[ Thanks to Jason
Greenwood for this link. ]
“The nature of the two-pronged attack Microsoft will be mounting
on Linux in the server market became clearer at yesterday’s analyst
meeting, as Ballmer and Gates on the one hand claimed a storming
first few months for Windows 2003, and on the other ramped up
‘intellectual property’ and ‘open ended liability’ for customers
issues. The first of these, essentially about convincing everybody
you’ve won already then converting the claims to reality, is a (or
whould that be ‘the’?) traditional Microsoft sales and marketing
play, while the second, only to be expected, plays the SCO Linux
litigation for all it’s worth.“The sign-off in this CNET report provides a little helpful
perspective on Microsoft’s qualifications to comment on lawsuits.
‘It was obviously a good year,’ quips Ballmer: ‘We were able to
resolve more actions than started up.’ The difference here, of
course, is that although Microsoft has a more or less permanent
lawsuit processing plant, it is not currently experiencing much in
the way of product–and/or customer-threatening litigation
(although Intertrust could still have that potential). It has
experienced these in the past, but has bought its way out of them,
so that’s all right then.“We could mention that IBM could, probably will if it feels it
needs to, shoot Microsoft’s SCO fox in a similar fashion, but we
doubt you’ll hear anything like that from the Microsoft salespeople
who’ll be toeing the Gates line by whispering ‘open ended liability
without indemnification’ around the server market…”