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Reasonable suggestion, not easy to follow...

...because I'm really not a business guy at all. My skepticism about reason 1) is partly due to its source. The people suggesting it didn't really seem to have financial concerns or credentials of their own. Instead I had the impression they were just repeating what they'd heard somewhere. I've never seen or heard of any MS financial analysis or official statement that backs up this assertion.

Also, my impression is that products like MSOffice and MSSQLServer and other apps are even more important sources of revenue than Windows (I actually saw an analysis some time ago that supported this idea)--so that increasing sales of these products would in fact increase total revenue, even though Windows revenue might slip (although it's not obvious to me that it would--at least for this specific reason).

It does appear, however, that we agree MS' policy on not porting its apps to Linux is intended in some way to protect Windows sales--whether from a business consideration or otherwise.

I'm still betting that there is a substantial emotional component, originating with BillG. He has, after all, made himself fairly conspicuous at times, and has received media commentary, for his emotionalism.

Deciding not to port apps like MSOffice or MSSQLServer to Linux--in order to protect Windows--is in any case an admission by MS that some folks buy Windows only because they must in order to run the apps. That's an essentially coercive strategy as pointed out by Monkey above: "The choice should be for the users, it should not be shoved down their throat, this alienates users."

It seems to me that a rational business decision would not entail arguing whether some strategy helps Linux vs. Windows, but would instead focus on profitability. In fact, were MS to offer a Linux distro, who would doubt that they could make a ton of money on it? I would probably give it a try myself.

Posted by: FederalistPaperBoy   Posted on: 05/11/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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