Microsoft's new business plan:
"Let's say everything we can think of, and see what people like"
"Microsoft loves Linux" is generally not something one expects to hear, but that was one of the messages that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella delivered at a San Francisco media event touting Redmond's cloud offerings on Monday. According to Nadella, 20 per cent of Microsoft's Azure cloud is already Linux and the software giant …
Microsoft's new business plan:
It's their old business plan: leverage their dominant position from one generation of technology to ensure dominance of the next. In this case use a small chunk of that nice cash pile on infrastructure running bought in and cloned technologies, and flog the assembled stack for as much as they can get away with.
I don't think MS would give two hoots about Windows if they thought they could extract as much money with Linux, and without that pesky matter of development. This route is even more attractive: they even get to back both horses at minimal cost, and without needing to actually develop something that kind-of works.
Not quite. They are embracing it in a few small and well defined areas
1. Supported Azure load. 20% when you think of it is not that much for a "universal cloud" offering.
2. Mobile platform - they get easy money off anyone who runs Android so while they pretend to be doing all kinds of weird and wonderful things with Surface and their Nokia acquisition the real mobile money printer in MSFT is the Android patent racket.
3. Probably - as a Network OS platform in Azure. Looking at the current technical personnel roster in Azure I find it difficult to believe that all of these people who have been working with "Linux as a NOS" in previous jobs have been hired to beat some sense into Windows. If they were, they would have been hired into the Windows server division instead. So there is likely to be infrastructural use which is not announced and which has started in Balmer days when Nadella ran that BU.
Linux on the desktop and anywhere near the turf of the core Microsofties from the desktop BUs - forget it. You will definitely be running for the hills if that will happen.
I would not be so sure.
While there is no substantial difference in terms of clipping the ticket on Linux vs Windows on Azure for the base OS, with Linux they do not get to clip the ticket on infrastructure apps.
Oh well, that is a different BU so the usual depiction of the MSFT org chart comes to mind http://www.globalnerdy.com/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/microsoft-org-chart.jpg
Why do people rent air again?
Me, I'd buy an air machine, figure out how it works and maybe hire some staff to do the same and maintain it. Those staff could do a few other things as well now and again...
Nah, listen to the execs, just spend money. Nobody ever got fired for buying something. Well, unless you count prostitutes.
It's down to accounting,
Cloud services are expenses, and thus can be directly offset agains this year's earnings.
Buying servers is capital expenditure which can only be offset as depreciation, and that takes several years.
In the meantime, you have staffing costs (and if your workload only needs half the time of an expert admin, you'll find you've either got to hire the full time of that expert, or make do with an inexpert admin), maintenance and repairs.
Servers are now a vital infrastructure for pretty much any kind of business, whether it be in the technology field or not. Companies no longer build their own offices*, so why build their own IT infrastructure?
None of this applies to businesses whose business is technology, but even then, cloud-hosting is a low-risk way to protoype or trial new products and services - if the idea isn't a goer, you're not left with a pile of servers you don't have a use for.
(* Yes, yes, Apple, donut, folly, overrun, moneypit)
Hate Microsoft for many many things, but don't hate them for trying to survive.
Only a fool would imagine that we are still living in a "Windows world" - they know this and so does everybody else.
Satya is doing what any good CEO does when his core business is under threat - diversify.
Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?
>Just where is Admiral Ackbar when you need him?
Nadella is a an exec, so this is a PR thing. Those not playing with linux won't play with it just because Nadella says he likes it. Those who would play with linux probably have Windows as well anyway. It therefore makes perfect sense to pretend that Windows can integrate into a *nix environment (where it isn't already) just fine.
They're still hoping to get more windows in to replace linux.
I think the strange thing was that they ever had any dislike for Linux, not that they should like it.
Microsoft's job No.1 is "Let's make money", and Linux is providing them with revenue via patents and the customers they have running Linux in the cloud.
The real surprise is that they've not embraced it at least as much as they've embraced OS X.
I think mistake number one that any business can make is to try and tell their customers what to run. Everything the customer wants should, within reason, be available ... for a price.
Customers should be won over by listening to their needs and seducing them with promises of what is possible, if only they used your software and/or hardware.
"Linux is providing them with revenue via patents"
I think that's a VERY shaky house of cards that could fall apart at any time. Sooner or later someone will standup to the Microsoft shakedown, and MS will either have to back off or declare once and for all in court the patents allegedly infringed by Linux. Neither option would bode well for strong-arming further licencing agreements.
I got thrown out of Redmond for mentioning Linux a few years back with the person I was meeting declaring "we don't work with Linux companies, I'll get you a cab." This after I sat through his presentation on his XP laptop which kept blue screening every time he plugged it into the big screen but when I did the same with my Linux laptop (KDE themed to look like Windows 2000) it was all fine so he didn't realise I was running Linux until I said so. Boom, shown the door.
The fact is, MS has had to learn to put up with Linux, especially in clusters and cloud as they're nowhere near the behemoth they were on the desktop but you can guarantee that this change of heart will be very short lived if people trust them. Remember, embrace, extend, extinguish? Just where are we with this right now?
Im sure its no mistake that they support centos and oracle, but not redhat. So they'll take the money for hosting, take the customers, maybe give some $ to redhats biggest enemy (oracle) but make sure none goes back to RH. They are within their rights to do so, but i dont believe for a second they do want to work with RH.
Market share of new devices during Q3 2014:
-smartphone : 83% for Linux
-tablet : 73% for Linux
-----------------------------------
total mobiles: 80% for Linux
New devices (internet connection): 80% mobiles, 20% portables and destops.
With ChromeBook having about 3-4% marketshare of portables and millions of pc installed with Mint, Ubuntu, Fedora, Debian, Suse etc...Linux seems to have now some 65-66% market share of new devices. Linux is over twice bigger than Mac/iOS and Windows together. One study estimated that less than 55% of new desktops and portables are preinstalled with Windows.