Bonum Certa Men Certa

Why GNU/Linux is Microsoft's #1 Desktop Threat, Shareholders Are Finally Being Informed

“We are not on a path to win against Linux”

--Jim Allchin, Microsoft's Platform Group Vice President



Summary: As Microsoft's earnings fall by a third (again), the reasons are being further analysed and Microsoft investors warned

NOW that it is easier to show ordinary folks that Net Applications is a joke, other writers remark on the inaccuracy of their numbers, which were held up by opponents of GNU/Linux as though these were a gold standard. Paul Rubens writes:



Now, of course, one can discuss Net Applications' methodology endlessly and question the credibility of any organization that has to revise its figures by as much as 50 percent. But that's all rather missing the important point. The point is that America's purchasing patterns aren't necessarily the same as the rest of the world's.


Had Net Applications bothered with parts of the world like Russia and Brazil, Apple's share would drop further and GNU/Linux climb sharply. But Net Applications is probably concerned about paying clients like Microsoft and Apple more than it cares about accurate representation of the truth [1, 2, 3, 4].

“According to Steve Ballmer, GNU/Linux has more market share than Mac OS X (on the desktop).”According to Steve Ballmer, GNU/Linux has more market share than Mac OS X (on the desktop). Microsoft's internal communication as well is overly obsessed with GNU/Linux, and not so much with Apple. The matter of fact is that Apple only jeopardises Microsoft's wealthiest of customer bases, whereas the vast majority of the clientèle does not fit into this privileged class.

Microsoft's fight against GNU/Linux on the desktop is evident based on Comes vs Microsoft exhibits. Microsoft is admittedly scared of GNU/Linux. Our latest post about the Halloween Documents was cited widely and it received some interesting replies. "Barney" writes under the headline "consistent business model of anti-competitive methods":

they talk like this is competition but it is like many others have said, they'll say their horse if faster than yours, your horse is slow, and then instead of working on making sure they have the fastest horse, they put 100% of their efforts into shooting your horse.

Have you seen anything where they talk about making a better product and actually competing? No. And that stuff linked about the NetPC( NC or Network Computer ) was revealing in light of the netbook market. Consider how they are "competing" with Linux on netbooks by signing exclusive Windows XP deals such that executives from the OEMs publicly apologize for someone showing Linux on one of their netbooks. I'm sure they want to see the netbook market die off like the NC market and are using many of the same tricks and techniques. There is the smartphone and Android market too. Microsoft paid off every phone manufacturer to plug a version of their OS which was a year off at the exclusion of any Android devices or discussions even though many of these same phone manufacturers planned to ship Android phones in the next few months.

Same old Microsoft and same old Microsoft business methods. A new Microsoft my arse.


"GH" argues that:

MS wants to blend with the oss community to mix code and then like SCO from the deep, make claims against Linux.


Microsoft's 10K says: "ITEM 1A.€ RISK FACTORS Our operations and financial results are subject to various risks and uncertainties, including those described below, that could adversely affect our business, financial condition, results of operations, cash flows, and the trading price of our common stock. Challenges to our business model may reduce our revenues and operating margins."

GNU/Linux is among those risks (not just on servers, as we noted before [1, 2, 3, 4]). More news sites are beginning to write about this, e.g.:

1. Microsoft Acknowledges Linux Threat to Windows Client

Microsoft for the first time has named Linux distributors Red Hat and Canonical as competitors to its Windows client business in its annual filing to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission.

The move is an acknowledgement of the first viable competition from Linux to Microsoft's Windows client business, due mainly to the use of Linux on netbooks, which are rising in prominence as alternatives to full-sized notebooks.


2. Microsoft Blames Open Source for Sales Slump

For many of the regularly caffeinated it was the closing of 600 Starbucks locations; for a large portion of the medical community, the announcement of the sinking crocs ship. As for the tech geeks, it was surely Microsoft’s first-ever drop in annual Windows sales that made them realize: Oh my, the economy really is messed up!

In this case, however, the economy is not the only culprit. Microsoft’s Q4 report to the U.S. SEC includes a rundown of their risk and competition factors, and on that list are both Linux and open source solutions.


