When I make a title of an Article, I try to grab your interest. When I refer to, ‘The Unknown’, I am referring to the future of Vista, Linux, Apple, Windows 7 (aka Vista 2) and even API’s like Direct X and OpenGL and The Web.
The situation has become very interesting, to say the least, regarding 3 giants, in the Computer Industry.
All of them are fighting on all battle fronts. The battle fronts include;
- Desktops
- Servers
- Mobile Devices
- Laptops / Netbooks
- HPC - High Performance Computing
- Data centers and Cloud Computing
- Web Browsers
- Internet Standards and Protocols
- Developer Mind share
- Media Formats
- Social Networks
- Search Engines (Ad Networks)
and on and on and on…
To sanely attempt to grasp all of this, I will describe each of the 3 giant tech companies, in relation to the listed areas of computer, above. This is going to be quite a load of information draw, so grab a cup ‘o joe.
Apple
Apple has a very strong platform. It has a stable Desktop and even Servers based off a striped down Desktop. Macintosh was reinvented when Steve Jobs decided to go drastic and switch from RISC chips to Intel based CISC chips. But, more balls to the wall, was his accomplishment of taking an existing Operating system called BSD, a direct descendant of AT and T’s Unix Operating system, and slapping a GUI shell on top, calling it Darwin.
Needless to say, this was a brillant move, because now Apple is aligned with Linux, an up and coming Desktop, leveraging software already designed, stable and secure. OS X is a master piece mixture of beautiful Desktop integration, that just works, using a proven solid as a rock core, called Unix.
However, Apple does not seem to have let this get to it’s head, because Steve Job’s is clearly thinking in other areas of consumer electronics that no one else was, and apparently still is.
First came the iMac. Perfectly, in time to save Apple Computer from going bankrupt, by leveraging the Internet and delivering a Computer that was easy to use as 1 - 2 - 3, literally. Plugin the power, Plug in the Internet cable and turn the damn iMac on. How brain dead, yet brillantly simple is that? Sheer genius, which has always been a trademark of Steve Job’s thought process. Add in a splash of colors, bright as a happy go lucky gay rainbow and you have yourself a product posed to sell in the millions, which it did. You dont, see the iMac much any more, because of the G’s serious of Computers, which is just a serious player in the Video and Audio Media markets.
Get yourself a G5 running Pro tools for digital music multi track editing and Final Cut Pro for full blown professional video editing. Not to mention iLife for all out multimedia publishing on a professional level, unmatched by Microsoft or Linux. All major movie and music studios use Apple as their only choice for this type of Multimedia Publishing, hands down.
Next, Steve Jobs, comes up with the iPod, that catches the hair on fire of every teenager in America and the world. Multicolors and essentially just a cool, hip mp3 player at first, then evolving into playing small videos, downloaded from Youtube. To add firepower to the iPod, Apple opened a fully Web Based Internet Music Download store called iTunes. For .99 cents a song, you could have it, without having to buy the entire album. This little wonder from Apple again, kept Apple in the mainstream, regardless of a convicted Monopolist, which happen to be stealing every Desktop feature Apple came up with.
At this point Apple Computer, changed to just Apple. Sure, Apple had a kick ass Desktop running Unix under the hood, but it was far more successful selling iPods, iMacs, Pro Software for serious Movie and Music Industries and the best was yet to come.
Enter, the iPhone. Before, everyone was running around on a Blackberry, which was a very cool hand held PC, essentially, Internet ready. But, the iPhone, in Apple’s own style, did away with any buttons on the device, about the size of a Blackberry and made it appear HIP, by making everything touch screen enabled.
It is no surprise why Apple, years before, released their very own Web Browser, called Safari. Safari would than be installed on the up and coming iPhone. Safari, is essentially, took the same approach as OS X, there by, using KHTML — an Open Source HTML Render Engine — which they retooled and called WebKit. Apple then took WebKit and wrapped a decent GUI around it and Apple’s first Web Browser was born. Seemingly, out of the blue.
