Is Microsoft Evolving?
There has been a lot of publicity surrounding Microsoft in the last few weeks. Between some major layoffs, the surprise success of Windows 7, and Bill Gates speaking at TED, Microsoft has made headlines in nearly every technology publication in the last month. In many of these articles I have noticed an ongoing theme, increasing mention of internal acceptance and even support for open source technologies at Microsoft.
Don’t get me wrong. Microsoft isn’t handing over the keys to their Windows franchise, at least not yet. They are however beginning to utilize more and more open source technology. In addition, they’re increasing support for open source technologies in existing applications. For example, I have read recently Microsoft is working hard to increase compatibility of PHP on the IIS operating system. I also read Microsoft is going to add PHP support to Visual Studio, a move that I think should’ve been done long ago.
Although, the web is currently an area of focus for Microsoft they’re not limiting their open source integration to the online world. I read in another article that Microsoft is using NetBSD as the OS on the new Sidekick LX 2009 instead of trying to force the Windows CE platform. This is a big move for Microsoft and a move in the right direction. I read a practically interesting article that speculated on which open source companies Microsoft might purchase as they try to wade deeper into the open source world. Two companies that I use regularly were mentioned, SurgarCRM and Zend. Whether these companies are for sale or not isn’t really the question, with the amount of cash Microsoft has to deploy I would argue that anything is probably for sale. Is Microsoft going to buy its way into the open source world? Microsoft probably should’ve spent some of their billions to buy MySQL but Sun Microsystems beat them to that.
I see why Microsoft is finally entering the open source market. They don’t really have an option at this point. I saw an estimate today that over 50% of developers will be working on a SaaS solution in 2009. If this trend continues and I think it will, Microsoft’s operating systems and other products will continue to loose value. I still don’t understand why Microsoft didn’t make a better effort to support PHP and other open source languages on their IIS web server. Now they have to play catch-up. I guess hindsight is 20/20.
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