3. SpringSource, Canonical, and MySQL join Red Hat on Microsoft's hit list

Today, life is a little less rosy for Microsoft, as it calls out in its recent 10-K filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As TechFlash highlights, Google Android is now called out by Microsoft as a competitor, as are Apple, Opera, and Google in browsers, whereas only Mozilla was deemed worthy of Microsoft's competitive glare in 2008.


Because of GNU/Linux, Microsoft is competing on price now, rarely charging as much as it is able to get away with given a monopoly. This does not prevent the company from dabbling with price hikes though. From the British news:

Windows 7 upgrade rip-off for UK customers



Microsoft imposes 100% price hike


They give the illusion that Vista 7 is worth something and then bundle it with PCs to make it look like a bargain. At the same time, Microsoft bullies GNU/Linux vendors using racketeering tactics; it is always trying to tax Linux. Here is an old but highly relevant quote:

[Judge Thomas Penfield Jackson] went as far as to compare [Microsoft’s] declaration of innocence to the protestations of gangland killers. He was referring to five gang members in a racketeering, drug-dealing, and murder trial that he had presided over four years earlier. [...] Jackson believed that Gates & Co.’s “crime” was hubris—a refusal to acknowledge that the nation’s antitrust laws applied to them. He was only half joking when he told me, “If I were able to propose a remedy of my devising, I’d require Mr. Gates to write a book report.” The assignment, Jackson said, would be a recent biography of Napoleon, and he went on, “Because I think he has a Napoleonic concept of himself and his company, an arrogance that derives from power and unalloyed success, with no leavening hard experience, no reverses.”


Not much has changed since then:

Notice how Steve [Ballmer] diverts the attention of the public from the real issue here: money. What Steve here tries to underline - as he has done in oh-so-many-occasions - is the fact that everything has a price. If his company sells, then by comparison, what is free must also have a price. You see, for Steve is crucial that the consumers get brainwashed with this idea. Otherwise they could all just wake up one day and say “hey - what have we been paying for all this time? Why can Linux be free?” So this is the story of the happy little “intelectual property” fairy. Steve used to call Linux users “communists”. Linux used to be a “cancer”. Do you know what communists do? They monopolize people.


GNU/Linux is Microsoft's Nemesis.

Comments

Recent Techrights' Posts

Microsoft's Nat Friedman Became Unemployed the Same Time the SLAPPs Against Techrights Started Coming From His Friends (Weeks After We Had Exposed Scandals About Him and the Serial Strangler, His Best Friend, Who Got Arrested a Few Days Later)
Nat Friedman is not "Investor, entrepreneur"
Weeding Out Extremism in Our Community
To me it seems like Microsoft Lunduke is rapidly becoming like a "hate preacher" who operates online, breeding an extremist ideology or trying to soften its image
Censorship Versus Fact-Checking and Quality Control
It's not censorship but a matter of quality control
Gemini Links 07/07/2025: BaseLibre Numerical System and TUI Rant
Links for the day
Two Risks to Companies: The Microsoft Culture and the Microsoft Tools
Novell was killed by a form of "social engineering" by Microsoft
It's Hard to Trust People Who Worked - Not Only Those Who Still Work - at Microsoft
Bryan Lunduke is just what people would call an "arsehole of a person"
 