With the success of the iPhone, Apple opened the iStore to sell applications that would run on the iPhone. It is a huge success.
Apple is also working on something called Apple TV, which I do not know much about, but is sure to be just as a hit as everything else ‘i’Steve ‘i’Jobs has thought up. Not, one of his ideas has flopped. yet, each one a major risk in heavy investment, which if at anytime failed, would put the already treading deep water, that Apple was in. Yet, Apple management to execute each one, in rapid succession, with utter success to phone home about.
Simply amazing, the turn around that Apple has achieved, since the return of Steve Jobs as CEO in 1999.
Apples Achilles heel.
Steve Jobs is Apple. Apple is Steve Jobs. Therefore, if something were to happen to Steve Jobs, you can assume Apple, as a company, would be in serious trouble. All the gadgets and toys Apple has come up with was a direct result of one man’s main driving force, Steve Jobs. In fact, Steve did leave Apple for a long time, only to return in 1999 to save the company. It is rumored, that Steve Jobs knows how important he is to Apple, that many view him as a major a**hole. This is not good, if you think about it.
Linux
Linux is something you can look at in awe and sheer wonder, mostly as to, how in the hell could something like Linux even happen? Linux is truely a weird evolutionary human experiment, that seems to defy all preconceived notions of Traditional Business, Models of Software Development and managing to find itself creeping into every little nook and cranny imaginable.
Linux is really a symbol of many larger ideas. Ideas like Free Software, Open Source, Copy Left, Open Collaboration, unrestricted and almost hippy like in it’s Revolutionary way of working with Computers. It is almost impossible to know where to begin with this monster called The Linux Free and Open Source Movement. When I say movement and revolutionary, I really do mean what those words deeply mean.
Software, everywhere was closed, private and proprietary. The only way to get any market share was to have a business plan built to support it. Yet, the creation of Linux the Kernel and Operating Systems renaming themselves as a Distribution is the beginnings of me attempting to describe something unique, unexpected, yet obvious all at the same time.
A quick note about 2 men that seeded the Revolution. Keep in mind, these two men are really just symbols of a movement that actually includes millions of other people, almost cult like as followers.
Richard M. Stallman, or RMS as he liked to be called is a long haired, bearded hippy, obviously still recoving from Woodstock and all that happened in the 60’s. (Well, not exactly, but this is what I am reminded of, when I see him speak.) He is essentially, a programmer that became fed up with how Software, in particular Operating Systems were being locked down by a company called A T and T. He decided, to start his own software company, but in his own way. Instead of going down to your town hall and applying for Copy Rights and Business Licenses, RMS, decides to do everything backwards and opposite to what you would normally expect a Business man to do.
- In 1985, RMS founded the Free Software Foundation.
- Wrote the first draft, of the General Public License or GPLv1.
- Invented a new copyright methodology, called copyleft.
He then set out to gain followers of his movement be called GNU. Which stands for Gnu is Not Unix. His mission was to completely rewrite Unix from scratch, including the compiler, editors, linker, kernel and all the software programs necessary to built an Operating system. The GNU Operating system, would be free as in Free to use and modify it’s source code, as outlined by its copyleft License called the GPL.
The GPL would ensure that anyone entering into the GNU project, gave up all rights to any code contributed to the project and that it would all be software not for profit. Building Software for Software’s sake. Mind you, all of this was before Microsoft took over the world with Windows.
Richard M. Stallman, is a brilliant software programmer. He write the GCC or Gnu C Compiler, which is the standard compiler that Linux Kernel and all of it’s software is built with. He wrote his own text editing software, called Emacs, which gained a cult like following of programmers to use to write the software and libraries needed to construct the GNU Operating System.
Things where going well, with a major snag to over come. Stallman’s Software Foundation could not come up with some of the final pieces to the GNU Operating System, called a Kernel. They also needed drivers for the floppy and hard disks and networking.
