Is Microsoft playing well with others?

(continued from previous page)

Outsiders see changes brewing in some corners of Microsoft as well.

Barry Crist was nervous when last year he became CEO of Centeris, a Bellevue, Wash., start-up that makes software to manage mixed Linux and Windows networks.

"They're softening their stance, and time will tell if it's legitimate or marketing."

--Barry Crist, CEO, Centris

He wondered whether Microsoft would make it difficult for Centeris to develop its software, by withholding technical information or charging exorbitant licensing fees, for example.

Instead, he was surprised to find that Microsoft employees actively seek ways to work with Centeris and that they have offered to license protocols (which the company has not yet decided to do, pending a discussion on terms).

"They're softening their stance (on interoperability), and time will tell if it's legitimate or marketing," Crist said. "I think they've come to the conclusion that they would pay too stiff of a penalty from customers and regulators."

Former Microsoft employee Manny Vellon, the vice president of product development at Centeris, said that Microsoft continues to have many "fiefdoms." Some groups, such as management products, see a valid financial incentive in improving Windows interoperability, but that's not true across the board, he said.

"I have seen a change in behavior. Microsoft is more open to talk to people who are involved with Linux," said Markus Rex, the vice president of Suse Linux at Novell. "It's better for everybody--us, customers and Microsoft--but it's still really hard."

Nuanced approach
Hilf said that an important role he plays at Microsoft is to identify business opportunities through better interoperability with third-party products, even rival ones.

For example, Microsoft worked out a partnership with JBoss, an open-source Java server software company, and with SugarCRM, an open-source application company that decided to use one of Microsoft's shared-source licenses.

Although SugarCRM and JBoss software each competes with different divisions within Microsoft, Hilf noted that promoting use of those products on Windows is in Microsoft's interest as a "platform provider."

JBoss CEO Marc Fleury said that Microsoft executives are clever enough to use open source as a competitive weapon. Partnering with JBoss helps the software giant prop up a potential competitor to its own rival IBM, for example.

"Microsoft was more than happy to give IBM a taste of its own (open-source) medicine," Fleury said. "Of all the large vendors, Microsoft is the most pragmatic."

With growing acceptance of open-source software in the industry at large, Hilf says that Microsoft employees, in general, are becoming more comfortable with open-source products and practices.

"There's a maturation of the culture?To mature, you need to understand that you're not competing with some ghostly specter," he said.

He called work on standards and interoperability "one of the most progressive areas of work" within Microsoft.

IBM does not see it that way. Microsoft's decision to not support OpenDocument, for example, shows that the company continues to favor locking customers into its products rather than compete on the basis of standards, noted Bob Sutor, IBM's vice president of standards and open source.

"Standards level the playing field--and if you have dominant market share, you don't want to level the playing field," Sutor said.

Many executives wondered whether Microsoft might end up taking an uneven approach to standards support, as the company above all relies on tying its many products to Windows.

"Most of Microsoft's server technologies, for example, started their lives as subordinates to the Microsoft desktop," said Scott Dietzen, chief technology officer at open-source collaboration software company Zimbra. "Moving to a 'net-centric' view, in which customers can mix and match clients and servers, is a radical departure from that historic sweet spot."

[idoppler]

java is opensource?

Why is Java, the proprietary technology on Sun called open source in this article? Java is not even open standard, like microsofts C# and CLI which are submitted to ECMA.
A major factual mistake in the article?

[mlamonica]

error fixed

putting "open source" in front of Java was an error and has been fixed.

[Zymurgist]

Corrections...

Sun's Java is not open source, that is an error.
Saying that Java is not open source is also an
error as there are open-source implementations
(of varying degrees of completeness), including
one being developed by the Apache foundation
that's tentatively endorsed by Sun.

I'd also add that while C#/Db and the CLI have
been submitted to ECMA, many of the core
libraries have not and there are patent issues
related to both. So, while you may be
indemnified against a lawsuits using Microsoft's
implementation, there's nothing to say that
using a different implementation won't cause you
legal troubles later.

Not that you should stop using
non-Microsoft .Net compilers and CLIs (in many
ways, Novell's open-source Mono already performs
better), but one should be cautious.

Personally, I've recently had an opportunity to
fiddle with gcj, and I must say that I'm
somewhat impressed. I don't always want/need a
JVM, and compiling the Java code into native
binaries gives a very tangible difference in
performance. I'd like to see all of Swing ported
rather than being relegated to SWT, but it's a
great first step.

[ray08]

Embrace, extend, extinguish all over again!

