To: Rusty Johnson who wrote (1528 ) 5/10/1999 10:19:00 PM From: Rusty Johnson Read Replies (1) | Respond to
Linux's Threat to Microsoft Microsoft's challenge has been to reproduce the strange ecology of Windows on the Internet. For while most desktop and server systems in local area networks (LANs) once used Microsoft Windows, and therefore all software developers wrote for Windows, on the Internet most servers are not Windows, most desktops are non-proprietary browsers, and developers write software that can easily find a home on any host. In order to turn the Internet into one great Microsoft LAN, the company requires a share of the Internet server market similar to its share of LAN servers. Then Internet developers would write server applications that ran only on Windows, and Web developers would design sites that took advantage of specific features in Windows. But the success of Linux means that this will probably never happen. In Linux, the Internet has found an OS commensurate with its needs. Like Unix, on which it is based, and unlike Windows, Linux is, in the jargon of the industry, scalable and robust. It offers the benefits of open-source development: the nearly continuous improvement of a program by its most enthusiastic users. People want to use it. Together with Unix OSs, Linux means that Windows' share of the server market will never be overwhelming, and developers will write Internet applications, not Windows applications.