Linus Torvalds in 1991 sent an email to the Minix Kernel Usenet Group that he was working on a Unix like Operating system. He already had the beginnings of a kernel and drivers for the disk drives. Linus decided to adopt the FSF’s GPL and GNU Tool chain and was able to get a shell terminal up and running called bash.
Linus uploaded his software, all as free software so that others could look at the code and he could than get user feedback on what they wanted to see added or made better. Originally, Linus called his Operating System Freax, but was later renamed by the FTP Admin, calling it Linux instead.
After the integration of Stallman’s software and GPL, Uploading of the source code with instructions on how to get it working for would be users and finally posted the Email of where people could get the code, Linux as a project, simply exploded with interest from all around the world.
Kernel developers began to submit patches while Linus Torvalds managed the process, while attending his Helsinki College Education in Computer Science. His college allowed him to work there as an assistant in the computer lab, at the same time manage his new pet project, called Linux.
By, 1993 Linux was making headlines in the Computer Industry. Just as the Internet was also taking off. The timing could not have been perfect. The pieces just seemed to all fall into place. Linux and GNU are the two foundations of what would eventually become Linux Distributions like Slackware, Debian, Red hat, Caldara, SUSE and many more.
With each new Linux Distribution, came improvements which all the other existing Distributions could implement. The reason, was because the GPL requires all derived works that originate under the GPL, inherited those same Licensing rules. The GPL is simple. Keep the Source Code Open, make it available for download by anyone and allow anyone interested the rights to modify to than submit patches to Linus for inclusion into Linux.
Linus became the maintainer of Linux and is still so today. Just as there were maintainers for the GCC compiler, and all the other drivers and programs that were actively being developed.
What set Linux apart from all previous Unix or Unix like operatinh systems before than, was that there was always some License that got in the way of further development. AT and T are classic examples of trying to soly own the rights to the code, which only caused programmers grief when trying to submit patches to improve the damn thing. Linux adopted the FSF’s GPL from the get go so, this prevented anyone from trying to take the project and dictate what to do with it.
Linus Torvalds is the perfect man for the job as Maintainer of the Linux Kernel. The way he dealt with issues both technically and socially was used as a base for how all the other GPL’ed software projects should conduct themselves. If you had good code to contribute, most likely it would get excepted into the project’s, of which there were many.
Keep in mind that thousands of Free Software Projects Licensed under this Revolutionary way of writing software among thousands of programmers, where all happening at once. In one area, a group was tackling the issue of Linux Drivers, in another a sendmail system, still in another Networking code and so on. The number of projects was enormous.
To facilitate a way to centrally host and manage all the thousands of Free Software Projects, SourceForge, Inc. (NASDAQ: LNUX), formerly VA Software Corporation, VA Linux Systems, and VA Research, is the provider of the SourceForge Development Intelligence application.
SourceForge, Inc. owns several well-known websites, including ThinkGeek and Slashdot.
VA Software is notable because of its IPO on December 9, 1999. The shares for the IPO were offered at $30, but the traders held back the opening trade until the offers hit $299. LNUX later popped up to $320, and closed their first day of trading at $239.25, a 698% return. However, this high-flying success was short-lived, and within a year the stock was selling at well below the initial offer price. As of 2005, this is still the most “successful” IPO of all time. The stock price reached an intra-day nadir of 54 cents on July 24, 2002. It then soared more than 1000% to an intra-day high of $6.38 on September 11, 2003. As of November 26, 2006, the stock closed at $4.64.
As, we get deeper and deeper into this incredible story of how a group of programmers could build their own Platform, under their own terms, in such a way as to never stiffle software innovation in favor of profit and greed. The whole movements intentions were created by geeks for geeks to be able to control their own destiny, to never repeat the A T and T disaster that happened to the original Unix.
Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie are considered the inventors of Unix. Stallman and Torvalds just created a Unix like system they called GNU/Linux.
