The guy who said “money changes everything” obviously never heard of Linux. Otherwise he would have said “Linux changes everything,” because it does. And it could not have happened at a better time.
The guy who said “money changes everything” obviously never heard of Linux. Otherwise he would have said “Linux changes everything,” because it does. And it could not have happened at a better time.
Five years ago, the Internet was just beginning to become mainstream. Microsoft was just awakening to the fact that it represented a substantial change in the technology landscape and a potential threat to their business if they did not respond to that challenge.
Microsoft did respond, and very effectively. By some accounts, Microsoft “won” the browser wars by knocking out Netscape. They have come dangerously close to dominating the Internet in the same way that they dominate the desktop computing space. There is really only one challenger that has risen up to go toe-to-toe with Microsoft, and that’s Linux.
So why should things be any different with Linux from how they were with the dozens of competitors that Microsoft has steamrollered in the past? It’s simple. No one can beat Microsoft at their own game. They wrote the rules. Netscape, Apple, Sun, and a thousand smaller companies have tried to play Microsoft’s game on Microsoft’s turf, and they’ve been beaten up. But Linux is different. Linux changes the rules…
How so? Well, let’s stop and look at things from a purely economic point of view. One of Microsoft’s favorite tactics is to bundle products “for free” with Windows and “cut off the air supply” or revenue stream of the company they are competing with….
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