Leopard Seal

"PJ [Groklaw] and Linux Today have spotted a Microsoft anti-Linux hiring spree," told us a reader some moments ago.

Is Microsoft hiring more anti-Linux Gurus? There's evidence that yes, they are. All over the world!!!

In one of their recent marketing job ads, the words "Linux" and "FOSS", appears more than 20 times !!!

http://www.microsoft-careers.com/job/San-Salvador-Initiative-Marketing-Manager(717317-External)-Job-SV/864893/

"Develop and manage an end-to-end view of the local Linux Server competitive environment (Paid and Nonpaid) and the local FOSS compete environment (Paid and Nonpaid): Be the local expert on Linux Server and FOSS issues for the GM, BG and Segment leads. Build a solid 360 view of the Linux Server and the FOSS environments through market intelligence at the local level that can be used to ensure the region/sub maintains a healthy, balanced and sustained share growth projection. This view should also be used to create awareness, take action, and drive programs to win share with appropriate segments and BGs including paid and nonpaid Linux Server and FOSS environments.."

"Embrace Open Source Web Companies and Community Projects: Develop a OSS ISV program in local market to establish partnerships with key OSS companies and community projects. Help educate Open Source Web companies on how they can expand their business opportunities and make money on the Microsoft platform (Windows, SQL, etc). Escalate companies to corporate CSI team where there is opportunity to run Linux Web applications on Windows, such as PHP on Windows."

“They did not have the nerve to say "subvert" or "co-opt" in public the way they do in their private communications, but that is clearly the intent.”
      --AnonymousWe gave many examples like this before, especially when we discussed Munich's migration to GNU/Linux less than a year ago [1, 2, 3]. Microsoft keeps pretending to be a friend of FOSS, but its senior haters let it be known that this is not the case. Consider prior examples which we covered last week after Mirosoft had made distasteful remarks about "Open Source" [1, 2, 3]. Even in 2010 Microsoft is fighting against "Open Source", but unlike in previous years, Microsoft is better at hiding it.

"Microsoft's Hernán Rincón Launches Anti-FOSS Missile In Brazil" says this new headline and another one says: "Microsoft's Latin America chief: Open-source equals 'imcompetence'" (via Rob Weir we learn that "A Microsoft President Equates Open Standards with Incompetence").

This is a small PR disaster for Microsoft, due to the level of exposure (there is more than the above, in languages other than English). Dana Blankenhorn calls it "Microsoft tea party against open source":

Anyway, back to Microsoft. Windows Mobile is being crushed by Google Android. Governments are rejecting Microsoft in favor of open source. Microsoft Azure is nothing next to Amazon’s EC2 cloud. Bing!

If you have made your career drinking the corporate Kool-Aid (and Redmond can be pretty isolated from the rest of the computing universe) what’s going on in the market these days can seem absolutely maddening.

Hence the crazy.

* Tivanka Ellawala insisted that Android is not free. It’s the usual FUD about patents, built around Oracle’s suit against Google and Apple’s suit against HTC. Only in this case it is taken to extremes, implying that anyone with an Android phone might be forced to pony up extra money to use it sometime. Patent suits don’t end that way. * Hernan Rincon, asked about Brazil’s support of open source, called open source incompetent. Judging from Rincon’s Twitter feed, this is the usual nonsense about innovation. He was trying to say that open source requires continual investment by government, as opposed to outsourcing, but something was lost in translation.

Notice that both these people are Microsoft careerists. Ellawala, a Stanford grad, has been with Microsoft for 11 years and it’s her second employer. Rincon, a Harvard man, started at Unisys. Both joined Microsoft when it was on top. Neither is responsible for what has happened since.

Agreed in December 2001, the migration to Linux was supposed to be completed in 2007. This was an unobtainable goal because, for example, some of the project's calls for submissions were only launched in 2006. Nominating the Scalix web interface as a replacement for Outlook proved to be an ill-advised choice: Even last June, the Scalix web mail client still lacked a task manager and various convenience features found in native mail clients.

[...]

When there was no bad news to report, the papers simply made some up: The headline "Wieder Ärger mit dem Pinguin" (More trouble with the penguin) promised a big screen production but delivered no more than amateur dramatics. In May 2009, the Solothurn public prosecutor's office hosted a lawyers' convention for 400 participants from all over Switzerland, but failed to prepare a Windows system for rendering PowerPoint presentations. The Cantonal Police, who, according to Berner Zeitung, had "successfully warded off Linux", were able to help out with a Windows system and saved the Solothurn prosecution from embarrassment. Linux can be blamed for many things, but the convention hosts' lack of organisational skills isn't one of them.

All this eventually led to IT director Bader having to step down last summer, and to a Cantonal spokesperson announcing the switch to a dual strategy which was to involve both open source software and Microsoft solutions. The definitive end to Linux in the Canton of Solothurn finally came yesterday: desktop computers will apparently be migrated to Windows 7 in 2011, and Outlook will replace the Scalix web mail client.