MS On the Software War Frontlines

With Vista sales not doing as well as expected, Microsoft is bringing out some of its guns, and it’s pointing them at open source.

In Florida, MS in a bid to maintain its monopoly dispatched men in black to block legislation of the promotion of open source for upgrading their Department of Health’s software and computer equipment. This gives Microsoft a clear advantage, as well as displaying their clear motive. By using open source technologies, Florida would have saved taxpayers’ money. Instead, their taxes will be funding “substandard expensive hardware”, according to Suncoast Linux Users Group (SLUG) member Matt Florell.

And in Microsoft defense news, Microsoft will be launching $3 Windows-office bundles to emerging markets to counter open-source domination of these markets, as well as a preemptive strike on the One Laptop Per Child initiative. However, these will only be sold to governments who are willing to pay half the price of the PC. This news shouldn’t come as a surprise to many, as Microsoft has often showed hostilities on anything that could pose a threat to them.

On the other side, however, as opposed to Microsoft’s cerebral, often-times underhanded attacks, an open source protester crashes Bill Gates’ speech at a Chinese university, when he walked on stage and unveiled a banner with “free software, open source” written on it.

Dell CEO Michael Dell is also sporting a brand new laptop, with the latest version of Ubuntu, Feisty Fawn, installed. This should come as no surprise as Dell has also recently started selling Linux desktops to consumers.

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