Will they lobby for laws that prohibit Linux or make it difficult to install? What actions might they take in the future?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z7lI2fyyleY&pp=ygUVZmx5dGVjaCBMaW51eCB3aW5kb3dz
spoiler
It’s an Apil fools video. Not real
Hear me out on this one “Microsoft Linux”
pays even more to hardware manufacturers to add windows by default, and make drivers windows only.
Make a version of Office that works on Linux natively.
Linux has been becoming a “serious threat” for 20+ years now. I’ll wait.
Don’t get me wrong I like Linux a lot. But if you step back and look objectively, it has a lot of issues trying to grow outside the hobby/enthusiast community for the desktop.
I think that linux has a couple of things that might help it grow outside its traditional niche that it hasn’t in the past. Proton has been a major step forward in to the gaming scene. A lot of people are very unhappy about windows 11. The EU in particular is also investing in ways to get out of American techs thumb due to the geopolitical landscape.
I don’t have too high expectations personally but who knows.
Cry maybe
Exactly what they’re doing right now. What cable companies did. What every dominant business does when something better starts to eat their lunch.
Become increasingly abusive and scummy towards the customers who are left, because they’re either too deeply ingrained, spineless or lazy to change and they’ve already self-selected.
Work with hardware and software vendors to break linux compatibility.
Which in the precise moment when Linux is a serious threat is not possible since there is no assurance that the hardware vendors would accept, given they now have an alternative.
Secure boot and anti-cheat.
That not an option. If Linux is a serious threat it means that a normal people could use it without any problem, with all the common software needed (Office, a browser and few other things).
At this point trying to lock down the PC to have the be able to run Windows is not really an option, people could simply choose to not use Windows anymore and be productive anyway.Only problem are games, but it is probably solvable
Microsoft already lost the home OS battle when people switch their main devices to smartphones with iOS or Android.
M$ is switching to defense and surveillance software. Once they failed to force their crap OS into the phone market, they knew their monopoly days were numbered on the PC. They are hoping to lock in devs on GitHub, but it looks like that might backfire with their overt push for CoPilot use.
How exactly do they hope to lock devs in github??? That’s absurd, there’s no way they can achieve that. I can always take my projects elsewhere and there’s nothing they can do to stop me.
Yea, but will anyone else find it?
They will, if you change the links and share them with at least your users.
I believe they just don’t care, since not only is Windows not very profitable anymore, the real money is at businesses. So as long as they sell licenses to businesses (business laptops, etc), but also GitHub Enterprise (yes, Micro$oft also owns GitHub) Microsoft earns enough money that way. And also think cloud (Azure)…
My guess is therefor that the focus on Windows isn’t that big anymore. I just hope more companies and gaming devs/publishes also push native binaries towards Linux.
not only is Windows not very profitable anymore, the real money is at businesses.
Hear me out, this is exactly why they care. Windows as a product isn’t profitable anymore, but as a market share it is. Apple has always enjoyed their locked down ecosystem and Google is trying to completely block side loading on devices we already largely don’t have control over the bootloader. It’s no secret Microsoft has been seething with jealousy for years.
https://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/worldwide
You’re a soulless corporate ghoul, how do you make those numbers work for you? Why do you think they have the absolute gall to tell you to throw your computer out and get one that supports TPM 2.0? Why do you think there are still so many people willing or not that will swallow that bitter pill that’s Windows 11?
I’m not trying to call you out in particular here or anything, but I think it’s foolish to assume they don’t
Agreed
I think Windows is primarily a development environment for Xbox, just as macOS is primarily a development environment for iOS Everything else of value from Microsoft is available via the web/cloud (even Office)
Eventually, Microsoft might even decide that it’s more profitable to abandon Windows completely
office 365 is a fraction of the true power of office. do not even try to compare the two.
I agree
But how many paying customers need features that are not in the online/cloud versions of Office?
Sure this is a shrinking number of people?
I think you’re mixing up Office 365 and Office Online.
