[GTALUG] ​Microsoft and Canonical partner to bring Ubuntu to Windows 10 | ZDNet

[Stewart C. Russell]

On 2016-03-31 09:53 PM, Giles Orr wrote:
> 
> Or, as a friend of mine put it, 'the concept of "embrace, extend,
> extinguish" hasn't been lost.'

I don't think the target of MS's extinguishment is us. It's very hard to
compete with the nebulous world of Linux. You can't create a business
plan to attack something that has so many facets.

MS can, however, attack Apple. Apple destroys Microsoft on the desktop.
I'm not talking about the business desktop, where Windows is still
solid, but in the notebooks you see people using on the road, in coffee
shops, in colleges, and so on. Microsoft wants a piece of that “Creative
ClassӠ action, and the more of it they can funnel onto Office 365 and
Azure subscriptions, the better. The move to a no-charge Windows licence
is like Gillette handing out free razors. Apple and Microsoft can make
far more money on services than they ever could hawking hardware and
software.

cheers,
 Stewart


†: a dreadful term, I know, but it's a convenient shorthand.