Microsoft and opensource

After reading the recent post from Sanjiva I was tempted to write this bit down. I've been debating similar points with my friends, specially Karthik who has become an avid Mac/OS-X fan over the last year or so. For the record I'm primarily a Linux user (in fact I'm using one of my Ubuntu boxes right now) but I do use windows (XP though) to run my iTunes and an occasional office product. So here are some of my observations.

1. Microsoft is a good technology company. If you look at the world with the researcher hat on, the best place to work right now is Microsoft research (MSR). They do really good research and come up with great technologies (not to mention the good pay :) In fact my personal experience in M$ during the interop in 2005 is a very positive one regarding the technology they have. Its not really a surprise since they have the best brains working for them). If you look at technologies like .Net and Silverlight, there are many merits over the other prevailing technologies. However M$ has a bad track record and known for their extreme focus only on their (winxx/MSSQL etc) platform and the public looks with skepticism when it comes to using their technologies. I've met Mac/Linux geeks that are interested in M$ technologies but are not getting into them simply because its from M$. However it is not a reason to discredit M$ of their technological perspective.

2. There are tendencies towards moving towards a more open environment. Port25 is a very good starting point. Open specification promise is a good gurantee. I see these as signs of blending in with the opensource culture that is blossoming. In fact one of the recent moves to offer facilities for certain opensource foundations to test their software on Winxx platforms (sadly of which I am not at liberty to discuss the details) is an indication of their realization of the strength of Opensource. However just as Sanjiva and others mentioned we are not gonna see an open windows or community MSSQL soon (or may be never!). Purely in my POV its unrealistic to assume so. Do we see any other big company (IBM/Oracle/Apple/Google) opensourcing their core products ? No, not even true for a company like Google whose motto is 'Don't be evil'!

3. Microsoft will always be a strong presence in almost all technological fronts. Contrary to the popular geek beliefs, I don't assume M$ to go bankrupt soon. Yeah, Apple is doing well but if you consider global sales, Apple is still miles behind. XBox is doing well (despite Wii beating it to the first place recently). Their enterprise / back office products are doing fairly ok. They have a ton of money in the bank and most of the best brains still work for them. These guys are not gonna be wiped out from existence just like that.

4. Their size makes them a prime target. I think of this as the case of the bright, big, nerdy kid in school. They constantly get teased just because they are noticeable. There are many cases where M$ has become the victim of attacks just because they are the most visible player (Note that they are no saints. There are cases where M$ pushed their own agenda. But at the end of the day it comes down to business and any other software company in the same place would have not gone a different way). For example in the Operating System space Apple gets a lot of attention and a lot of people would pick M$ as the bad guy if you put Apple and M$ side by side. Think about it. OS-X is as proprietary as Windows, only runs on Apple hardware (which you pay a fortune to get) and go to extremes when it comes to protecting their assets. Why are they not perceived as evil then ?

I am not white washing M$. But I believe they wouldn't just go away and a (apparently) healthy relationship is coming up with the Opensource world. They are already supporting Opensource software vendors, build on top of open protocols and start taking small steps towards living in harmony with the others. We should not jump into conclusions :)