most of their money from support, training/cert and consultancy services, not selling F/OSS. 2. Your comment: "There are tons of people who are perfectly content to use unsupported, unlicensed versions of their software, in the form of CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora" RHEL is licensed under the GPL, they can't really change that and they can't not release the source, so CentOS, SL, Fedora (and Oracle Linux) are not actually unlicensed, they're GPL licensed distros from the RH upstream. Yes they may be unsupported, but they're certainly not "unlicensed" (or illegal/rip-offs if that's what you meant by unlicensed). RedHat have no choice but to make the RHEL source available. You also forget that the Fedora folks feed back into RHEL a lot of cutting edge stuff that's stable.
    - lambda 13y ago
      1. That's actually not true; I even checked before posting. Check out their annual report, page 43: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/RHAT/2659386793x0x581760/6FEDF811-091A-49BB-8EB2-83C31DC561AB/Annual_Report_062512_Final_Bookmarked.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/RHAT/2659386793x0x581... (numbers are in thousands) > Subscriptions ... $ 965,575 > Training and services ... 167,528 They do, in fact, make most of their money from subscriptions (yes, selling FOSS), not training and services. 2. I apologize, I was unclear. I was referring to licenses that bore revenue, not all licenses. You need to buy a license to run RHEL, even if you can run all of the same actual software (just without the branding) in the form of CentOS or other distros. I didn't really mean "unlicensed", since obviously all of the software is under the GPL or other free software licenses, I meant "without buying a license from Red Hat". I was not trying to imply people were ripping off Red Hat, just that they aren't paying for it. And no, I don't forget that Fedora feeds back into Red Hat. I explicitly listed Fedora as part of the strategy for how to make money selling free software; you sell a supported, branded, stable version to corporations, and release a free, frequently updated, bleeding edge for the community. That second part is important because it helps drive innovation, and allows you to take advantage of collaboration from outside contributors, while still deriving revenue from your enterprise distro. I'm just not sure if Microsoft could continue to make the kind of money that they do, if they chose to go a Red Hat route, as there would be a large number of people who would choose to run free-as-in-beer distros (the Windows equivalent of CentOS or Fedora) rather than a paid version of Windows. Red Hat shows that it is possible to get people to buy paid licenses for free software; but I don't know if there are enough people for that to be a strategically viable move for Microsoft.
d4nt 13y ago
You're right about Windows being very profitable up till now, but there's something clever in this idea... Businesses pay for Windows, but ordinary consumers by and large don't, they get it for "free" when they purchase a computer. But hardware is now getting so cheap, that Window's license cost is really starting to show. This will only get worse. To stay competitive Microsoft will have to do two things. 1) Compete in the consumer marker with attractive devices (phones, tablets, Xbox, netbooks), and 2) Remain the "obvious" choice for business. In order to do #1 they either need to copy Apple and build premium devices by themselves or compete with Andriod/Chrome. Either way, their current OS revenue model of selling to OEMs is going to die. To do #2 they need to stay as ubiquitous as possible. You may not think that having a few MacBooks and iPads around the office matters to Microsoft but once they're there all of a sudden things like SharePoint and Lync and maybe even Exchange start to look less attractive because a big part of their appeal is built on how it all works together with Outlook and Windows. A few years ago quite a few Microsoft products had web interfaces that only rendered right in IE, they've had to stop that kind of thing more recently because non Windows devices are becoming more common - that trend is only getting worse. Open sourcing a Windows core and then selling server management tools and premium editions enables them to keep charging business while ensuring Windows stays relevant and as widely used as possible.
lurkinggrue 13y ago
Remember, Microsoft is trying to become a "Devices and services" company.

by Aqueous 13y ago

astrodust 13y ago

Companies would still have to spend billions on commercial support for Windows. RedHat's built a big company on open-source software, as an example. Tech support alone could rack up billions. Microsoft would probably consider doing this at some point because piracy would shrink to zero by definition, and it'd be even more impossible to eradicate Windows from legacy systems because it would be possible to support it perpetually.

nemothekid 13y ago
RedHat is tiny compared to Microsoft, and I don't think RedHat is the model for MS to follow. RedHat does only a billion in revenue compared to MS' 77 billion. Granted there are different forces at play, but you can't really recommend a company like Microsoft move to RedHat's model unless you were 100% sure that Microsoft's licensing revenue was either 1.) a tiny fraction compared to their tech support revenue or 2.) by open sourcing they could make the money they lost on licensing through even more tech support. Doesn't seem likely given that there are companies paying for both the license and tech support.
- astrodust 13y ago
  I'd be more concerned with revenue per installed copy of RedHat vs. Windows rather than comparing RedHat on the basis of revenue period. Microsoft has a significantly larger customer base. I'm not saying Microsoft could make more money through open-source, but it might be a way of making less money over a much longer period of time. Companies will eventually ditch the Microsoft stack when there's more affordable alternatives to pick from. Google, SalesForce, Oracle, IBM and others are working relentlessly to make these things happen. Making Windows "free" would certainly mess up their plans. After all, this very strategy worked amazingly well when they decided to give away Internet Explorer. Just imagine how entrenched IE would be now if Internet Explorer 6 had been open-source and had been continuously upgraded like WebKit. It's arguable that rendering engine would be at 90+% market share to this day.