The 'Corporate Neckbeard' is Not the "Good Guy"
Works for IBM
The Nasty Smear (and Stereotype) of "Neckbeard" or "Greybeard" is Ageism
This is the sort of stuff they might try to volley at critics of Wayland
Why Many of Us Use X Server and Will Continue to Use It For Many Years to Come
Don't make this about politics
Brett Wilson LLP Uses Threats to Demand Changes to Pages or Removal of Pages Without Even Revealing Which Staff Member Does That (Sometimes People From Another Firm!)
This has been in the public for years
Dan Neidle Said "It Really Then Became a Job of Tormenting" Lawyers Like Brett Wilson LLP (Who Threatened Him for Exposing Crimes, Just Like They Threatened My Wife a Few Months Later)
he and his wife decided to take on the evil people and their evil lawyers
Large Language Models (LLMs) Externalise Their Cost to the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
"The forty-sixth Free Software Bulletin is now available online!"
Reinforcing the Allegations Some More, Bryan Lunduke Digs His Own Grave
In his latest episodes he merely repeats his own lies, which I debunked using evidence right from his own mouth
Global Warming and Free Software as a Force of Mitigation
we'll need to think about Software Freedom, not just brands like "Linux"
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Sunday, July 06, 2025
IRC logs for Sunday, July 06, 2025
[Video] "Copyleft Isn't a Bug."
"Copyleft isn’t a bug. It’s a feature. GNU GPL forced the world to treat code like a public good."
Being in Social Control Media Means Exposing Oneself to Heckling
Richard Stallman does not (either himself or directly) post to any social control media
Links 06/07/2025: Airlines Perils, Scams, and Breaches
Links for the day
For the Second Time, Bryan Lunduke From Microsoft is Siccing Racist Trolls and Vandals at Me
You're only reinforcing the point we made yesterday
Links 06/07/2025: End to End Encryption at Risk, Reuters Twitter ("X") Account Withheld in India
Links for the day
Gemini Links 06/07/2025: Tinylog and Certification Rotation
Links for the day
Links 06/07/2025: Climate Change and "The Right to Criticise"
Links for the day
PCLinuxOS Sites Coming Back, Gradually
let's just be patient
Social Control Media, Even If Based on Free Software, Still Has Many Problems
a distraction from what actually mattered and still matters
IBM is Not Your Master
IBM makes friends with people who exclude the majority of the population: women
Help Fund the Free Software Foundation (FSF)
If you have some dollars to spare, go support the FSF
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Saturday, July 05, 2025
IRC logs for Saturday, July 05, 2025
A Short History of Attacks on Techrights (and Boycott Novell Before That)
good opportunity to tell again the story of several (not all) attempts to silence us
The Mainstream Media Took 4 Days to Realise Microsoft Shut Down Its Operations in Pakistan and Fired Everybody
We estimate that Microsoft has had about 29,000 layoffs since January
Leadership in Free Software
Don't let IBM lead. It's a terrible flag bearer.
“Twibel” Actions Against Comedians (and Why It's a Truly Low Blow)
they try to make up in quantities for a lack of merit or quality
Linux Foundation Apparently Flirting With Slop (Marketing by LLM-Generated SPAM)
The Web is in a really bad state!
COVID-19 Sped Up Site Improvements in Techrights
A few months later we created our very own IRC network
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: Negative Questions and 'Touching Grass' (Going Outside)
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Dalai Lama Succession as 90th Birthday Approaches, 40 deg C in China
Links for the day
Links 05/07/2025: Hungary and US Defecting to Russia, "Google's Hotseat Hypocrisy"
Links for the day
Gemini Links 05/07/2025: 4th of July 2025 and "Zig Roadmap 2026"
Links for the day
How to Combat the Exploitation and Abuse by Microsoft GitHub
Not to mention corruption and crimes against women
Bryan Lunduke is Actually Sending His Audience to Attack People
"[Lunduke] is actually sending his audience to attack people."
Even The Right Wing is Rejecting Bryan Lunduke
no wonder he became so irrelevant and marginal
Microsoft's MSN Helps Microsoft Spread Lies About the Layoffs' Scale (Well Over 25,000 People Laid Off This Year)
There seem to be monopolies on lies and on truth
The Death of X Has Been Greatly Exaggerated (by Compromised Media)
X.Org Server is alive and well
Rewriting Things in Rust
How far would you go?
In 2025 Everything is "AI". Remember Blockchains?
Talk about what companies and things (services, products, software) actually do, not the labels they use
Julian Assange Has Been Free for a Year
Julian Assange and I disagreed on some things
Monopolies and Scalping
Monopolies gravitate towards price hikes
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Friday, July 04, 2025
IRC logs for Friday, July 04, 2025
Microsoft's August Layoffs Wave: "August is Confirmed for Additional Performance Based Cuts"
"August is confirmed for additional performance based cuts from the recent connects along with additional organizational cuts."
What Microsoft Reputation Laundering (With a Weaponised Law Degree) Looks Like in a Foreign Continent
You would expect this in uncivilised and primitive countries
Slopwatch: LLMs 'Write' Fake or Distorted 'News' About "Linux"
LLM slop disguised as news