IBM pledges no patent attacks against Linux

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You're Missing Something Here

Ax aka Bit - you're missing something here. I've been in the software industry for over 20 years and I have seen the move from mainframes to micros, from terminals to PCs - heck, from punch-cards to terminals even (I dimly recall having to boot an old mainframe using the front panel and a book with hex instructions!). What I've seen in this short time are a number of shifts - shifts in the technology, shifts in the economics, shifts in the manner in which coporations view software and hardware. What we are witnessing with IBM (and I must say, anyone who remembers the IBM of the 80s ["kill the micro server"] will not recognise the company of today... except for their big balance sheet and R&D spending) is a change of the wind. A change that Microsoft fears.

To give you an example of such changes. I remember a hardware salesperson from IBM selling us the new "4 GB drives" (about the size of a mid-ranged washing machine) - in those days memory and hardware + support were expensive and people were comparitively cheap (in the 80s it was claimed IBM would sell you an ashtray for $1000 - but if it ever went wrong they would have an ashtray engineer on site within the hour).

Now hardware is less expensive for more power and the cost of software engineers is expensive (hence the attraction to out source to India). But some of the actual software is becoming a commodity - like the operating system. And this is the shift in the wind that corporations are using and hence Linux is the Pandora Evil that Microsoft want to try to put back into the box.

There were two paths - to embrace open source (IBM Novell Sun) and to try to combat and extinguish it (Microsoft SCO Sun [yes, Sun are in both camps!?]). Large though MS is, it will lose this war. The combined budgets of hundreds of companies saving $$$$$$$$ using OSS is a flood Microsoft will not be able to dam.

The economics are changing - the corporate attitude is changing - MS are liken an old Bastion of an old Empire. Either it needs to change or it will (slowly) die.

The Banjo

Posted by: BanjoPaterson   Posted on: 08/05/04 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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