Just one question, where is my Microsoft Linux? Give me that and a UI better than Unity (like Gnome 2) and I'll actually pay for it. Subscription. Seriously. I don't even need a "Visual Sudio for Linux", Eclipse works great but hey if you want to put C# apps on Linux I might go back to buying MSDN (for Linux) oh and this deal is only on if you don't take it all away in a year or two. You bet the farm on Linux Microsoft, and I'll bet the rest of my future on Microsoft and Linux.
Microsoft, just go all in: embrace Linux kernel and make a MS GUI on top of it, call it MSLinux or something. It will save time/money along the way I believe.
When one of these companies realizes they can create a polished Linux distribution, using the absurd amount of funds they have, the future of desktop computing is theirs.
And the funny thing is it is probably less work than maintaining their current solution.
Also I don’t think it has to be an either or situation. There is nothing stopping MS from supporting NT systems and putting future development into Linux systems. Similar to how they’re doing .NET and .NET Core. Over time they can port their office suite and other programs and drivers to the Linux system and the users will come with them.
And at this point they’ve already started to drive developers away from NT because of their Linux offerings. Let’s be honest, most developers would pick Unix in a heartbeat over NT (to develop in and deploy to) and now they have that option.
Also if anyone with power at Microsoft is reading this and this is a path the company ever takes: don’t make a ChromeOS, make an Ubuntu.
I honestly don't think Microsoft cares about the Windows Desktop platform anymore. Certainly their actions regarding Windows 10 don't suggest that they do.
My bet is that if they release a Linux distro, it will be Microsoft's take on ChromeOS, tied to Azure and Office 365 and all that, with any other stuff shunted off somewhere in a container or VM. Oh, you can install your own software from other sources at will, you'll just have to compile it yourself or rely on a network of repos and maintainers. It'll be the death of everything I actually like about computing and I'm not looking forward to it.
I think it is starting to make sense for Microsoft to have their own Linux distro for servers.
However acquiring Canonical may not be the way to do it. I don’t see any point for them to promote Linux on desktop. Buying Canonical and then getting rid of desktop side would be bad PR.
To be honest, Windows really should just rebase on to Linux. They can make their programs work on linux. But the OS isn't the future for Microsoft when it comes to profits. Their future is software and tooling. I don't follow MS's financials, but I bet their growth with Azure and Linux is far outpacing Windows license keys. I believe they have already indicated that Ubuntu is far more popular than their own server OS. The current and future cash cow is Microsoft making money off developer tooling/infrastructure and their apps.
And honestly, Microsoft isn't doing too bad at tooling. Had you told me 3 years ago I would be developing .NET applications, mostly ASP.Core, on linux, I woulda said you were stoned. But here I am today, cranking out .NET code that runs servers on Linux. And the tooling is pretty good and is just getting better.
Just to add some context, Windows remains a significant part of MS's revenue stream, but in recent years has been overtaken by cloud services (Azure). From their most recent SEC-10K (July 2020, pg 92, Part II Item 8) [1]: (revenue, in billion $)
* Server products and cloud services: 41 (in 2020), 26 (in 2018)
* Office products and cloud services: 35 (in 2020), 28 (in 2018)
* Windows: 22 (in 2020), 19 (in 2018)
* Gaming: 12 (in 2020), 10 (in 2018)
Windows continues to be important (probably a defensive revenue stream), but strategically I wonder what the advantage is of switching to a Linux kernel. So many things would break (the 3rd party driver ecosystem for one would have to turn over several times to catch up), plus MS would lose full control over the direction of kernel development. It also doesn't really help or hinder their Azure strategy -- a large percentage of VMs on Azure are Linux VMs. But I'll stop pontificating without real knowledge and just leave it at that.
I remember when Microsoft teamed up with IBM on OS/2, so I'd predict that Microsoft comes out with its own brand of Linux within 5 years. That will give them time to learn what they need to include/exclude and support.
I've been preaching this for years... if MS adopts Linux, ups their GUI effort to create something useful atop Wayland, while providing a seamless way to run Win32 apps until the world migrates to Linux on the desktop helmed by Microsoft, they will completely destroy Apple on short notice.
It would be a major, revolutionary move for Nadella to do this and I doubt he has the heft or charisma to sell this to the board/shareholders, but if Microsoft goes full steam ahead on Linux and dumps Windows, it's buh-bye Apple and everything they ever produced. They can probably even eat into Google's droid pie.
Ditch Win32/NT, port the cash cow called MS Office to Linux and polish a Windows-like GUI atop Linux/Wayland in the best way they can, be it via Qt, GTK, I don't care - just get it done... and set the world ablaze and free.
Bet you they could probably deliver something in under 3 years.
Unless you can demonstrate to Microsoft that enterprise desktop Linux support ROI can ever rivals Window’s or their cloud bunsiness, they won’t be interested.
In fact, I’m pretty sure Microsoft doesn’t know what to do with the Windows business at this point. They really would love to dump it, but they can’t. Office is more profitable than Windows. Azure is more profitable that Office and Windows. If trends keep, Xbox will over take Windows. There is no growth potential anywhere in the Windows business. They tried hard with the Surface line to imitate what Apple has with OSX, but they failed. Surface didn’t become the de facto Windows hardware like the Mac is for OSX. It’s just a side hussle to see where it could lead in the future for them.
Microsoft already announced their “Azure Linux” distribution which is like Amazon is a fedora based Linux flavor that just lets them control the versioning of all user space rpm packages for a server/docker offering in Azure.
they have no interest in making this a full “Enterprise Linux” offering. as long as they can offer servers an docker images that are rpm compatible, they are good for now.
WSL is entirely kernel layer. So whatever your distro is, they are good with it.
Unless Microsoft has an Activision-sized amount of cash burning a hole in its pocket, that feels unlikely. Seems far easier/likelier to make a Microsoft branded Debian than to go all-in-on Ubuntu. Maybe I could take the aqui-hire angle, but how many Ubuntu devs would want to stay with Microsoft?
I will believe Microsoft loves Linux when they decide to drop the development of their buggy NT kernel and starts to build windows on top of the mainline Linux kernel.
If you don't I bet IBM or HP will.
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