Khaotic Musings
Random musings on Linux and Free and Open Source Software.
Tuesday 21 July 2009, 3:30 AM
Why Microsoft Had to Support Linux in Virtualisation
By now, you've probably caught up with the news that (apparently) hell hath frozen over, and Microsoft has contributed GPL code to the Linux kernel.
One of my colleagues at work also raised an eyebrow of surprise that Microsoft is also a Platinum Sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation, considering that Apache httpd is the biggest competitor to Microsoft's own IIS web server.
Neither of these moves should really be a surprise.
Microsoft's strategy should be (and is) to do all that it can to run as
much of its technology stack, on as many computers, as is possible; this translates into ensuring that Apache, which has far more market share than Microsoft's own IIS server, runs as well as it can atop
Windows, and therefore makes Windows a viable host for what would
otherwise be an ocean of *nix-only LAMP apps.
Obviously, Microsoft would prefer that everyone used IIS to deploy web systems, but that's not going to happen. It therefore has to accept the second-best option of trying to ensure that Windows isn't also cut out from the web market, by supporting Apache (and MySQL and PHP) as well as it can. Thus the support noted above.
In addition, this isn't the first instance of Microsoft redistributing or contributing GPL code; they've done so for years, for their Services for Unix (SFU) product, which reused a non-trivial volume of GPL/GNU code.
Microsoft is taking this latest move (in the virtualisation market) because they need to compete more completely against market leaders like VMWare. If VMWare didn't exist, or if Microsoft was a dominant VM technology player, then this code release would never have happened.
It should be fairly clear that the more IT industry mindshare that Microsoft loses (or fails to gain) in various markets, the more ecumenical (in a platform sense) they will need to become, just to remain in the game; this is because most of their serious competitors are multi-platform, and inclusive of technologies like Linux etc.
Each such move therefore forms part of an accelerating vicious circle
for Microsoft, further shifting the centre of gravity away from their
technology stack. In the end, there's not much Microsoft can do to stop this.
All they can do is maximally slow the trend down, which is what they're aiming to do by supporting Linux "just enough" to remain competitive against multi-platform players like VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen etc.
One of my colleagues at work also raised an eyebrow of surprise that Microsoft is also a Platinum Sponsor of the Apache Software Foundation, considering that Apache httpd is the biggest competitor to Microsoft's own IIS web server.
Neither of these moves should really be a surprise.
Microsoft's strategy should be (and is) to do all that it can to run as
much of its technology stack, on as many computers, as is possible; this translates into ensuring that Apache, which has far more market share than Microsoft's own IIS server, runs as well as it can atop
Windows, and therefore makes Windows a viable host for what would
otherwise be an ocean of *nix-only LAMP apps.
Obviously, Microsoft would prefer that everyone used IIS to deploy web systems, but that's not going to happen. It therefore has to accept the second-best option of trying to ensure that Windows isn't also cut out from the web market, by supporting Apache (and MySQL and PHP) as well as it can. Thus the support noted above.
In addition, this isn't the first instance of Microsoft redistributing or contributing GPL code; they've done so for years, for their Services for Unix (SFU) product, which reused a non-trivial volume of GPL/GNU code.
Microsoft is taking this latest move (in the virtualisation market) because they need to compete more completely against market leaders like VMWare. If VMWare didn't exist, or if Microsoft was a dominant VM technology player, then this code release would never have happened.
It should be fairly clear that the more IT industry mindshare that Microsoft loses (or fails to gain) in various markets, the more ecumenical (in a platform sense) they will need to become, just to remain in the game; this is because most of their serious competitors are multi-platform, and inclusive of technologies like Linux etc.
Each such move therefore forms part of an accelerating vicious circle
for Microsoft, further shifting the centre of gravity away from their
technology stack. In the end, there's not much Microsoft can do to stop this.
All they can do is maximally slow the trend down, which is what they're aiming to do by supporting Linux "just enough" to remain competitive against multi-platform players like VMWare, VirtualBox, Xen etc.
PreviousComments on this post
Major irony! To keep their business growing they have to put out software under the GPL. They have to support GPL projects just so they can keep selling the underlying operating system. Guess what Microsoft? Its not going to get any easier when the "clouds" park themselves into a full horizon to horizon cloud bank over 1 Microsoft Way.
