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by vegabook 3663 days ago
Next step is Microsoft basically needs to turn Windows into a flavour of Linux. If they don't, they're under massive pincer threat from Android and Chrome, which are rapidly becoming the consumer endpoints of the future. Windows is about to "do an IBM" and throw away a market that it created. See PS/2 and OS/2.

They should probably just buy Canonical. That would put the shivers into Google, properly.
1 comments
mxuribe 3663 days ago
Funny years ago i would have reflexively flabbergasted at the thought of microsoft buying canonical (or any linux distro producer)...but actually thinking on that concept, and seeing recent (perhaps less-than-hostile) approach that microsoft has taken towards open source and linux, that wouldn't be a bad idea. I mean if microsoft could have both offerings - for windows servers and ubuntu-installed servers - i suppose that would be a very smart business move. Assuming they don't actually butcher or deny resources to whatever linux company they would buy, i could see several benefits - not only to microsoft but to developers, system integrators, etc. worldwide. Hey if a side benefit is that it would spur the market (a la google, apple, etc.) a little - to the benefit of us civilians - that's cool too.
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orionblastar 3663 days ago
I think Microsoft should do what Apple did with BSD Unix aka Nextstep and merge it with their old OS.

Microsoft should take the Windows GUI and put it over Linux as a desktop manager. Microsoft could sell the Windows GUI for Linux users that want to run Windows apps.

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vegabook 3662 days ago
Could not agree more. Windows WM as an option on Linux is a clear and logical strategy.
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vegabook 3663 days ago
I've been heavily downvoted for the view, but the facts are, there are hundreds of billions of dollars being spent in the Linux ecosystem, by corporations. Microsoft cannot afford not to be present in it. It's as simple as that. Canonical is starting to look like hitting Red Hat a bit on support contracts for corpos ets, so that's why I suggested that, but as you say, it could be another big and credible Linux distro (though Ubuntu all over the cloud must surely be tempting). Generally the idea that Microsoft wants to/must go big into Linux is uncontroversial, for me.
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