Today, the FSF — Free Software Foundation — was over run, so to speak, by a new term for the Movement they dubbed, Open Source. To Eric S. Raymond, the author of The Cathedral and the Bazaar, Free Software had the word Free in there that can confused the Business World, wanting to leverage Free Software. Was it Free as in Free Beer? Or Free as in Freedom’s and rights to do with the code what once wished, as long as it adhered to the GPL, now at version 2. — GPLv2 —
So, a new foundation was formed in 1999, spear headed by Eric S. Raymond, called the OSI or Open Source Initiative. Or simply, Open Source Software. This created many disagreements between the FSF.org and OSI, so many call the movement Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) or Free Libre Open Source Software (FLOSS).
Yet another argument is whether to call the Open Source Operating System, Linux or GNU/Linux. Since, GNU represents the compiler and core server software tools created by the GNU Foundation under the FSF, Stallman insists Linux include this rather tacky add on to what can be simply called Linux.
Either way, is correct and in the end, does not matter a terrible amount. But, to RMS is does. 
So, what has happened now that it is September 2008, to this Revolutionary Software Movement? Well an absolute crap load, which I have written many an article about. You are free to read those which I will list as references at the end of this article.
But, essentially, Linux now has a dominate Distribution called Ubuntu, based on Debian Distribution, that aims to be a Microsoft Windows and Apple OS X, competitor. Linux has grown up a lot ever since a man by the name of Mark Shuttleworth decided to fork Debian Linux, to allow a 6 month release and update cycle, called Ubuntu.
Ubuntu, is what I am running right now to write this article. Ubuntu is marketed as Linux for Human Beings. It has fixed a lot of interoperability problems that plagued the Free and Open Source Software model for years. The challenge is this.
How do we get all the little pieces of Open Source Software to communicate, in order to work together to create a unified, stable and user friendly Linux Desktop?
The challenge has taken 4 years to get to it’s current release, dubbed, Ubuntu Hardy Heroin version 8.04. And I have to say that it is a beautiful piece of software engineering. It truly is stable, immune from all known Internet Viruses and as point and click ably easy to use as Microsoft Windows XP or Apple OS X.
Linux, however, started as a headless server, meaning no GUI anything. This meant everything was done using shell commands. Linux has a stack called the LAMP stack, standing for, Linux Apache, MySQL and PHP, which has become the #1 solution for Web Servers, Mail, File and Print Servers. Linux has been ported to more hardware architectures there any other Operating System.
Linux runs the NYSE - New York Stock Exchange –, commands the Mars Rovers and can also be found in microwaves and refrigerators. It is also entering into the mobile space of cell phones, PDAs and an iPhone clone called Android.
Linux powers French parliment using Ubuntu as it’s Desktop of choice. Did I mention Linux was used to build 97% of all the currently top rated Super Computers, known as HPC or High Performance Computing?
The list goes on and on. Linux also includes programming languages like Python, Ruby, PHP, Perl and more, as I better stop before my head explodes.
To top all this off, the user applications number in the ten’s of thousands. Ranging from Audio, Video, Image editors, to Games Free and Commercial. Endless server utilities and a powerful shell scripting language called bash. Linux also leads the way in super innovative Desktop Effects like the 3D Cubed Desktop and compositing FX to make your Windows wobble and contort, for the art of it all.
Linux, also commands the choice of up to over 500 different Distribution choices. All of them can be reviewed and downloaded from the well organized site called DistroWatch. The sheer amount of choices is mind boggling, but there is a top 10 list to keep you sane, until you get brave enough to try the others.
Linus is so viral in the way it spreads into every area of computing that most of the software that runs on Linux will also run on Windows and the Mac. And if that were not enough, it is possible to install and execute native Windows binary programs, like Adobe Photoshop to run on Linux using the amazing Wine project.
Let’s not forget that Google, Facebook, Yahoo!, Flickr, Twitter and so many more endless web sites run Linux Servers and Services like Apache and Postfix for Mail. My god can I go on?
