Microsoft Becomes an Apache Sponsor

As the article "Should We Fear the (Microsoft) Geeks, Bearing Gifts?" states, we should be wary of Microsoft's intentions here. Microsoft's worst market and the one that has the most growth is in the web server space. But should we really be all that worried?

There is no end to the stupidity of decision making in IT, but when it comes to dollars and cents, especially these days, it is hard to justify an expensive Microsoft Windows operating system. On top of the Microsoft cost, it will also require lots of other expensive security programs and management tools just to keep it running and secure. Thousands of dollars worth of software just to run the worlds best free web server, Apache? 

That sounds monumentally stupid and costly. Perhaps we shouldn't be worried until Microsoft starts giving away their operating system to everyone and just charges for support.  Free as in beer will only get you so far, but I think that is the only way that Microsoft will ever be able come close to competing. Open Source will swallow them whole in few more years. They already know it.

It will be even worse for them with the economy in the state it is in. Everyone is looking to save a buck. I think it will cause a lot of true blue Microsofties to rethink their purchases like I finally did over 10 years ago. There is no room for loyalty when the company you are being loyal to is pretty much ripping you off. 

Microsoft  has one big opportunity as I see it. They need to go open source fully. They need to completely change their way of thinking that is so deeply ingrained in their current management. I think that is probably impossible and will require the replacement of almost all of the top leaders in their organization. 

But then again, just like today's economy, dollars make a big arguement. If the impact to Microsoft's bottom line is big enough (or can be projected to be big enough) there will be change. Its just a matter of doing it soon enough. I'm not going to hold my breath. After Microsoft's successful attempt at perverting the ISO fast track process with their OOXML standard, I think that they are willing and able to toss away any moral or ethical standard to win. Heck it worked for them in the past right? 

Like a wise man must have said at some point in time... "Change or die". Microsoft's previous amoral tactics aren't working out very well for them in this new fight against the "threat of Open Source" (Eeeek! The horrors!). I'll be very interested in how they decide to compete instead of pervert going forward.