Ulterior motives behind Microsoft’s open source work backing?
If you’re a regular reader of my blog, no doubt you will have seen my particle posted yesterday entitled “Microsoft backs open source work“. Since I read the original article on the BBC site it got me thinking. Why, now, are Microsoft interested in ‘making friends’ with the open-source software community when they have been rivals for so long? Well from what I can see there are 3 possible reasons; Bill Gates stepping back from Microsoft, the ongoing battle with the European Union regulators and Yahoo!
Bill Gates
When Bill Gates steered the Microsoft battleship perhaps he was heavily opposed to the open source software community, and only when he stepped down from leading Microsoft could Ray Ozzie and Craig Mundie venture in to the rival territory.
Microsoft are all too aware that they need to adapt in order to maintain their hold over the home PC market, and with the recent-ish introduction of Eee PCs and all matter of variants, Linux operating systems are now finding their ways into homes and businesses which was once Microsoft’s monopoly.
European Union regulators
There was once a time when I was startled to read that a company could be fined 1.6 billion euros over a five year period and still carry on. The fines have come because of failure to make their software interoperable with rivals. Microsoft has shown resilience however with the poor takeup of their latest operating system, Windows Vista, and market shares crumbling around them, both online and offline. It would save them a lot of money and bother if they simply complied with the EU regulations rather than fight them. When will they learn that they won’t win?
Yahoo!
Then of course is Yahoo! Microsoft has fallen a long way short of buying it’s search engine competitor but I don’t think Microsoft sees themself as being beaten just yet. Most, if not all of Yahoo!s systems are running on open-source software. If Microsoft can show that it is willing to contribute to the open-source community (e.g. through monetary donations, interoperable software) then I think they would be in with a better chance of changing Yahoo!s mind about being bought out.