Open source poses the biggest competitive threat to Microsoft

Chief executive Steve Ballmer once famously called Linux and the open-source philosophy a “cancer.” Now it’s a fact of life in the software business.To be competitive, they have to adapt to the changing landscape.

Many industry pundits contend that open source poses the biggest competitive threat Microsoft has ever encountered. The model of making software freely available and allowing changes to the source code hasn’t yet radically altered some products, such as Microsoft’s powerful desktop software franchise.

With Linux widely installed among its corporate clients, Microsoft has chosen to accommodate it rather than ignore it.

Earlier this year, the company said that its management software would be able to keep track of both Windows and Linux machines, and its forthcoming “hypervisor” virtualisation software will be able to run Linux and other x86-compatible operating systems.

There are other indications that Microsoft is learning to live with Linux and open source.

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>> Microsoft learns to live with open source