 |
|
 |
| |
Welcome to virtuallinux.org. You are currently reading the article "Ballmer repeats threats against Linux". All articles on virtuallinux.org pertain to the ongoing assult on the worlds greatest Operating system. Continue on reading about "Ballmer repeats threats against Linux"
Ballmer repeats threats against Linux
Posted on Thursday, February 22 2007 @ 09:27:30 EST by linuxwiz |
|
 |
|
 |
| |
Steve Ballmer has
reissued Microsoft's patent threat against Linux, warning open-source
vendors that they must respect his company's intellectual property.
In a no-nonsense presentation to New York financial analysts last
week, Microsoft's chief executive said the company's partnership with
Novell, which it signed in November 2006, "demonstrated clearly the
value of intellectual property, even in the open-source world."
The cross-selling partnership means that Microsoft will recommend
Suse Linux for customers who want a mixed Microsoft/open-source
environment. It also involves a "patent co-operation agreement", under
which Microsoft and Novell agreed not to sue each other's customers for
patent infringement.
In a clear threat against
open-source users, Ballmer repeated his earlier assertions that open
source "is not free", referring to the possibility that Microsoft may
sue Linux vendors. Microsoft has suggested that Linux software
infringes some of its intellectual property, but has never named the
patents in question.
Ballmer said: "I would not anticipate that we make a huge additional
revenue stream from our Novell deal, but I do think it clearly
establishes that open source is not free, and open source will have to
respect the intellectual property rights of others just as any other
competitor will."
"But I don't want to eliminate in your minds the notions of risk of
pricing that comes from competition with open source. We are higher
priced, but we bring greater value," Ballmer added.
Alongside the renewed threat over intellectual property, Ballmer was
also bullish over winning large corporate accounts against Linux
vendors. "We have done very well versus Linux on the desktop and on the
server, and I am hopeful that we will build share, particularly in Web
servers and high-performance clusters, from Linux in the next year," he
told analysts.
But Red Hat's chief executive is not impressed. Addressing a Merrill
Lynch conference on Monday, Matthew Szulik urged his customers to use
up their open source tokens from the Microsoft/Novell partnership.
These coupons entitle them to support and maintenance for Novell's Suse
Linux Enterprise Server.
He said: "We certainly expect that there will be those cases where
customers will consume those coupons. We're certainly encouraging one
or two customers to consume all of them: let's get this over with."
As of January, Microsoft had already sold 35,000 open-source coupons
out of the 70,000 it has committed to make available each year as part
of the five year-partnership.
Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse and AIG Technologies are among those to
take advantage of the Microsoft/Novell collaboration to roll out a
mixed proprietary/open-source infrastructure.
Source
|
|
 |
 |
 |
| |
|
 |
|
| |
Article Rating
Average Score: 0
Votes: 0
|
|
 |
 |
 |
|
Welcome Anonymous
Login:
Membership:
