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What does *nix mean for Redmond?

David Berlind ZDNet.com

Published: 04 Jan 2005 17:25 GMT

But those are a lot of "ifs". Anybody who thinks that Microsoft is just going to lie down and die as a result of this revolution in what $50 gets you is dreaming. If Novell, Sun, or any other company can turn a profit off of a $50 soup-to-nuts desktop offering, there's no reason Microsoft can't do it, too. It's just that the result may not be Windows and Office as we know them in their entirety. For example, Microsoft already has plans to offer a $36 Windows XP Starter Edition in Asia and will be offering copies of Office to certain schools at $2.50 per copy.

Furthermore, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is now talking about the idea of the $100 PC. So, clearly Ballmer and Microsoft are thinking about bringing down the cost of software, since a $100 PC that requires $300 worth of software is simply inconceivable. So, too, is the idea of buying a $2,815 computer that only requires $50 of software to make it work (which is what you get if you pay Sun $50 per year to run JDS/Solaris on an AMD box that you buy at retail on eBay).

Devotees of Linux will be the first ones to point out that the pressure to bring the cost of Windows PCs down to $100 is a direct result of Linux. But Ballmer disagrees and, right now, so do I. According to Ballmer, "There's no appreciable amount of Linux on client systems anywhere in the world." This is absolutely true. Although there are some success stories for desktop Linux, such as with certain governments, these are very few and far between.

If the price of Windows and Office comes down, it won't be simply because of Linux. Nor will it be simply because impoverished Asians need it, as Ballmer is asserting. The price will come down because a handful of companies are redefining what $50 (or even less) gets you -- whether it's Linux-based, Solaris-based, or even Internet-based like IBM's Workplace, or some other form of a utility computing-like, subscription-priced thin client (e.g.: Sun's recently announced Sun Ray initiative or whatever Google comes up with) that delivers on the basic requirements for most knowledge workers. It will be because, among all of these and other market forces, $50 is about what the market will bear.