Comments on: Ballmer to partners: Bet on us

With new technologies in tow, Microsoft's CEO prepares for a major sales pitch to more than 6,000 influencers.

[Thomas, David]

At the Gates

Seems to me, he is attempting to stand in the way, at the gates, to
convince developers not to opt for alternate platforms.

[Scott W]

obviously

i can't believe that people would rely on MS products over OSS. i've been using linux for a short while and all the performance and security benefits are easily noticeable. i also believe that linux can do the same for businesses, if they show the bottle to switch over.

[Earl Benser]

Out of other ideas....

MS has probably peaked in the OS market. XP hasn't sold all that
well and Longhorn is still vaporware, The application market for
corporations also has sagged; no need to update Office when
you're still runnung Win2K or WinNT (or even Win98). Actually,
there is very liitle reason to update Office even if you did go to
XP. And the rest of the MS applications are not all that
interesting.

Windows XP Server may be selling- don't know about that one.

Som Mr Ballmer has to go out and beat the bushes trying to
come up with new andor more customers. And he does have to
try to deflect the moves to Unix/Linux.

I would guess that maybe he's now got a bigger job than he can
handle - or that anyone could handle.

[Scott W]

taking competition from linux

MS may be able to trick new businesses into going windows but all the businesses that rely on linux to begin with already know it's reliability. plus most of them will be fanboys (like me :p) so he'll have one hell of a job converting that lot.

[mas90guru]

That's A Good One.

I think this would be a most disturbing time to be a Microsoft Partner. If you're of enormous size, then you're probably somewhat immune. If you're one of the small fry, it's going to be tough sledding and be prepared to be rolled over the instant that there is a new revenue opportunity opening up.

What I personally think we'll see is more "priming the pump" type behavior.

There was a time when Microsoft Office was practially a give away with every new machine. Now that it's become a standard -- go take a look and see what you can get it for.....

Microsoft needs to leverage monopoly power and while all the sexy infrastructure talk is cool - I betcha they do it in a way that will make even more money.

Microsoft can start charging for Windows Updates and Anti-Virus and Spyware Removal, etc. There are lots and lots of add-ons that Microsoft has yet to fully explore. Of course one of the reasons they don't explore these add-ons is because it raises the question of exactly how secure their O/S is and ultimately how motivated would Microsoft be to be improving their security if they were also peddling tools to tweak the O/S from other dangers.

This is indeed a mature market. People aren't impressed by sizzle. They've been burned umpteen times. The next sale of technology is always tougher than the last one.

[t8]

People are starting to wake up

It has taken a while, but the average Joe Blogs is waking up to the reality of OSS. Geeks have known the advanted for longer of course. But when the mainstream follow something, then that is what really matters.

M$ vs open and free to cheaper is no contest in any market. It just takes time for people to adjust to the shift that is all.

The Internet is a good example of this. It was the realm of geeks once, but is mainstream now. MS even tried to compete with it once, but gave up when it became mainstream. That is why they were late to the game.

They will eventually work with Open Source themselves to some degree, but they will be terribly late to that game too. It remains to be seen what kind of market they can carve out for themselves when they eventually arrive at the the inevitiable OSS conclusion.

Perhaps it will be too late for them? Or perhaps their best bet is to keep making money of boxed software as long as those who know no better keep buying?