Yes, IBM sponsored and released Eclipse, which is an IDE framework to build any type of IDE by using its revolutionary plug in system. All build using the now Open Sourced Java Virtual Machine, which allows Eclipse to run on the Mac and Windows as well. Making Eclipse, fast becoming the programmers IDE of choice for every programming language Eclipse has a plug in for, of which, just about no language is left out!
Linux and Open Sources Achilles heel.
There is none. If Linus were to get hit by a Bus, there are plenty of programmers waiting in line to take his place. Even, if multiple Linus replacements were to step forward, natural selection would find the right one. This is the nature of all Open Free Software Projects. If Open Free Software runs out of money, well, is irrelevant. Open Source is not funded by any one. There are corporations that leverage Open Source to turn a profit from, but this does not mean money or any business sustains Open Source. The community sustains Open Source and Linux. The only way for Open Free Software to die, is if the entire community loses interest. Therefore, I think the biggest threat to Open Source Software is something like Global Warming, a killer Comet or Asteroid or a major natural or unnatural disaster, such as a nuclear war, resulting in the death of most the human race. Even then, I think geeks would find some way to keep coding and their passion alive, even in a nuclear fallout.
Microsoft
Now, I save the best (or worse, in some people’s view) for last.
Microsoft, I like to think of as a Mix between Apple and Linux. On the Apple side MS just seems to take every idea, innovation, GUI tweak, OS feature and anything else they thought looked cool from Apple OS X and changed it a little to look like the MS way. Let’s just say Apple hates MS with a passion, and for good reason.
The same thing goes for MS steal (sorry, borrowing) innovations and ideas from Linux and the Open Source world, including Unix. In fact, every OS has taken something, usually asbolutely fundementally core about how a computer works. Unfortunately, MS decided to not borrow key security features of Unix, which Apple and Linux did, which has now rendered MS powerless to stop the floods of viruses coming from all directions via Email and Web Sites.
Now, that is not a very good way to start off with MS. We do have to give credit for a lot of MS innovations. But, most of those innovations were taken from Apple or Linux and extended to work a little better. This is how I view MS as a whole. MS is a company that watches the Industry, like a hawk, appearing to seem more interested in other companies ideas, at the same time finding ways to integrate them into their own MS way to end up with something that is just one step ahead of the companies they, borrowed from. This method of innovation is certainly not illegal, and is common, but MS takes the idea to a whole new level.
Here is a short list of innovations MS did contribute that really are key:
- Ajax was a MS technology first used in 1999, called HTTPXMLRequest.
Sorry, that is really all I have! Just about everything else, from GUI Windows that over lap, instead of tile, mouse and GUIs to click and manipulate a menu system, and core fundamentals how how a Kernel and shell works, are all taken from either Apple or Linux / Unix.
What MS is truely credited with was pulling through the mess that was computer hardware compatibility, or lack there of, and still making MS-DOS and Windows 1.0-3.1 able to run on these IBM-PC Compatibles. They were smart enough to build their platform on commoditized hardware, which allowed OEMs to build similar enough computers to run MS software. This in comparison to Apple strictly sticking to their own custom hardware, which locked out OEMs from partnering and distributing Apple computers. Sun Microsoft systems did the same thing with their SPARC hardware.
Microsoft exploded as the primary OS, was directly attributed to using hardware that was becoming more and more compatible and distributable on a mass scale. But, all is not rosy. Microsoft, in this process of making these OEM deals did do illegal things. like force all OEM’s to only preinstall Windows and no other OS, else MS would cut the OEM’s contract to distribute MS Operating Systems.
After MS secure the ports, so to speak, effectively blocking any other software company from using IBM-PC hardware as a platform, that was literally run by MS based on extortionist tactics. All MS has to do now, was sit back, observe what Apple and Linux / Unix were doing, and simply coping those same ideas, adding MS marketing logos and twists, to be easily digestable by the mass market.
MS had it make, and to this day, still has contracts with all the major OEM’s (Dell, HP and Acer to name a few) based on the scare tactics MS uses to ensure only Windows ever gets majority distribution percentages. Why the government has yet to step up and put an end to this illegal Monopolist way? Is anyone’s guess.
