Microsoft alters Linux message: Costly
crn.com | at | by Mike
Microsoft executives have called the open-source software Linux a cancer. They've even described the increasingly popular operating system--an alternative to Microsoft's proprietary Windows--as un-American. But now they're hoping to attach a different word: costly.
Companies including Sun Microsystems and IBM are rolling out products and creating business models based on Linux. And Microsoft has seized on that development--and points out the technological expertise and labor needed to tailor Linux to companies' needs--in arguing that free isn't really free. Linux can require costly technical staff, said Rob Enderle, an analyst with Giga Information Group.
"You lose the ability to buy something and plug it in,' he said. "It takes you more time to do it. If the [Linux expert] leaves, you could be left with something that's unsupportable.'