Microsoft “Deep Throat” leaks Microsoft Open Source internal strategy memorandum

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Nov 1, 1998

According to the memorandum:

  • OSS poses a direct, short-term revenue and platform threat to
    Microsoft
  • to understand how to compete against OSS, we must target a
    process rather than a company
  • OSS is long-term credible … FUD tactics can not be used to
    combat it
  • Linux and other OSS advocates are making a progressively more
    credible argument that OSS software is at least as robust ¨C if
    not more ¨C than commercial alternatives
  • Linux can win as long as services / protocols are
    commodities
  • OSS projects have been able to gain a foothold in many server
    applications because of the wide utility of highly commoditized,
    simple protocols. By extending these protocols and developing
    new protocols, we can deny OSS projects entry into the
    market
  • The ability of the OSS process to collect and harness the
    collective IQ of thousands of individuals across the Internet is
    simply amazing. More importantly, OSS evangelization scales with
    the size of the Internet much faster than our own evangelization
    efforts appear to scale

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Web Webster

Web Webster

Web Webster has more than 20 years of writing and editorial experience in the tech sector. He’s written and edited news, demand generation, user-focused, and thought leadership content for business software solutions, consumer tech, and Linux Today, he edits and writes for a portfolio of tech industry news and analysis websites including webopedia.com, and DatabaseJournal.com.

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