My guess, is that these contracts as under strict company confidentiality and therefore the bigger governments, like the Supreme Court, does not have juristition to obtain anytype of warrant for investigations to obtain and review MS / OEM contract agreements. But, I will stop there, before I get into too deep of water.
OK, the nasty mean stuff aside, lets begin to look at what MS is doing, on the battle fronts of the computer industry.
Internet Explorer, which Microsoft built as a direct result of Netscape. Now this is another long and nasty story, in itself. Here is what happened.
- netscape released the first commrecial Web Browser, to take 90+% marketshare.
- Netscape partnered with Sun to include Java built into Netscape.
- Netscape was building a Web Platform, independant of Mac, Linux or MS.
- MS released Internet Explorer, cloning Netscape, feature for feature.
- After a few rounds, IE version 4, MS decides to Integrate IE into Windows.
- Netscape goes bankrupt within months of IE and MS inegration.
- MS is sues by the U.S. Government for using it’s monopoly to undermine Netscape.
- MS is ordered to break the company into 2 parts, one for Applications the other for Windows.
- Bill Gates and lawyers appealed and the split was over turned, MS was saved, but fined millions.
That is the story of the first browser war, in a nut shell. But, in 1999 Mozilla, company befind Netscape, decides to do something revolutionary. They Open Source Netscape, ultimately re branding and rewriting the code base and calling it Firefox 1.0. Since, this is about MS technology, I will leave this final note. Now in 2008, Firefox 3.1 has 45+% market share and Internet Explorer 8.0 only 50+% and losing ground month after month. Also, with the entrance of Google’s Chromium Browser, IE’s days are numbered.
Zune, is Microsoft’s clone of the iPod. To make this one short and easy. Zune is a complete failure, commanding little to no market interest. The iPod is simply too hip to compete with.
Xbox gaming console. Now, I was surprised when MS decided to enter the Gaming Console Industry. After all, Sony, Nintendo and a few others had this market under control. But, the XBox inspired gamers, particularly with one of Microsoft’s biggest success stories, Halo. Halo is a first person shooter, but taking the genre to a whole new level. Halo is action packed, uses realistic physicals and actually has a deep and engaging story line. Microsoft did well with Halo, releasing the final installment of Halo 3, which was better than the previous two, In turn, Halo 2 was better than Halo 1 and the original Halo was amazing in itself, to begin with.
Halo cemented the XBox as a console to easily be valued by gamers and many were sold.
Xbox 360, on the other hand, has mixed results. Xbox 360 is Xbox v2. Yes, the 360 was awesome, in terms of more graphics and better sound and more CPU power. But, it had one major flaw, it over heated, to the point you could smell the burning solder as it melted from the heat the console generated. Xbox 360’s red ring of death was a set of circular led lights that gave status indications about the health of the console. Millions of units had to be shipped back to Microsoft for repair. MS did a great job at accommodating the customers, but it cost MS all the revenue’s the Xbox generated, in order to fix all the recalled over heated 360’s.
The reason this happened, was because MS decided to built the entire Xbox, from the hardware chassis, motherboard, power supply and controllers and games, at Microsoft’s campus. MS is a software company, not an experienced hardware company, and they had to learn this the hard way. As of now, you can attach an external fan to the 360, along with the repairs MS did, and his fixed the over heating problem. But, like I said, at a huge cost to MS. Not, to mention the unit is very loud and easily generates enough heat to warm a master bedroom, on it’s own.
Mobile Windows CE, has been around for a long time. But, it has never really taken off, not because of MS, but because of how fragmented the cell phone industry is. I don’t know many details about Windows Mobile CE, so you will have to Google this on your own. But, I do know, the iPhone, Blackberries and up and coming Google Android are clearly winning the battle on the mobile front.
Now I want to get into MS Servers. This battle front can be divided into two parts. One which is the Small Business Server and the other are Server’s used by Corporations to centrally manage ten’s of thousands of Workstations, within a companies Corporate Intranet.
