Hell freezes over: Ballmer considering open-source browser?
I fully expected to die never having heard a positive word escape Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's lips with regard to open source. Based on Ballmer's comments made in Sydney on Friday, however, it may be time for me to start picking out my funeral arrangements.
Speaking at a Power to Developers event, Steve Ballmer took questions from the audience and, as usual, was confronted by a question on open source. The significance here is not any earth-shaking pro-open source pronouncement from Ballmer. It's that Ballmer neglected to throw chairs around the room and responded rationally. This is progress. Really.
[Question:] Why is IE [Internet Explorer] still relevant and why is it worth spending money on rendering engines when there are open source ones available that can respond to changes in Web standards faster?...
[Ballmer's response:] Ballmer began his answer philosophically, saying Microsoft will need to look at what the browser is like in the future and, if there is no innovation around them, which he thinks is "likely", Microsoft may still need its own browser because of proprietary extensions that broaden its functionality.
"There will still be a lot of proprietary innovation in the browser itself so we may need to have a rendering service," he said...."Open source is interesting," he said. "Apple has embraced Webkit and we may look at that, but we will continue to build extensions for IE 8."
Stop the presses! Ballmer is a rational human being!!!
I'm kidding, of course, but this could well be the most rational, pragmatic, open-source-related comment from Ballmer that I've ever read. Larry Dignan at ZDNet calls it a "throwaway line," but I think it's much more. It suggests that Microsoft truly has gotten its arms around open source and has discovered what nearly every other software vendor on the planet has discovered: open source can a useful component in a larger software strategy.
No, it doesn't mean that Microsoft needs to open-source all of its technology, or even all of the technology in one particular product (as here, with the browser). It just means that Microsoft should use the best software available, including when it is open source.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
Is he serious? IE and innovation don't belong in the same sentence.
IE is innovative, because it is one of those things that MS uses to trap and lock-in its hapless users. To Ballmer, that is the very definition of innovation.
He was likely exhausted from screaming and throwing crap.
What is truly funny is the idea that Microsoft will behave better in the future. Have a look at Microsoft's recent activity with their Hotmail service.
Some months ago, Microsoft made some changes to Hotmail that purposely closed it off from platforms other than Windows (and apparently MacOS). Firefox, Safari, and, of course, IE were "allowed" to access Hotmail. Firefox 2 would work on Windows, but not in Linux. Firefox 3 had just come out and was also a "tolerated" browser. There was no functional reason for adding code that told users 'you have to upgrade your browser'. In fact, if the browser identification was changed (aka "user agent"; for example, "I'm Firefox 2 running on Windows") there was no problem using Hotmail. The "problem" was entirely artificial. They are only trying to make competitors appear "incompatible".
Just recently, Microsoft has taken the next step. Apparently, even Firefox 3 is now being treated with prejudice on some platforms (though obviously not on MS Windows).
This is the company that smiles and says, "Yes, we are all for opening up the Web." Meanwhile, they sabotage competing platforms and applications.
Interesting that this bit of news doesn't appear in any of the big guys' news sites, including CNET.
References:
http://linux.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/02/08/1355246&from=rss
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/linux-software-2/linux-firefox-not-working-on-hotmail.com-or-why-i-hate-m-652331/
http://support.mozilla.com/tiki-view_forum_thread.php?locale=en-US&comments_parentId=199139&forumId=1
Ah that is your problem, choose anything else and you don't actually browse windows live do you? Well, if they pay you to I could see doing that but taking it upon yourself to actually go there on our own.
Neither product offering appeals to me, I haven't been to either in about five years.
Create an account to sign up on sites that are going to spam you. Occassionally I log in to keep it active and laugh at the thousands of spam messages while my real email account gets maybe 5 or 6 a week without spam filtering on my mail server. You "forward" to a company deserves it and you can keep the spam in your real account to a minimum.
It is a win/win and Microsoft should be commended for providing a valuable service to the public.
A few more people like these and M$ will start losing the $... :)
(P.S.:- Its not that bad a company. Its just trying to make money after all!)
However, there are customers who use our Linux products and have Hotmail accounts. I pity them, but we have to suffer the burden of helping them deal with it.
- by kelmon November 8, 2008 2:23 AM PST
- If Microsoft adopts something like WebKit, I'll eat my hat.
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