OSMS? (Open Source Microsoft?)

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There was an interesting article in IT Manager’s Journal published yesterday, talking about MS’s Longhorn and Linux/OSS.

While there are many quotable quotations in this article – for example, the author speculates that Longhorn will never ship – here is the paragraph that got me thinking:

But Microsoft, with $50 billion in cash, is hardly dead. Strategically it may have painted itself into a corner by relentlessly pursuing its traditional high-margin model: a weekend Inquirer article points out that there is almost nothing about the company’s software quality, business practices, service, marketing, or pricing that have made friends of its customers. Lacking its monopoly position, a lot of customers would just as soon do without flawed software, non-existent support and increasingly-frequent, enterprise-wide, virus-induced shutdowns, especially at Microsoft’s astronomical prices.

— Chris Gulker

It was interesting to contemplate this stripped-to-the-basics message. While things were different in the past (sorta), today’s Microsoft has only its monopoly to thank for its past (war chest) and present success (continued large sales due to upgrades and so on).

However, this article missed a couple of key points:

  • For Microsoft, Windows/Longhorn is a means, not an end: MS makes profits by tying highly profitable products such as Office, Visual Studio, SQL & Exchange Servers to the OS. These products are the end. So while the battlefield may be OS – Window/Longhorn vs. Linux, for example – the spoils of the war, for MS, are the apps that sit on top of the OS.

  • MS makes great tools: While the company is known for its embrace and destroy tactics, the few products it has actually done itself are best described as tools: Visual Studio, SQL Server (really a nice suite of tools on top of Sybase code) and so on.

So what exactly does this mean for this article and for MS vs. OSS in general?

It means that MS has some wiggle room. MS could leverage its tools skills to enter the OSS market in a way that’s completely separate from their current proprietary offerings. So it could be spun as an expansion, not a concession.

An example I see as a prime MS target is the Postgres database. This is a database that is far superior to the far more popular mySQL database; Postgres is really on par with Oracle in terms of functionality and ANSI/ACID compliance and so on than mySQL, that’s for sure.

The new UnitedLinux distribution is supposed to come with Postgres as the default database, not mySQL (mainly because of the licenses under which each is distrubuted – actually, the mySQL developer tools are the issue, I think).

Now, currently mySQL has many more and far superior tools than Postgres – so here’s a wide open market for MS to come in, build a low-cost proprietary tool as an “Enterprise Manager” for Postgres. As long as MS doesn’t…well, act like MS and get their undies in a knot over licensing agreements (cost per seat, single-user license blah blah), they could shortly own the lower-end (non-Oracle/DB2) *nix market, without having to touch the actual database code. Obviously, if they were smart they would do an IBM and fund and support the Postgres movement…

And this would not really cut into their basic offerings – yes, some would abandon SQL Server and do Linux/Postgres instead, but right now the market is starting to shift, why not be there to establish a beachhead? Hell, I’d pay $100 for a good, solid Postgres front end (hint: Should be versions for Linux and Windoze; client may differ from server OS).

It’s an interesting thought, and a way for MS to test the OSS waters without really admitting that they are getting cold feet on Windows/Longhorn.

And this would benefit MS in two other ways, if done correctly:

  • Would make MS a little more friendly to the OSS community (though many would consider this a threat, as well). If done correctly, MS could keep the tool proprietary (but low cost), but have MS developers dedicated to help Postgres efforts (a la RedHat/IBM with Linux). It would be in MS’s best interest, as well.

  • Would give this area of MS a good look at OSS, and any learning experience is a good thing. Might help them in other areas, as well.

Will this happen? I doubt it, but I still think this would be a brilliant move.

And dammit, I want a good Postgres tool! Command line is fine, but sometimes it’s nice to have an IDE.