Microsoft and linux in China

[John Van Ostrand]

On Wed, 2007-07-11 at 16:24 -0400, Paul King wrote:
> I like the part where Gates is forced to say that "Piracy isn't so bad after 
> all". If this is an actual quote, this has got to make Gates the lowest life 
> form besides the amoeba. He stands for no higher principle than the Dollar 
> Almighty.

It's dumping like Mike says.  Undercut a market until they rely on you,
then raise the price. It's exactly the Almighty Dollar at work.

> However, it can also mean that he is hinting that he could be going open source 
> at some point. That sounds impossible, but that above quote contradicts years 
> of Microsoft leading the charge against piracy, and the Genuine Advantage 
> program. But the quote also sounds utterly improbable. Would he keep market 
> share by going open source, or going the way of RedHat and others, with a 
> retail production version and a downloadable freebie for everyone else?

Who would pay for it if there was a free version? Most of the Windows
market would dry up instantly. The free version would have to suck to
badly that system builders won't put it on. They could keep the
corporate revenue but most PCs are in homes and small businesses aren't
they?

They do have the Windows Vista Starter. I think it restricts user to one
running application at a time, etc. It was designed for third world
countries.

Also my understanding is that Microsoft makes money on the Windows and
Office. Just about every other software, services or hardware division
doesn't make much or loses money. It would be hard to believe that a
company would voluntarily give up half of their big profit centres.

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