Ballmer repeats threats against Linux

Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property.

In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last Thursday, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with Novell, which it signed in November 2006, "demonstrated clearly the value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world."

Steve Ballmer

The cross-selling partnership means that Microsoft will recommend Suse Linux for customers who want an environment mix of Microsoft and open-source software. It also involves a "patent cooperation agreement," under which Microsoft and Novell agreed not to sue each other for patent infringement.

In a clear threat against open-source users, Ballmer repeated his earlier assertions that open source "is not free," referring to the possibility that Microsoft may sue Linux sellers. Microsoft has suggested that the Linux operating system infringes some of its intellectual property, but it has never named the patents in question.

"I would not anticipate that we make a huge additional revenue stream from our Novell deal, but I do think it clearly establishes that open source is not free, and open source will have to respect the intellectual-property rights of others, just as any other competitor will," Ballmer said.

"But I don't want to eliminate in your minds the notions of risk of pricing that comes from competition with open source. We are higher-priced, but we bring greater value," he added.

Alongside the renewed threat over intellectual property, Ballmer was also bullish over winning large corporate accounts against Linux vendors.

"We have done very well versus Linux on the desktop and on the server, and I am hopeful that we will build share, particularly in Web servers and high-performance clusters, from Linux in the next year," he told analysts.

But Red Hat's chief executive was not impressed. Addressing a Merrill Lynch conference on Monday, Matthew Szulik urged his customers to use up their open-source coupons from the Microsoft-Novell partnership. These coupons entitle them to support and maintenance for Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Server.

"We certainly expect that there will be those cases where customers will consume those coupons," Szulik said. "We're certainly encouraging one or two customers to consume all of them; let's get this over with."

As of January, Microsoft had already sold 35,000 open-source coupons out of the 70,000 it has committed to make available each year as part of the five-year partnership.

Deutsche Bank and Credit Suisse Group and American International Group are among those to take advantage of the Microsoft-Novell collaboration to roll out a mixed infrastructure of proprietary and open-source software.

Richard Thurston of ZDNet UK reported from London.

[LarryLo]

My personal translation....

Our growth has slowed, our very existence is due in part to our monopoly. The only way to grow is to charge more for our products and lock them down with stricter licensing and Authentication.

Open source challenges our plans, we can't compete on price or features so we will spread FUD, welcome to SCO 2.0.

A note from the author....Which IP? That's all I want to know...which IP is he talking about?

[Commander_Spock]

Ya al were told!

... that WINDOWS = CODE-BASE OS/2 and LINUX = PART CODE-BASE OS/2. So, now we see the missiles are about to be fired; re: " Steve Ballmer has reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property..." Do not forget to run for the hardened bunkers you PENGUINISTA guys!

[qwerty75]

Put up or shut up

MS may have deeper pockets then the company they sacrificed to try and kill Linux, but they have no more proof then SCO does. If they had any legitimate proof they would have tried to use it against OSS by now.

This is just more FUD, just like Gates' completely dishonest remarks in Newsweek recently.MS can't compete on a level playing field so they are reduced to throwing small rocks. Pathetic

[scdecade]

Stupid question

Perhaps I'm going to embarass myself here but... Which companies sell linux? I'm pretty sure the companies that make money from linux sell support services. I don't believe linux is "for sale" by anyone. Alternately, who in their right mind would "buy" linux when the source code is free?

[asdf]

Mandatory drug testing for CEOs and their boards and officers

This just proves how badly this legislation is needed. Is he on drugs? Can we be sure? How? Do we need people with this much power running around with brains that have been blown on on amphetamines and coke? I don't think so.

MS knows that it can't compete on features, price, value of innovation and that its lock-in BM (that's Business Method, but you're free to be creative) is toast.

It's time for mandatory, random drug testing for all the officers and boards of all publicly traded corporations. Punishment will be swift, certain and severe. They will have their assets dissolved and be forbidden from being an officer or board member of any corporate entity, public of private.

