The Trolls in Redmond

Filed under: Computer Software — mike @ 3:22 pm

Microsoft has been on a downward spiral ever since the DOJ rained on its monopoly parade in 2000, causing Bill Gates to pass the reigns over to Steve Ballmer. Since then, nearly every major effort at Microsoft has turned out to be a failure. While the S&P 500 has since gained over 40% in value, Microsoft’s stock has remained stagnant.

Rather than “Chief Executive Officer,” a more appropriate title for Ballmer would probably be “Chief of FUD.” Linux and other open source software has grown to become a major competitive force in the marketplace, displacing Microsoft’s market share by offering far better technology at much lower costs. In response, Ballmer has called Linux a “cancer,” and spread ridiculous lies such as, “if you use any open-source software, you have to make the rest of your software open source.” I guess that nowadays, innovating is just too difficult for Redmond.

In 2003, The SCO Group launched a series of some of the most idiotic lawsuits ever seen by the software industry, alleging that Linux and open source software had infringed on its intellectual property rights. Microsoft was later found to have funded (directly and indirectly) SCO’s FUD campaign. Apparently, Ballmer realized that the company was already struggling with public opinion after being ruled to be an evil monopoly, and decided to hire someone else to help do his dirty work. SCO has since failed miserably, is about to have their stock delisted and potentially is about to go bankrupt.

Apparantly, Ballmer has now decided that Microsoft should go on the offensive themselves by spreading the rumor that Linux and OpenOffice violate 235 Microsoft patents. It’s the same tired old story we all heard four years ago from another software company that was struggling to compete in the marketplace due to its failure to innovate and create any value for its customers or shareholders. We all know where that story ends.

Microsoft is dead.

Good riddance.