Microsoft is Coca-Cola.

2016-05-23 10:10  mscc      [permalink]

Or, at least, that was what popped into my head when I thought (again) about Microsoft open-sourcing the Windows operating system. Why wouldn't they? Coca-cola gave the super-secret recipe away at some point. It takes a certain stability, and vision, and momentum, to do that, but in my humble opinion both Coca-Cola and Microsoft have that.

Let's see how this could work. It's not because Microsoft would open-source Windows that they should stop selling it. Far from it. You can still buy Coca-cola, right? Have you ever bought cola made from the official Coca-Cola recipe, but concocted by someone else? Would you? Same goes for Windows. If you're in the market for a new computer, and want to run Windows on it, you'll probably go to the source, buy Microsoft, and be sure to get updates (and some free OneDrive space, and an Office365 trial...)

So I really am hopeful. Recently Microsoft has really (really!) opened up quite a bit, and even chose the MIT-license for some things, which was unthinkable just a few years ago. So a logic step would be to go all the way, and release the cash-cows, such as Windows, perhaps SQL Server... Even only perhaps there's a small chance they won't be the cash-cows for much longer... Computer sales is under pressure from smartphones and other hand-held devices. The database landscape is still suffering after-shocks from the NoSQL phenomenon, and from things like PostgreSQL and MariaDB, we roughly know what it takes to run a database anyway. So to ensure cash flowing in in the long run, it's almost a must to open up on old secrets. At least in my humble opinion.

Update: Microsoft is too big! Time to split it up in pieces.

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