F***ing crankheads. G***d*mn speed monkeys. I say, root the disease out at it's core !

Our symbol- an empty urine cup, waiting to be filled.

Our slogan- shut up. You pants are coming down, b*tch.

Thank you, and have a nice day.

[fcekuahd]

Get over it

If Linux truly infringed upon the Microsoft Windows OS, you can be sure there would be an army of Microsoft lawyers seeking to shut down Linux. It is quite apparent that Microsoft is taking it's time because it is trying to figure out how Linux infringes a Microsoft patent, if there is even infringement at all. I use both Windows and Linux (I'm a newbie) and I like Ballmer's enthusiasm but the guy is way off base attacking Linux. If he were a true competitor, he would concentrate his efforts on making something for consumers and businesses to get excited about and cut with the meager, overpriced interval OS offerings (ie, Windows ME and XP SP3 (Vista?). Stop whining and get back in the game, Ballmer.

[Jschneeky]

Retarded...

Actually I take that back. To call Steve Ballmer retarded is to do a
disservice to retarded people (yeah I know, politically correct it's
mentally challenged). Just trying to make a point here people. He
should retire with his $000,000,000's and let the innovators put
their products out there for us THE CONSUMERS! (you know Steve,
consumers... the people who put your kids in the good schools)

[Stating]

Microsoft Will Fail Just Like AT&T Did

CNET headline should have read:
Ballmer Makes Desperate Attempt To Sow FUD
.
Many years ago AT&T felt threatened by the rise of Berkeley Unix against their own AT&T Unix. Remember their line of 3B computers? They filed lawsuits and succeed in driving BSD customers away. It worked in the short run, but it motivated folks like Linus Torvalds to develop Linux, which was AT&T code-free. In effect, Linux became AT&T worst nightmare, and they exited that business having failed miserably.

Ballmer's bullying tactics won't work here either. There is massive support for Unix. Some of the most successful companies like Google and Amazon run their operations on Unix. If Ballmer gets really nasty and starts taking people to court, the Unix community will band together and remove whatever (if any) Microsoft IP code. The resulting worldwide bad publicity will just further erode MS market share. This could be the beginning of a great unravelling of MS. The world really doesn't need MS anymore, anymore than then need IBM mainframes and OS 370. Linux distributions like Ubuntu, apps like Open Office, and a plethora of image editing and media player software have evolved to the point of being good enough to compete. And let's not forget the Mac platform either. A vote for Mac is a vote against Microsoft. What's Ballmer's next move? Threaten a lawsuit against Apple because the Ipod is more successful than Zune?

[unknown unknown]

SCO got sued for this type of behavior

ie making unsupported claims of infringement. Red Hat sued SCO for trade libel, disparagement, and tortious interference among others. Not surprisingly Microsoft backed SCO.

Let's not forget Microsoft has ripped off plenty of people's IP. If anyone should get a lesson in respect it's them.

[Hardrada]

DOJ ARE YOU LISTENING???

This is illegal anticompetitive behavior. Ballmer is threatening to use Microsoft's resources to pursue spurious patent cases against his competitors. I'd like to see criminal charges against him for 'uttering threats'.

[lkrupp]

The Cult of Windows!

And people claim Mac users are members of a cult. Hardy-har-har.
Microsoft is THE source of all evil in the computer industry and
nobody wants to do anything about it. Windows users take
whatever Ballmer decides to cram up their poop-shoots and
respond with a smile on their faces, "Please, sir, may I have some
more?"

Steve Job's RDF doesn't hold a candle to Ballmer's sledgehammer.
Ballmer truly is Big Brother, right out of the novel.

[cbcooper79]

Open source is the future

Solaris has been open sourced, HP has always been open sourced. I bet if Microsoft would make Windows open source they would have a lot better product, and the support of the community. What they have now is code for hire. Only money talks in the Microsoft world. Sure they have made our lives a little more easier, but now let us help. As far as infringing on Microsoft code, dirt dos which started all of this was an infringement on version 5 of the unix operating system. I do not see them trying to sue everyone who uses windows.

