32BitsOnline: Linux in Business: Did Microsoft Try To Kill UNIX? | Linux Today

32BitsOnline: Linux in Business: Did Microsoft Try To Kill UNIX?

Written By
Web Webster
Web Webster
Dec 1, 1999

[ Thanks to Julie
Blosser
for this link. ]

“If Microsoft does have a hold on corporate messaging, can the
enterprise return to making sound technology decisions by breaking
that hold? Perhaps, even, re-forming the question to ask (given the
rise of other messaging technologies etc.): Can we trust
corporations who have made questionable or inferior technological
decisions in the past to make better technological decisions in the
future? Or will the sway and tug of marketing (“… nobody ever got
fired for buying IBM”) and reductionist thinking continue to
hold?…”

Microsoft claims that the United States Justice Department
has interfered with innovation in the computer industry. One can’t
help but wonder what people would call the collective effort of the
developers who created Linux.
The Linux community’s innovation
came as a reaction to the stifling presence of a firm now labeled a
monopoly.”

“If enterprise messaging helped Microsoft dominate the market
and put a dent in UNIX’s market share, then perhaps a Linux
solution can reverse the damage. Where DEC claimed that NT reduced
the cost of ownership from $1675 to $250 per user, Linux ought to
reduce that figure further.”


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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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