Small Business Server from Microsoft for use on the Internet, was created to compete with Linux’s overwhelming encroachment of Servers built for Web, Mail, File and Database facilities. However, SBS is reported to be very limited in terms of customization, scalability and price point. Linux has what is known as their LAMP stack, which is highly stable, configurable to do Web, Mail, File, Print and Database Serving on the Internet. And Linux has no License fee, unlimited user seats and no restrictions on how many Linux LAMP servers you want to have on your Network. MS SBS on the other hand is restrictive in every way possible. This is because MS wants to sell their full blown Windows Server 2003 / 2008 Servers, costing into the ten’s of thousands of dollars.
Windows Server 2000-2008 are designed as the best of what MS has to offer, to compete with Linux LAMP and friends server lines. Windows 2008, boasts a few interesting changes. MS traditioanlly, tried to keep out of the command line as much as possible, instead opting to use GUI tools to do all the server configurations. This is highly inefficent, because you have to have a good way to compress the graphics to be responsive enough for remote adminitration. GUI controls add a lot of over head, in terms of, CPU, RAM and Disk usage.
The headless version of Windows 2008, in which everything is configured via the command line, just like Linux has always done. They did this due to customer demands. It is ironic that MS do a backward two step, back into the command line and away from the GUI. Windows 2008 also boasts a powerful shell called PowerShell.
PowerShell is essentially .NET all wrapped up and accessible via PowerShell. It has been reviewed as being very powerful. However, the move to a headless server, only solidifies the fact that Linux / Unix had it right all along. So, if I am now going to be working in the Command line shell anyways, companies might as well choice Linux servers, which has no limited on anything. Linux also boasts more tools and options and Server applications.
Databases available to a Linux Server. Postgre, MySQL, SQLite, Berkeley Database, LDAP and more. Microsoft, boasts MS SQL 2000-2008, which is not nearly as configurable, scalable and faster as the Linux choices.
Mail Servers, that Linux offers include; Sendmail, Postfix, Exim, Qmail and many more. The choice of IMAP and POP mail management software are numerous. What MS has going for it’s Server is MS Exchange, which is a full blown Enterprise level application using Active Directory to centrally manage user accounts, their mail and policies for each user.
Alternative Linux options that try to integrate with MS Exchange Server, are still not 100% compatible. MS Exchange and Active Directory is a very strong selling point. Also, 90% of Corporations, already have MS Exchange installed, which means MS Exchange is deeply entrenched in that aspect of Corporate Business. Migrating away means downtime, cost to ensure the migration goes smoothly and retraining staff to use the Linux Alternative. I believe, in the long run, it will be worth it.
Windows Desktop and Workstations are Microsoft’s number one cash cow. With 90+% market share in both the corporate and home markets, Microsoft definitely has a massive advantage. Owning the platform, also means being able to dictate what can run on that Platform and dictate which communication Protocols and API’s Independent Software Vendors to use, like messaging between Exchange and Domain Controllers. file system network sharing, printer sharing and authentication and encryption protocols like IPsec.
Proprietary protocols, usually overly complex and in binary format, makes it very hard to reverse engineer, and enables MS Windows Platform to easily lock out competitors. An example of Protocol Lock out/in, is if another company wants to offer an alternative to MS Exchange Server, Microsoft can simply prohibit the use of Exchange’s Proprietary Protocol and if they do decide to make an agreement, would enable MS complete control over Licensing fees or any other fine print. In many cases, MS makes the fee is so huge, that the company trying to arrange an agreement simply backs out and made a laughing stock.
In recent news, the European Commission has ordered Microsoft to share the specifications of key MS proprietary protocols, but only a very small group is allowed to review. This was ordered, as a result, of many anti-trust law suit convictions. In the past MS was punished by having to pay Millions or even Billions in fines, which MS simply considered pocket change.
