Microsoft's Love-Hate Relationship with Open Source

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In April 2012, Microsoft launched its new open source subsidiary, Microsoft Open Technologies, to handle open source products and projects for the company. The subsidiary was headed by Microsoft's long-term open source advocate, Paoli. The new subsidiary, which comprised about seventy five full and part-time employees, was considered as a link between Microsoft's proprietary development and its open-source operations. The subsidiary made it easier and faster for the software company to release open source software, participate in existing open source efforts, and accept contributions from the open source community...

Microsoft had traditionally seen Linux as a competitive threat, especially in the server market, where it competed with the Windows Server. According to industry observers, Microsoft's relationship with the Linux community has never been positive with the company having claimed that Linux had violated its patents. However, with both the enterprise and mobile computing markets relying on the Linux OS operating system, Microsoft felt it was in its best interest to fix its relationship with Linux. In July 2009, Microsoft surprised many in the open source community by actually contributing 20,000 lines of device driver code to the Linux kernel...

As part of its openness strategy, Microsoft supported a variety of external open source projects. Product teams across the company worked with an open source community and open source code as part of their product strategies. Analysts said that Microsoft was trying to make Windows a great platform for open source and had stepped up investments in standards and interoperability. In 2006, Microsoft became a founding member of the Interop Vendor Alliance (IVA) to collaborate with numerous vendors from the industry including competitors to ensure interoperability between products and offer open source licenses. The company had made freely available full technical information for protocols, file formats, standards, and other technical specifications relating to its products...

Some critics, however, were skeptical about Microsoft's commitment to OSS as the company relied on the Windows ecosystem for a vast proportion of its revenues and generated a bulk of its annual revenue from its closely guarded proprietary software. They were of the view that such an entity was not going to change overnight. According to Schnell, "Open source solutions don't generally look good on the balance sheet...

Going forward, Microsoft planned to host many open source projects by cooperating with communities involved in the development of open source software. The company said it would establish long-term relationships with companies who saw the development of OSS as their main priority and support various standards for open-source software. Paoli said, "It is important to note that Microsoft and our business groups will continue to engage with the open source and standards communities in a variety of ways, including working with many open source foundations such as Outercurve Foundation, the Apache Software Foundation, and many standards organizations."...

Exhibit I: Microsoft Corporation- A Timeline
Exhibit II: Operating Segments of Microsoft
Exhibit III: Microsoft Corporation - Selected Financial Data
Exhibit IV: Some Open Source Competitors of Microsoft
Exhibit V: Microsof'’s Open Source Strategy
Exhibit VI: Screenshots of Microsoft Openness Website

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