Microsoft Free and Open Source Messaging Problems

Here's a Microsoft quote on Mozilla:

The efforts between Mozilla and Microsoft are a prime example of the cooperation that is necessary to ensure interoperability in today’s software ecosystem. While Microsoft competes with open-source products, it also recognizes that sometimes it must build bridges with its competitors, whether proprietary or open source, to assure the best outcome for its customers.

It's from a document on Microsoft's new Open Source website.

Here's another Microsoft quote on Mozilla:

The open-source development model has yet to demonstrate the ability to support profitable software businesses that can drive the coordinated research and testing necessary to sustain innovation. Many in the open-source software community have shifted to hybrid business models. They are making the same business decisions as any commercial software company in terms of what products and services to give away, what intellectual property to protect, how to generate revenue, and how to participate in the community.

This quote was captured by Stephen Shankland in an interview with Microsoft PR director Clint Patterson about the new work Mozilla is doing with Thunderbird, and whether Microsoft would help the Thunderbird devs get their MUA working with Exchange. Aside from the naïveté it demonstrates about Clint's understanding of open source software, communities, and software businesses, it creates a problem for all of us outside of Microsoft (and just a few inside). You see, we don't get to pick just one statement as the truth.

The larger problem is of course that culture comes from the top of any organization. The last quote we got from Steve Ballmer on the subject of open source software was of course back in July in the Financial Analyst Meeting:

Open source: open source has been the issue that surrounds us. Could a commercial model like Microsoft compete with open source? And we've worked very hard on making the value of a commercial company surpass what the open source community can deliver, because frankly, it's not a business model we can embrace. It's inconsistent with shareholder value. And we've done a very good job, as you'll hear; for the first time in a few years we took some share back from Linux on the server the last quarter. And I think we've really got the formula sorted through.

Not a model Microsoft can embrace. Inconsistent with shareholder value. This is probably the most polite he's been with respect to free and open source software even if he gets it wrong.

An interview with Ray Ozzie in April at MIX quickly dances away from discussions of open source to continue to beat the drum of services, the Web, and Windows. This wasn't long after Brad Smith continued to push the patent infringement message around Linux. Craig Mundie doesn't appear to have had a public opinion on free and open source software since the early Microsoft gaffs from 2000 through 2003.

So while the company leadership is no longer making rabid statements about free and open source software, neither do they have any commentary beyond IP infringement and bad for shareholder value. What else could Mr. Patterson say?

I think from this point forward, we need to help the Microsoft Open Source Software Lab. I would encourage every journalist that gets interview time with any of the Microsoft executive team to work in a few relevant questions about free and open source software communities and businesses. This will allow the proper tone to be set for all of us, and hopefully drive just a few of those execs back to the new Microsoft Open Source site to brush up on their messaging. And then maybe next year, Bill Hilf can be given a few minutes during the company meeting held every September to talk about that maturing positioning. Stranger things have happened.

Comments

[Dalibor Topic]

If all it took for people defining Microsoft's strategies was a couple of softball questions from reporters ... Bill Hilf would be running the place by now, and have Ballmer reporting to him.

It's not a messaging issue. Ballmer and others who actually get to make decisions (and own the company) do not want to ever have their profits threatened by open source, and the best way to make it not happen is to contain, or preferably kill it if they get a chance. While Microsoft's well cultivated arrogance comes from the top down, it's unrealistic to assume that it's just arrogance and/or ignorance that's keeping open source from sweeping Microsoft.

Ballmer and his team aren't stupid, just regularly underestimated. ;)

[Uncle Fester]

Steve Ballmer is right: open source is not a business model Microsoft can embrace; because shrink-wrapped Windows+Office is a $40 billion business and open source is not.

That doesn't mean open source is not a great business -- open source is good for everyone except Microsoft. It's a good business for competitors Red Hat and MySQL; but it's a smaller business. It's great if you're a customer; *because* it's a smaller business. Open source is more efficient.

But until you identify a means of extracting $40 billion from open source then Steve is right: it's not something Microsoft can embrace. They must fight it. Which is why their cosying up to open source -- you can't control something from the outside.

[rishab ghosh]

if i was a microsoft shareholder, i'd probably agree with ballmer. and also the ms open source lab. microsoft has for years sent more people to most open source conferences i've been to than any other company - know your enemy, i guess. the open source lab appears to be doing a lot of work at trying to make friends in the open source community where useful, and understand how open source works.

great preparation for the day, if it comes, when microsoft feels it cannot (due to customer pressure) go on with its vendor lock-in, embrace-and-extend strategies. even if that is going to happen sometime, it's in microsoft (and shareholders') best interests to learn as much as possible about open source while at the same time continuing with the $40 billion rent-seeking near-monopoly for as long as possible. when the day comes, they needn't bother about how much the current open source community loves them; they'll have an enormous community of their own to work on ms office released under, e.g., the ms community licence...