[DrDreg]

Open Source, the Internet and the Decline of Microsoft

see recent post

www.drdreg.com.

MS is running scared, and talking tough to cover up marked
erosion in the server market share, and impending erosion on the
desktop by GNU/Linux and Mac OS X.

[RompStar_420]

MS problem is Govn't eyes

If I was the Government, I would teach Microsoft a lesson, they are getting too cocky and oversteping their legal bounds, time after time.

MS is also becoming a threat to the U.S. Government, and I feel that they will do something about Microsoft into the future.

That's just my two cents, I smoked the other 400.

[Orion Blastar]

Let the counter-suits begin!

IBM sues Microsoft for Windows having OS/2 code.

The ghost of DRI sues Microsoft for MS-DOS and Windows having CP/M-86 code.

Amiga sues Microsoft for Windows having AmigaDOS code.

Apple sues Microsoft for Windows Vista having OSX code.

Linux and *BSD Unix makers sue Microsoft for the TCP/IP stack and other parts of the Windows OS using their code.

Lotus and Corel sue Microsoft for Excel using Lotus 123 code, and Word using Wordperfect code.

Commodore, Atari, Coleco, Sinclair, and other computer companies put out of business by Microsoft have their IP holders sue Microsoft for using their IP and also putting them out of business.

Sony sues Microsoft for the XBox using Playstation IP.

AOL sues Microsoft for MSN using AOL IP.

Intuit sues Microsoft for MS Money using Quicken technology.

MySQL and Oracle sue Microsoft for MS SQL Server using their IP.

PHP group sues Microsoft for Active Server Pages using their IP.

Sun sues Microsoft for J# and C# using Java IP.

Google sues Microsoft for the Microsoft search technology using their IP.

Think you can defend them all, Uncle Fester?

[jeromatron]

Just as long as they respect others' IP

Linux and other open source projects have a lot of IP of their own that Mr. Ballmer doesn't seem to have any respect for. It's just that the people who contribute to those projects license it with a special license which puts special conditions on the IP.

I'm getting sick and tired of Microsoft's and in particular Steve Ballmer's rhetoric about IP when they are essentially hypocritical about it. I personally have chosen to only buy Microsoft's products when it is a work necessity, which isn't that frequent any more... They have turned me off as a customer both in the personal and business world and I look forward to the day when their current executives, especially Steve Ballmer, have left the company.

[qwerty75]

Intellectual Property

The biggest oxymoron since Microsoft Security, Microsoft Works, and Microsoft Innovation.

[Lara Jass]

Ballmer is a fascist and an idiot!

WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS! WINDOWS!
WINDOWS!

[Penguinisto]

Dear Mr. Ballmer: Put Up or Shut Up.

So... which MSFT patents/IP is supposedly being "violated"?

Funny how there's never any specifics... just empty bluster.

Maybe MSFT is scared of discovering to their horror that the ones they think may be in contention are previously patented by IBM (who subsequently lets Linux use mauch of their portfolio)?

I'm curious to see what exactly Ballmer is crying about... give us some specifics, please, or STFU.

/P

[avfolk--2008]

Ballmer: Take your (stolen) marbles and go home

OHMYGAWD. Ballmer is worried about ethics and propriety???

Wow, who's the genius behind this marketing ploy / distraction?
I can see the ads now: Vista may be lame and buggy -- but at
least the world's most powerful corporation won't sure your
arse...

MICROSOFT IS DEAD MEAT. And as users awaken to the fact
thay they've been bludgeoned, beat, coerced, threatened and
sued into supine compliance with a mindless bully (read,
Ballmer et. al.), they will switch to any reliable OS vendor with a
clue... Apple and many others.

Monkey boy should have split when Allchin did -- and bought a
Mac.