“Software analysts called Microsoft’s surprising announcement on Wednesday, that it will provide its source code to rivals, little more than eye candy that would be almost useless to licensees of the Redmond giant’s protocols,” Red Herring reports. “David Mitchell, software practice leader for Ovum, a consulting firm based in the United Kingdom, said that providing a developer, who is looking to build products that interoperate with Windows servers, with over 100 million lines of source code is overwhelming.”
“Microsoft said on Wednesday that because its best efforts have met with the commission’s rejection, it will license the source code for its Windows Server software, on which the documentation is based, to its rivals,” Red herring reports. “According to Mr. Mitchell, the market is a very different place from what it was eight years ago when the Commission’s legal action against Microsoft was initially undertaken. A sense of battle fatigue may have been behind Microsoft’s surprising move. ‘I suspect Microsoft just wants to move on. Since this case started, iTunes has emerged. They just want to put this behind them,’ said Mr. Mitchell. ‘Some of the EU rulings were not 100 percent clear. Both parties should sit down and have an open and frank discussion as to exactly what the EU needs.’ Mr. Mitchell called Microsoft’s move to offer its source code ‘superficially appealing.’ ‘Putting source code on the table only confuses matters. The two sides need a more frank discussion of what is needed,’ he said.”
Full article here.
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