Re: matt assay - another fail
I'd given up reading his articles, but somehow, I wondered how wrong he was going to be in this one, and gave it a glance.
Whilst he might have a valid point of view on possible or potential changes in Microsoft's business model, there is absolutely no chance whatsoever of MS embracing any of it. They will die first. And who knows? They might!
Take one example: IBM's range of Unix servers, which, when I worked with them, was called RS/6000s. Not loved by all, but, as I an administrator, rather than a developer, I was very attached to them. IBM subsequently adopted Linux. You then had a choice: server with AIX or server with Linux. Either way, IBM sold the machine and as much service-industry stuff as they and their partners could get out of the deal. Where's the microsoft machine? Well, they make keyboards and mice, I suppose, but I don't know how that compares.
Then there's big machines. I never moved in those circles, and I don't know to what extent Linux competes with IBM's own software on its own mainframes --- but I could hardly have failed to notice, even from reading El Reg over the past few years, that big machines is where Linux is making it. Big. Microsoft is not even in this business.
Nor is it there at the very opposite end of the market. Gates may have dreamt about the washing machine, the fridge, the TV remote and all running Windows, but what actually happened is all those devices in the house that are computers with embedded software run ...Linux.
If my media-server remote ran something from GatesCo, what chance would there be of being able to telnet to it? what chance of being greeted by a message saying, hey, change whatever you like, you can always do a factory reset? Not the microsoft way.