Search Engines called Live Search is Microsoft’s attempt to compete with Google, Yahoo, Ask and all other Search Engines. A Search Engine is very expensive to set up and maintain. They require enourmous data centers comprising of thousands of servers, raid arrays and network switches. All this computer power is required to do the following;
- Visit as many Web Sites as possible.
- Index all Web site data and store it in a Database.
- Have some kind of page rank system to make search results relavant as possible.
- Create a way to track user behavior using browser cookies.
A search engine is a bit deceptive, in that, in order to support the enormous data centers required to crawl the Internet, store the Peta bytes or more of data and servers with massive processing power to process the collected data, sort it all and make presentable for human consumption. Finally, if the Search Engine is popular, it will need to query the Indexed Search data and serve it up using Web servers.
In order to pay the bills for all this hardware and rack space + bandwidth required to run a successful Search engine needs to come from somewhere. The way Google does it, is by providing a responsive and effective Ad Network, called Ad Sense and Ad Words. Microsoft Live follows this same Business model as well as Yahoo! Search.
Let’s just say that Microsoft’s Search Engine market share is dismally small compared to Google and Yahoo!. Yet, Microsoft can easily afford to maintain the data centers necessary to make it all run. Microsoft, got into the Search Game too late in the game.
Social Networks, Windows Live Spaces (formerly known as MSN Spaces). Microsoft does not appear in any top 10 Social Network Lists. While other Top 100 Social Network Sites, rank MS Live Spaces as number 3. So, you may need to do some specific reason on this yourself.
Social Networks are much like Search Engines, in that they are created as a place to than make money by Advertising to the users of the Social Network. Unlike Search Engines, a Social Network requires much much less data center server power.
Media Codecs that are under MS patent control include; WMV3, WMVA and WVC1. The good news, is that there are all alternatives to these formats which are Open Source.
Microsoft developers are very well equipped. Since MS is a Closed Source Platform, MS API’s are very important, and MS has done an excellent job at providing them, as well as, Documenting them. It is a well known fact, that if not for Microsoft’s extensive support promotion of it’s API’s would render MS a useless Platform. Without an API, it would be impossible to create software on a Closed Source Platform. But, this also includes an Open Source Platform like Linux.
A complete list of Active and depreciate MS APIs.
.NET Framework. Microsoft, may not have invented the idea of a cross platform language. Java is famous for that. But, that does not stop MS from cloning the idea and calling it something different. Microsoft’s .NET Framework really is cool. It is a framework, in that, it allows any .NET language or API the ability to allow the Programmer to easily integrate code from one type of .NET language and including it. In other words, it is possible to base your Application on C#, than easily link to a VB Library to access those function available in the VB library. This includes any .NET language, of which there are many.
The idea of a cross platform language is not new. Sun Microsystems, invented Java and it’s Virtual Runtime Machine to allow the programmer to write a Java program on Windows that will also execute on a Mac or Linux, with no code modifications required. MS took this concept a step further by making the runtime, Cross Language as well as cross platform.
Microsoft’s Achilles Heel.
Money and reputation. Microsoft needs capitol and loads of it. MS is being sued left and right. MS is in court, currently fighting multiple court battles. And the law suits do not appear to be slowing down, but instead, picking up steam. If you can believe that. MS has more than 70,000+ employees to feed and a massive campus to sustain. Clearly, money is Microsoft’s, bottom line. Reputation is just as important and tied directly with profits. Vista, for instance, was deemed a failure. People are losing faith in MS and it’s products. As a result, alternative methods of computing are being sought after, not only by other businesses, but also by entire governments. Microsoft, I would say has a lot at stake, therefore, a lot to loss. But, unlike Apple, Bill Gates is not a major influence anymore. MS has a massive talent pool of employees it can tap into. MS is also very deverse and able to adapt and play hardball if they have to. Microsoft may have seen it’s glory years and will decrease in size, unless they figure out a way to fix the Vista OS mess. But, MS has seemingly unbreakable sales teams will to do anything to keep Microsoft the #1 software company in the world, for decades to come.