nsmartt 13y ago

FOSS doesn't have to be free. It's entirely possible to sell software and provide the source. The real problem is that it's not clear how to charge for FOSS.

lambda 13y ago
Well, Red Hat somehow manages to make over $1B per year selling FOSS. So, I'm not sure it's right to say that it's not clear how to charge for FOSS. You sell a branded, licensed, and supported bundle of it to businesses, while simultaneously collaborating with the community on a free, unsupported, differently branded version that moves more quickly and is more experimental. Now, the question is, can you make as much as Microsoft makes on this kind of model? There are tons of people who are perfectly content to use unsupported, unlicensed versions of their software, in the form of CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora, or other distros which incorporate a lot of software that Red Hat primarily funds development on. Likewise, there would probably be a lot of people who figured it would be cheaper to stop licensing Windows, if possible, and deal with support issues themselves (or via other "distros" of Windows which were supported but cheaper or free).
- teh_klev 13y ago
  Couple of things you have wrong here: 1. RedHat make pretty much most of their money from support, training/cert and consultancy services, not selling F/OSS. 2. Your comment: "There are tons of people who are perfectly content to use unsupported, unlicensed versions of their software, in the form of CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora" RHEL is licensed under the GPL, they can't really change that and they can't not release the source, so CentOS, SL, Fedora (and Oracle Linux) are not actually unlicensed, they're GPL licensed distros from the RH upstream. Yes they may be unsupported, but they're certainly not "unlicensed" (or illegal/rip-offs if that's what you meant by unlicensed). RedHat have no choice but to make the RHEL source available. You also forget that the Fedora folks feed back into RHEL a lot of cutting edge stuff that's stable.
  - lambda 13y ago
    1. That's actually not true; I even checked before posting. Check out their annual report, page 43: http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/RHAT/2659386793x0x581760/6FEDF811-091A-49BB-8EB2-83C31DC561AB/Annual_Report_062512_Final_Bookmarked.pdf http://files.shareholder.com/downloads/RHAT/2659386793x0x581... (numbers are in thousands) > Subscriptions ... $ 965,575 > Training and services ... 167,528 They do, in fact, make most of their money from subscriptions (yes, selling FOSS), not training and services. 2. I apologize, I was unclear. I was referring to licenses that bore revenue, not all licenses. You need to buy a license to run RHEL, even if you can run all of the same actual software (just without the branding) in the form of CentOS or other distros. I didn't really mean "unlicensed", since obviously all of the software is under the GPL or other free software licenses, I meant "without buying a license from Red Hat". I was not trying to imply people were ripping off Red Hat, just that they aren't paying for it. And no, I don't forget that Fedora feeds back into Red Hat. I explicitly listed Fedora as part of the strategy for how to make money selling free software; you sell a supported, branded, stable version to corporations, and release a free, frequently updated, bleeding edge for the community. That second part is important because it helps drive innovation, and allows you to take advantage of collaboration from outside contributors, while still deriving revenue from your enterprise distro. I'm just not sure if Microsoft could continue to make the kind of money that they do, if they chose to go a Red Hat route, as there would be a large number of people who would choose to run free-as-in-beer distros (the Windows equivalent of CentOS or Fedora) rather than a paid version of Windows. Red Hat shows that it is possible to get people to buy paid licenses for free software; but I don't know if there are enough people for that to be a strategically viable move for Microsoft.

d4nt 13y ago

You're right about Windows being very profitable up till now, but there's something clever in this idea... Businesses pay for Windows, but ordinary consumers by and large don't, they get it for "free" when they purchase a computer. But hardware is now getting so cheap, that Window's license cost is really starting to show. This will only get worse. To stay competitive Microsoft will have to do two things. 1) Compete in the consumer marker with attractive devices (phones, tablets, Xbox, netbooks), and 2) Remain the "obvious" choice for business. In order to do #1 they either need to copy Apple and build premium devices by themselves or compete with Andriod/Chrome. Either way, their current OS revenue model of selling to OEMs is going to die. To do #2 they need to stay as ubiquitous as possible. You may not think that having a few MacBooks and iPads around the office matters to Microsoft but once they're there all of a sudden things like SharePoint and Lync and maybe even Exchange start to look less attractive because a big part of their appeal is built on how it all works together with Outlook and Windows. A few years ago quite a few Microsoft products had web interfaces that only rendered right in IE, they've had to stop that kind of thing more recently because non Windows devices are becoming more common - that trend is only getting worse. Open sourcing a Windows core and then selling server management tools and premium editions enables them to keep charging business while ensuring Windows stays relevant and as widely used as possible.

lurkinggrue 13y ago

Remember, Microsoft is trying to become a "Devices and services" company.