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05 Aug 2008
Microsoft has warned of a growing threat to its business model from open source software.
In its annual report the company said that it was facing increasing pressure from open source vendors, who Microsoft claims are stealing its ideas and benefiting from its intellectual property.
"A number of commercial firms compete with us using an open source business model by modifying and then distributing open source software to end users at nominal cost and earning revenue on complementary services and products," it said.
"These firms do not bear the full costs of research and development for the software. Some of these firms may build upon Microsoft ideas that we provide to them free or at low royalties in connection with our interoperability initiatives.
"To the extent open source software gains increasing market acceptance, our sales, revenue and operating margins may decline."
The company also complains that the open source community is also harming its bottom line by developing less functional copies of its applications and selling them at a lower price, costing sales and forcing down prices.
Other threats to the company include global piracy, security threats to its software and intense commercial competition.
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Do you agree?
Microsoft and other vendors are getting what they deserve
The problem with Microsoft and a good deal of other vendors competing with open source is that they just don't get it. How many features in Office are actually used by the majority??? Some of these features are just plain useless and to put time into development of them drives costs up. The masses generally want software that is easy to use and just plain works. Who needs a cute little assistant to help you type a letter anyway, especially one that usually doesn't have as much of a clue about what you are doing as you do? There is one problem that the open source community will need to deal with though and that is the issue of poor or incomplete documentation and the general 'screw you' attitude of many open source developers. I've read through countless newsgroup and forum posts where some poor guy is trying to get something to work and is treated like he has no business using some piece of open source until he goes out and learns machine language programming. I think open source will continue to be a viable alternative to the commercial guys for things such as email, firewalls, file servers and other like applications where it isn't tough to find someone that knows the stuff and can work with it. But, for the average desktop user, Microsoft will very likely remain the #1 player simply because of how complex open source appears to be for the user.
Posted by: BOUTYM 18 Aug 2008
FUD
I wouldn't quite say open source is outright theft. Theft in this case would be defined as blatantly copying something and then taking credit for what they stole. This is NOT new. Microsoft, as early as 1998, has been known to be a bunch of anti-freedom a**holes toward open source. Read the Halloween Documents. They're not really being beaten at their own game so much as everything else out there is simply better than the crap Microsoft churns out.
Posted by: Infamous Anonymous 06 Aug 2008
open source vendors, who Microsoft claims are stealing its ideas and benefiting from its intellectual property.
Which ones? When my sister came here from CA and saw my computer - she seemed to think it was advanced more than Windows and Vista seems like a poor linux copy. Thanks Edit/Delete Message
Posted by: Ron 05 Aug 2008
We Have Met The Enemy And It Is.....
* Stealing ideas and benefiting from other's intellectual property * Modifying and then distributing software to end users at nominal cost and earning revenue on complementary services and products * developing less functional copies of applications and selling them at a lower price Holy Crapoly! They're beating MS at it's own game!
Posted by: Badinoff 05 Aug 2008
Stealing ideas
"In its annual report the company said that it was facing increasing pressure from open source vendors, who Microsoft claims are stealing its ideas and benefiting from its intellectual property." So let me get this straight, it is OK for Microsoft to steal ideas and benefit from others intellectual property, which Microsoft has a long history of, but it is not OK when some else does it to Microsoft. This sounds to me like Microsoft is getting what it deserves and is doing nothing more than whining because it is having its own tactics used against it.
Posted by: Bill R 05 Aug 2008