Office 365 is a subscription for Microsoft Office that includes access to both the full, more powerful desktop Office applications and the much less powerful Office Online.
Though I don’t think it’s even called Office 365 anymore, but I don’t respect MS enough to bother to Google what they’re calling it now.
MS hasn’t released an Office version outside 365 for 8 years.
365 is Office for them.
I stand corrected. Thanks.
I’ll respect office 365 when it respects recusive power points
Embrace, extend, extinguish.
SQL Server runs on Linux. Azure supports Linux. The next step is to extend into their own distro, get everyone using it, then drop support for mainstream Linux.
Will it work? Maybe. They’ll have to make Microsoft Linux more attractive than Debian and Red Hat.
What do you think Ubuntu is? Microsoft’s touch in it is so obvious that only a fool would miss it.
systemd anyone?
/s
Where does LP work these days, anyway?
Some others have already said the “embrace, extend, extinguish” but here’s my take on it. Pair it with Secure Boot and TPM 2.0
- Embrace: Secure Boot can already work with Linux, how lucky! This gives them not exactly control, but authoritative denial over your boot process and hardware.
- Extend: This is the part that remains to be seen. If they feel threatened enough by the shift in the gaming landscape, mind you not over losing out on sales or the hearts of gamers or anything, but again control, they may begin to make Linux offerings. A concession to allow an honest to god, thick Office client on Linux would certainly appeal to some. Adobe gets in on that action to back them up with Photoshop and Activision with Call of Duty, etc.
- Extinguish: TPM 2.0. One of the less talked about features of this is remote attestation (“Remote attestation allows changes to the user’s computer to be detected by authorized parties. For example, software companies can identify unauthorized changes to software, including users modifying their software to circumvent commercial digital rights restrictions.” - DRM). We’re already seeing this with CoD on Windows. They’ll allow you to run much requested Windows software on Linux, even provide direct support possibly, but at the cost of not precisely control but authoritative denial. Which still works out to be control in most ways since if you want to use the software and they are to remotely attest, they can also insist that part of that attestation is you running some sort of telemetry or not running software they disagree with.
The reason I think this route is highly likely is because it plays well with uninformed consumers. To the untrained eye it looks like they’re giving ground and actually allowing for broader support of their software while effectively gaining control over the environment once again and removing the biggest benefits of running FOSS on your system.
Also worth noting that they own Github, which puts them in a position to disrupt a huge amount of Linux infrastructure if they ever feel like it. They might also pull some weird move like trying to buy Canonical or something like that.
This is a good point. I’ve been trying to make it clear in a lot of my predictions that Microsoft doesn’t want or even need full control, just enough. They don’t even need to do anything particular here other than continue to manage github with their current level of incompetence.
Was trying to source an article here, wasn’t there just an outage or some other major issue a few days ago? Anyways …
I think what’s missing is the author of pulseaudio and systemd among other “modern” Linux tech (I.e. adopted by many popular distros) is a Microsoft employee.
Windows is only 12% of Microsoft’s revenue, and between Mac, Linux and ChromeOS, it really doesn’t have a monopoly anymore on desktop (about 70%). On top of that, desktop usage in general is decreasing, and is already less than 50% of all web traffic.
What I’m saying is that I think it’s safe to say something else will likely “kill” Windows long before Linux ever becomes a serious threat to it.
Windows is only 12% of Microsoft’s revenue
That may be true, but a lot of their profits build on that Windows monopoly. I wouldn’t be surprised if about 80% of their profits depend on Windows.
Do you have a source for that? This chart says otherwise:
Thanks for the chart. 👍
Tomato tomato.
I wrote profits, and from the chart you show, clearly above 50% of their revenue is from Windows and derived products.
Last I heard the profit margin for Windows and Office was around 90%, AFAIK by far the highest of the business. So I’m pretty sure that combined with Server products Search and the part of gaming that is on Windows, it will be very close to 80% of the profits.
