November 2nd, 2006
The embrace that strangles -- Microsoft and Novell and the future of Linux
Don't be fooled by the sense that Microsoft's deal to cross-license and otherwise support Novell's Suse is a boost for Linux. The better way to look at this deal is to think of it as the first major step in Microsoft's plan to co-opt Linux and let its Windows monopoly live to dominate another day. It's a strategy that has worked before, and, judging the relative market clout of Suse vs. Windows, it's sure to succeed again.
The deal also steals yet another page from the Apple playbook, and gives us an important window into how well this deal could succeed for Microsoft and fail for Novell. Judging from the kudos that Apple's Bootcamp co-opting strategy is getting from users and reviewers, it's clearly better to give your hard core users a chance to run with the enemy than fight the inevitable. As long as the PC comes with Windows as the base operating system, it matters little to Microsoft what else the user wants to run in a compatibility-mode window.
I think we're seeing the beginning of the end of Linux, much the way IE was the beginning of the end of Netscape, SQL Server was the beginning of the end of everyone else's desktop database system, and Excel and Word and a good deal more also succeeded in co-opting technology and product options in the marketplace: The ever-tightening embrace of Microsoft eventually assimilates everything that it touches. Unless history is to be rewritten with this one deal, Linux never looked worse off than it did today.
Joshua Greenbaum's opinions on enterprise software have annoyed enough vendors that he now checks under the hood of his PC every morning before he boots up. For disclosures of Joshua's industry affiliations, click here.
