02.12.08
Acquire to Exploit, Acquire to Eliminate
A takeover — let alone a hostile one — is the most aggressive form of embrace. What follows tends to disserve the acquired party and quite often its customers as well.
If you watch the news very carefully, you’ll notice that Microsoft is still seeding Silverlight in companies it acquires. I published an article about it last week, in relation to Yahoo. And now it happens to be Ustream that Microsoft wants to exploit.
Our tipster also mentions that Microsoft would use Ustream as a way to promote its Adobe Flash competitor, Silverlight.
As a friendly reminder, consider the following articles again. They talk about Silverlight’s case against GNU/Linux.
- Microsoft Shares the Love, but Not with Linux
- Microsoft’s Silverlight Promises to Disrupt Linux Web Users
- Microsoft’s ‘Everywhere’ excludes Linux
- ECIS Accuses Microsoft of Plotting HTML Hijack
It is worth re-emphasising that Novell, Silverlight and OOXML are by all means inter-connected. They cannot be be considered in isolation because a lot of politics is involved. Novell supports Silverlight and OOXML simply because it is in Microsoft’s best interests, very much at the expense of GNU/Linux users who suffer from both.
Speaking of hostile and political acquisitions, consider our recent writeups about Citrix and Xen and then read this new article which confirms that Xen’s days (as a hypervisor at least) are numbered.
Although it was only made public officially on Monday, the news was revealed in information sent out by Citrix last week and picked up on by CNET News.com sister site ZDNet in a blog comment. “Citrix officials have indicated that they will use the hot XenSource branding, but de-emphasize its identity as a virtualization company,” according to the posting.
Citrix is a close partner of Microsoft, which very much fears the disruptive trend that is virtualisation. Attempts to extinguish virtualisation should therefore be seen as highly suspicious.
It’s hardly surprising that Ubuntu has just steered away from Xen and chose KVM instead. Unless someone forks Xen, it might as well just sink as a virtualisation solution for GNU/Linux. █
Highlight: Novell was the first to acknowledge that Microsoft FUD tactics had substance. Novell then used anti-Linux FUD to market itself. 
Highlight: Xandros let Microsoft make patent claims and brag about (paid-for) OOXML support. 
Highlight: Linspire's CEO not only fell into Microsoft arms, but he also assisted the company's attack on GNU/Linux. 
Highlight: Microsoft craves pseudo (proprietary) standards and gets its way using proxies and influence which it buys. 
Highlight: The invasion into the open source world is intended to leave Linux companies neglected, due to financial incentives from Microsoft. 
Analysis: Xen, an open source hypervisor, possibly fell victim to Microsoft's aggressive (and stealthy) acquisition-by-proxy strategy.