Put your Money where your Mouth is Ballmer
The fat man finally talks. Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer has now publically stated his belief that Linux based operating systems infringe on Microsoft’s intellectual property. Ballmer reckons that Linux “uses our intellectual property” and Microsoft wants to “get the appropriate economic return for our shareholders from our innovation.”
So far exactly which parts of the Linux operating system actually utilise Microsoft’s IP hasn’t been made clear, which only goes to add fuel to the suspicion that this is simply a FUD ‘Fear, Uncertainty & Doubt’ campaign on Microsoft’s part.
For anyone who hasn’t heard yet, Novell has entered into an agreement with Microsoft to pay cash to protect against law suites for IP infringement. This ‘potential’ law suite seems pretty unlikely however as many Linux users also utilise Microsoft technologies in their businesses. At the end of the day Microsoft would probably loose many customers by suing them in addition to facing stiff legal oposition by the likes of Red Hat et al.
Ballmer went on to say “Novell pays us some money for the right to tell customers that anybody who uses SUSE Linux is appropriately covered,” Ballmer said. This “is important to us, because [otherwise] we believe every Linux customer basically has an undisclosed balance-sheet liability.”
Well bring it on Ballmer! If you have a real basis for an IP suite then use it. Otherwise shut up….
This entry was posted on Friday, November 17th, 2006 at 9:11 pm and is filed under . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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