January 7th, 2009
Mugliasoft meeting open source on SaaS battlefield
The promotion of Bob Muglia to a President’s position (in the mix to succeed current CEO Steve Ballmer) may prove to be the smartest move Microsoft has made against open source in a long time.
First, it elevates the server business, the high-end, the enterprise scaled stuff, to the top of the Microsoft stack. The old PC software company is becoming, in essence, a mainframe outfit. Which makes strategic sense.
IBM vs. Microsoft was the game three decades ago, and it’s going to be the game again. Muglia even looks like an IBM’er.
Second, Muglia is Microsoft’s cloud guy, their SaaS guy. A lot of companies are looking to desktop SaaS as a way to keep computing costs as flexible as salaries.
One market, one platform, one cloud. It’s a reasonable strategy.
Third, Muglia is seen as a “good cop” in regards to open source. By its nature cloud services obscure the differences between proprietary and open source. SaaS customers don’t even see their data, let alone their code. And don’t miss it.
Microsoft has been debilitated by its war with open source, and the best way to end that war is to make it irrelevant.
Microsoft has spent most of this decade flailing against open source, with no clear strategy for both opposing and appeasing it. Muglia’s rise could represent the start of creating one.
The better the competition becomes, the better it is for open source, and for computing in general.
Dana Blankenhorn has been a business journalist for 30 years, a tech freelancer since 1983. You can follow Dana on Twitter. See his full profile and disclosure of his industry affiliations.
Subscribe to Linux and Open Source via Email alerts or RSS.
