Tiemann Takes the Stand

Red Hat CTO Michael Tiemann's testimony
in the continuing federal court hearings, regarding sanctions
against Microsoft for breaking antitrust laws, has been receiving a
lot of coverage the last couple of days.In his testimony, Tiemann discusses how the fear of
retaliation by Microsoft has prevented hardware manufacturers from
bundling Linux with their computers. His discussion focuses on Red
Hat's canceled bundling deal with Dell, but the
Washington
Post discusses the fact that he found the same
element of fear at Compaq and IBM. The Extreme Tech
story
mentions similar results at Intel.We tend to think of these companies as giants in their own
right, which really brings home the bullying power of
Microsoft--especially when one considers the commitment to Linux
that all of these hardware manufacturers share. IBM's commitment to
Linux is impossible to miss. Besides making Linux-compatible
hardware, Compaq always has a booth at the major Linux tradeshows
and makes available a syndicated Linux newsletter to their
customers. Intel recently released the Intel C++ and Fortran
Compilers for Linux to provide application developers with highly
optimized compilers for the Intel IA-32 and Itanium processor
families. Intel also uses Linux servers in-house that run VMware
GSX server software along with Red Hat 7.1 and 7.2 in order to
consolidate the number of physical servers needed for new IT
projects. And they have saved tens of thousands of dollars doing
it. In essence, these companies are big Linux fans or at least have
some portion devoted to Linux fandom.Microsoft is able to yield such power over these hardware
giants in the desktop market largely because this market for MS
products is so immense, and these hardware companies need to access
those markets, too. It's no secret that as much as people love to
hate Microsoft, the vast majority still use their
products--principally the MS Office suite of applications. My
impression is that the average home computer user still praises
Microsoft for making the power of the modern PC accessible to
them.One of the sanctions sought by state prosecutors would
require that Microsoft sell a license to Linux resellers to offer
MS Office products, with the idea that this would make Linux
competitive on the desktop. Microsoft is of course resisting this,
and frankly I don't see that it's needed. Judging from the demo I
saw earlier this year at LinuxWorld in New York, the HancomOffice
suite (which claims complete compatibility with MS Office products)
is every bit as good as what Microsoft offers on most levels, and
at $29.95 for the standard edition and $49.95 for the Professional
version, it comes in at hundreds less than the comparable MS Office
XP.This seems to be one more penetration into the Microsoft
armor. Another penetration, perhaps equally significant, is the
market for PCs with no operating system included. I don't know
exactly what's driving this market (or how big it is), but I
imagine the idea of just adding free Linux has something to do with
it. Doc Searls, in the UpFront section of the upcoming May issue of
Linux Journal, reports on Wal-Mart's selling
of complete PCs (Intel inside, no less) minus monitor and OS for
$399. I hope to see more vendors follow this lead. With the
exposure Wal-Mart has, maybe budget-conscious consumers will take a
second look at Linux.Eric Raymond has been prophesying the demise of Microsoft
(somewhat prematurely) for years now based on the idea that
hardware prices will eventually fall too low to absorb the cost of
the OS license. I doubt that a corporation such as Microsoft, with
such a stronghold in the software market, will disappear so easily.
I wouldn't be surprised, however, if their power to push hardware
vendors around were greatly reduced in the next few years.Richard Vernon is Editor in
Chief of Linux Journal.

email: richard@ssc.com