Microsoft has announced a new deal with Linspire that expands its any one but Red Hat group to three.
The deal, like Novell and Xandros before it includes office document compatibility, instant messaging interoperability and collaboration on digital media. Again the big ticket part of the deal inlcudes patent covenants from Microsoft for customers operating the Linspire desktop.
Amusingly Microsoft says that the deal “promotes customer choice”, which it does as long as the choice isn’t Red Hat, the most serious Linux commercial competitor to Microsoft.
Is it just me or is this whole M$ helping Linux thing incredibly confusing… I just don’t get it. Linux needs $$$, Microsoft needs a monopoly but each time there is a deal struck… the reasons given make as much sense as wearing underwear on your head.
Jon
This almost sounds like an April Fools’ joke! It’s all the more surprising when you consider the fights Linspire (a.k.a. Lindows) have had with Microsoft in the past few years. I blame the handover to Kevin Carmony.. Michael Robertson had a lot more fight in him. Still.. we’ve got Mark Shuttleworth, and if he folds in to Microsoft’s nonsense, we’re doomed (I’m sure he won’t though).
I just received a newsletter from Linspire’s CEO Kevin Carmony. He says that:
** Just as Steve Jobs announced in 1997 that “the era of setting this up as a competition between Apple and Microsoft is over,” I too believe it’s time for Linux to do the same. Rather than isolating Linux, I believe we need to understand, as Apple did in 1997, that Linux exists in an ecosystem and must work with and interoperate within that ecosystem. **
Besides this strange comparison between Linspire and Apple, the newsletter also stated this:
** This agreement will offer several advantages to Linspire Linux users not found anywhere else, such as Windows Media 10 support, genuine Microsoft TrueType fonts, Microsoft patent coverage, improved interoperability with Microsoft Windows computers, and so on. **
Carefully tucked away between the other ‘advantages’ we can read “Microsoft patent coverage”. Just another way for Microsoft to scare potential Linux users with patent lawsuits…. Crazy stuff.
I think the patents thing is a red herring. It looks like MS are trying to kill off Red Hat by making sure that it’s the only distro not to have additional MS features - Media Player compatibility etc. Red Hat will become seen as a “lesser” Linux and die off. Then MS can withdraw support from the others and leave them to die off too.
Remember that not so long ago, Linspire was Lindows and being sued by MS
The strategy is “divide and conquer”. It worked for Julius Caesar and it could work for Microsoft.
By the way, the earlier post that said Linux needs $$$ is off the mark. Linux doesn’t need anything, except to be left alone. There’s plenty of money to be made out of packaging and supporting a distro, as Red Hat has demonstrated.
Sigh.
Time to boycott their click and run warehouse thingy that was going to be on Ubuntu soon. Shame because I anticipated it being quite good. I don’t want this craziness spreading to Ubuntu too (aren’t they based on Ubuntu now?).
divide and conquer… its sooo “art of war” its actualy cliche. What I’m trying to figure out exactly is: what the death of the largest Linux distributor could possibly do to help these guys gain market share. Its the overall Linux market that they get their respecitve “slice” from…. so … stifling the market by joining an MS FUD campaign would deminish overall demand for Linux, which would help..? hmm
– Lindows / MS history 101
Don’t forget, Lindows it was the first version of Linspire untill MS sued for the trademark infringement. Claiming that it would confuse customers. and it was thrown out of US court. The word windows is used in over 20 trijillion diffrent software products, so it was undefended. Then they appealed , and again and again and filed in a eu court … and finally Lindows realized, they were getting sued out of business by the legal juggernaut. and so linspire was born.
Any interoperability is welcome.
Say what.
What’s even weirder is that Microsoft could port whatever applications they want to Linux, as user-space applications, and actually SELL THEM (thus generating income). Then set up deals with (for example) Dell to bundle the Linux version of Windows Media Player and Microsoft Office with all copies of whatever version of Linux Dell is putting on computers (like they do for other applications). This would further Microsoft’s lock-in cross platform, and lock-in to MS Office is their bread and butter. Absolutely nothing is stopping them from doing this, and what they are doing now with these deals and patent posturing just makes them look like bad guys and bullies and doesn’t actually build any good will, show innovation or competition at all. It’s just bad business, it seems.
I love when people call Microsoft “M$”.
How utterly and completely immature.
Face it, Microsoft has turned itself into a billion dollar company by savvy business moves, smart marketing and strategic acquisitions.
So I’m thinking /
- about developing a competitor to MS Windows
- Then I will have to be #2 not #1 or close to a competitor
- then MS will - give me a partnership deal
Woot.
microsoft is smart.or else why the richest man in the world co-owns it?
What will Microsux try after this, they couldn’t possibly get all distros to sign up??? BSD??? Next thing you know M$, Microsux, Mister Softy will say they have IP on the whole concept of Open Source and any one who is in the Open Source community.
redhat shouldn’t lose much sleep
xandros, novell, linspire….??
were it not for this deal, novell might already be dead
xandros and linspire are bit players, not even that. xandros doesn’t even compete with freebsd. now were ms to talk to canonical (ubuntu), that would raise concerns
redhat will have to deal with this challenge, but the fact remains that they are the only serious corporate linux solution, their ownership of the market is not in question. only canonical represents a real challenge to redhat at this point
by the way from most of the comments here, its clear none of you really know what the hell is going on in the linux market.
Why is it that the opensource Cooperate world is so divided that companies that were designed to defeat the MS Monopoly are actually joining it, just to compete with other opensource companies?
Perhaps I’m missing something, but Linspire is the same company that designed and popularized a free version of Lindows, and now its joining Microsoft Windows?
Portraying this as ‘anyone but RedHat’ is dishonest. MS has made it clear that such a deal with RedHat would be welcome. RedHat has vociferously declined the possibility.
http://www.eweek.com/article2/.....675,00.asp
This is just a test http://www.dotschoole.com
This is also a test Strollby(www.strollby.com)
Microsoft has announced something really unusual
test
alert(’hi’)
http://www.strollby.com&g.....shadow.com
please put up a captcha
As much as the open source community doesn’t like the sound of Microsoft and Linux distributors working together, this really is a great move for the open source community. It allows easier transitions to those that have always been scared to try Linux and stick with Windows to actually install and give it a run. Dual-booting Linux with Windows with NTFS and EXT support between both is very powerful, working together they may bring more to the table.
@Smith288 (#11)
And luck, don’t forget luck…-Metagg
Wow…. big win for the 15 people using Linspire.