Right now, M$ is in the embrace stage. This is war and the first rule of war is to "know your enemy". Be on guard!

[James_U]

Agreed

MSFT, like all other publicly traded companies including their competitors, are not in the "feel good", "let's be friends" business. They are in the business of growing market share and revenue for their shareholders. They are not the leaders in the server space, and playing well with competitors is not part of their corporate strategy anymore than IBM wants to "play well" with Oracle, Sun or MSFT. Their goal is embrace and extend competitors in ways that provides value and differentiation for their customers and shareholders ... and yes ultimately defeat the competition. Embrace, extend, extinguish has proven successful for them over the years. It would seem to make sense with open source as well.

Uh Oh

Sounds like they're just promoting M$MQ (the worst of the 4-letter words).

[Zymurgist]

This is predicatable...

Linux plays REALLY well in heterogeneous
environments and is much more flexible than MS
products (at the expense of requiring knowledge
to best leverage that flexibility). The result
is that Linux is making a lot of inroads in the
server space -- which is exposing a lot of
shortcomings in Windows and the general
Microsoft tendency to not follow standards, not
focus on interoperation, and not describe how
their products work.

Not that Microsoft products look shoddy, they
simply give the impression that they weren't
designed for contemporary infrastructure so much
as they were for the desktop. And this is
correct.

The only way for MS to make any headway is to
"play well with others". They'll need to do that
until they have sufficient leverage putting them
in a position to screw their customers without
losing them (that's when the big money comes
in).

They'll never be able to embrace-and-extend
Linux out of existence. Even funding SCO's
lawsuits didn't buy them the momentum they need
against Linux. It just can't be killed without
eroding the base of advocates, users, and
developers -- and that's not likely to happen
while general-purpose microprocessors are widely
available and programming is still legal.

[Ted Miller]

Here we go again

Don't you hate it when in commericials and elsewhere you get a big fat blubberly company telling you that "We are your buddies, We are your friends" and they just keep sticking it to you right where it hurts. I will tell you Microsoft you want to be our buddy? Start by lowering the price on all your software and don't give us "Mickey Moused" handicapped versions of anything. None of that software for them and software for us mentality. I do buy a lot of microsoft operating systems from stores like Staples only to find that it will not activate and the I have to talk to a person in India who speaks bad english and could not care less about me????????? I am sorry Microsoft I do like you but..............give me Linux!!! I can only hope many business will join the Linux crowd for I know then that the world will follow.

[Llib Setag]

MS Shark Circles The Linux Penquin...

"Keep your friends close & your enemies closer..." The Godfather.

Citizen Gates & Big Brother Baldy are circling the Penquin while acting as a "friend" to keep the customers from jumping ship & make the "appearance" of being a good neighbor for the US DOJ & EU Judges anti-trust monopoly cases...

" See, we can play nice nice with others, don't fine us millions of dollars..." DOJ is watching & EU is pending million dollar penalties very shortly.

AstalaVista has tanked AGAIN on it's features & delivery date, so snuggle up to Linux Penquin just before the Linux event to keep the MS Drones from switching to Unix / Linux / Mac OSX Unix.

micro-soft needs viagra & Darth Gates will do anything to maintain his Microsith Empire.

Once a MShark, always a MShark.

Seattlites have seen "Jaws" in action, be prepared & be afraid my friends...

[Thad Boyd]

...Changed its stripes?

Dude, if you're going to open your article with a cliche, you should probably get it right.

The phrase you're looking for is "changed its SPOTS". As in, "You can't change a leopard's spots." Leopards don't have stripes.

Leopard, conveniently, is also the name of Apple's next OS.

The current OS is called Tiger.

Tigers have stripes. Leopards don't.

[davidman2010]

anti competition

All this is is anti competition. So typical.

[JFDMit]

My friend Bill

Yep, this is classic M$ behavior when they encounter a technology they can't buy, steal or replicate.

Whenever I hear that M$ wants to be my friend, I immediately check my wallet and then look over my shoulder for the knife I know must be sticking out of my back.

[Sil3nt71]

Here it comes..

I think with Apple's iMac dual-booting XP, they thought it'd be a good idea to look like they're being more open too. Don't get me wrong, I'm a Microsoft supporter, but this just looks like history repeating itself. Have people run Microsoft-sanctioned Linux servers, and then slowly get them to make the jump to Windows, by cutting support for the product.

Or they may just be doing it for PR..who's to know now-a-days...but...people are watching, Microsoft.

[t8]

Microsoft has changed.

They have decided overnight to be a nice company.

Yeah Right!