| I'll believe it when I see it.
I don't think there's any question that Microsoft is under some pricing pressure. The deal that the Thai government got happened to leak, but that is surely not the only place they have had to take a dive to keep linux from getting a foothold somewhere. Besides, purchasing agents live for that stuff. If the guy who buys software for Procter and Gamble reads that the Thai government got a Windows-Office bundle for $36 a seat, he's gonna take that as his benchmark. He probably buys more seats than they do; if they can get $36, he should get $36. That's how purchasing agents think. You can bet that that is happening everywhere now. That's why you see companies like Ford running linux pilot projects. They probably have no intention of actually converting all their desktops to linux, but the pilot makes a great stick with which to beat the Microsoft salesman come contract renegotiation time. "Oh yeah, they're very happy with it; they think we should convert the whole company to it right now. We love linux around here. So... how close to $36 a seat can you get?" The author is dead-on about the security issues. Most Windows vulnerabilities are less a function of sloppy coding or incompetence than they are the flip side of design choices that were made in favor of ease-of-use. As a strategy, we can't fault that, because it worked beautifully; they own the desktop market, and until recently, these viruses and worms weren't all that big a problem. Their decision made sense; it's just that now, a sufficiently large number of clever bad guys have shown up that this is starting to cost people some serious money. Microsoft really is not going to be able to just "fix" these vulnerabilities... not without making the machines a lot harder to use. That's not just a Microsoft problem, that's true for everybody. It's just that no one so far has accused the linux programmers of having erred too far in the direction of ease-of-use. To someone whose company was shut down for three days because of some stupid worm, that might not sound like a disadvantage. I think there will be some defections over this, but if I ran Microsoft's circus I would not make this my #1 worry. I would do just what they are doing: flap my arms a lot and put up WANTED posters for virus writers. It makes a good show. The knife-edge bet in this deal is whether Microsoft can turn the Internet into its proprietary fiefdom before they lose enough desktops that they cannot turn it into their proprietary fiefdom. They don't have to lose more than about 20 or 30 per cent share on the desktop, and that dream is dead. That wheel is going to be spinning for another 5 years or so. Anybody who says he knows for sure how it will turn out is lying. If it breaks linux's way, a good desktop app for linux could be a big win if done right and aimed correctly. You could be the next ESRI. Or you could waste $10 million worth of VC money and go down the tube. People who want that big win are going to have to be putting down their chips pretty soon now. If they wait to see it before they believe it, some other guy will get the win. Or waste his $10 million. That's what makes this stuff fun :) |
If you have the luxury to do that, lucky you. In some applications like product marketing and career planning, you pretty much have to place your bets while the wheel is still spinning. If you wait long enough to find out which number came up, it's too late.