“What kind of threat is Linux? It’s a threat,” he said. “We’re
going to think about the issue, and I don’t think the advantage to
Linux is that it’s free. The issue is, is there flexibility [i.e.,
opening source code], and how do you do that in an NT environment?
And we’re considering that.”
Ballmer flatly squashed any notion that Microsoft would port its
applications or server to Linux or Unix. He also pooh-poohed the
idea that client/server computing is dead, saying users want an
evolutionary approach to computing.