What Wal-Mart means to Dell

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Microsoft doesn't make Linux: Steve Ballmer called Linux a cancer. The chances of his company making a Linux OS is slim-to-none. There is no such thing as Microsoft Linux, never has been, and I doubt there ever will be. (You can be sure that they have an in-house lab that is examining Linux, but we the consumers will never see it.)

Microsoft has an agreement with Novell. The agreement is little more than a "we won't sue you if you don't sue us" over supposed patent violations between technologies used in the Linux platform and technologies used in Microsoft products.

Microsoft recently announced that Linux is in violation of two-hundred-some-odd patents (OpenOffice, currently owned by Sun, is supposedly violating over sixty patents).

Novell is no stranger to this type of argument. They recently had to battle with SCO and all of their crap. SCO (thankfully) is no longer a threat, but now it appears that Microsoft has decided to take up the argument. Hopefully Microsoft is smarter about it than Darl McBride (SCO's boss) was. One thing similar between Microft's and SCO's arguments: neither have come forward with specific details as to where the violations are, even though they have been asked several times to show the proof.

How does all this affect Dell and Wal-Mart? Well, it doesn't.

Dell is putting Ubuntu Linux on a small portion of its machines, and I doubt that those machines are going to Wall-Mart. Wall-Mart has sold machines with Linspire (formerly Lindows) and Xandros (I think), but only through their web site, which is not the route that Dell is trying to make.

Microsoft may be putting Ubuntu in its cross-hairs, but we haven't heard anything about it yet. And until we do, this whole argument about "Walmart Linux" (which also doesn't exist), "Microsoft Linux" (see above), and Dell's contract with Ubuntu is rather pointless.; Posted by: burkhartmic Posted on: 05/28/07 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use