Memo to Microsoft: The readers respond

The trouble with MS acquiring an open source company is not the question of which company because, no matter the choice, the community associated with that company would disappear overnight, rendering an acquisition hollow.

Yet Microsoft must form a small competitive practice down in the communities of open source in order to be able to have a piece of any market once that market grows sufficiently to compete with their major segments. This is prescribed in Clayton Christensen's "The Innovator's Dilemma" and "The Innovator's Solution."

My conclusion is that it will be impossible for Microsoft to compete in the new IT industry unless Ballmer & Gates retire and the young people can lead to establish a modicum of trust to engage the development communities according to the new modes of collaborative work to open standard API's.

MS could buy out the entire Linux distros in existance currently without making a dent in its bottom line. To what avail though? More would just pop up to replace them albiet not as good at first until the curve is mastered.

The biggest problem for Linux is the lack of marketing funds and someone to fund it. Each distro is out for itself and I don't see them bunching together to create a generic ad. Of course from a business perspective it don't make a lot of sense either.

I don't see Linux as having a lions share of the market for another 10 years yet so it will be awhile before we write off MS if ever. Otherwise we need it to keep Linux moving forward with some competition. As it is, both Windows and Linux users are winning dividends from the competition and more the intense it gets the better products we will see from both corners.

Not sure I get it, Dave. Why would Microsoft invest in acquiring JBoss when it has spent all that R&D money to develop the .Net Framework and the CLR? Why would it acquire a Linux vendor when it's spending all that money on Windows? Microsoft has serious not-invented-here syndrome. But more importantly, any attempt to acquire an open source competitor like you describe would surely be interpreted by regulators as being an anti-competitive strategy. There would be no purpose to it, except to eliminate a competitor. As an officially-recognized monopoly, Microsoft has less leeway in that direction than other companies do.

True on all counts-it would all be anti-competition, but I would be willing to bet that they could sneak JBoss in--Novell would be harder. Regardless it's not in their blood to make those kind of moves, unlike Oracle.

I 'm not suggesting that MS would convert their develop efforts to Java, but I am saying that it would be smart if they owned that market as well.

Let's be honest here, I don't expect them to buy either, nor do I want them to. I was just frustrated by people missing the point that MS can in and dominate a market and these were just 2 examples of open source.