COMMENTARY--Two recent headlines are just too precious to let them pass without comment. Friday's "Red Hat accuses Sun of Microsoft tactics" is one. The ZDNet version, "Red Hat: Sun's being a bully," wasn't as much fun, but the point is the same: Any company, given the chance, would use "Microsoft" tactics against its competition.
I've known this for a long time. Several years ago, when I was running conferences attended by hundreds of PC industry executives, I'd often ask the crowd if Microsoft was using unfair competitive tactics. Almost all the hands would go up. I would then ask the executives whether they'd do the same thing to their competitors if they could get away with it. Even more hands would go up.
RED HAT IS UPSET because Sun has started charging both end-users and OEMs for StarOffice, the Microsoft Office competitor that Sun owns and had previously given away. Red Hat has been including StarOffice for free in the box with its own Linux operating system; now it'll have to pay Sun if it wants to do that.
That's why Red Hat CEO Matthew Szulik is accusing Sun of taking a "Microsoft approach"--i.e., using its dominance of a market to dictate terms for everyone.
At the very least, I think Red Hat should follow its own advice: Distribute the open-source version of StarOffice, called OpenOffice, instead of the Sun-branded product. After all, isn't open source supposed to be better than the branded equivalent? Or did I miss something here?
I also think Sun has no clue how to play in the software business. That, at least, was the conclusion I reached on Friday's radio show with my guests, AnchorDesk columnist Stephan Somogyi and industry pundit Amy Wohl. As Amy pointed out, OpenOffice has developed a better team of volunteer marketers than Sun has been able to hire. Sun may know how to sell operating systems and hardware, but it has no experience developing or selling end-user software.
Red Hat isn't alone in its fear and loathing. It has become so dominant in Linux-land that a bunch of its smaller competitors have joined forces, creating a UnitedLinux to do battle with their mutual enemy.
WHICH IS PROBABLY a good thing. Having fewer Linux distributions out there makes life easier for both developers and users. And it could even forestall some of the Balkanization that has hurt Unix in the past.
As Unix became a commercial success, the various players went off in their own directions. Despite the OS's supposed "openness" and "vendor independence," in reality once you picked your flavor--from Sun, say, or HP--you were pretty much stuck with that provider. This worked well for the hardware companies, and perhaps even their customers. But it wasn't so different from the IBM lock-in of years past, or what Microsoft would like to accomplish as it extends its reach into the enterprise.
Still, even with UnitedLinux, my bet is that over time Linux will become as divided as its Unix parent. Any success Apple achieves in the Unix business (since its OS X is just a Unix with a very nice user interface on top) will make that division worse. The companies battling the Linux space, to the extent there isn't room for all of them, could splinter off in their own directions just to achieve some differentiation in that limited market.
THE RESULT: Buying Linux from IBM, Red Hat, or the new UnitedLinux will mean making more of a commitment to that specific OS and that specific vendor than the concept of an "open" operating system might suggest.
Does this mean Linux is somehow flawed in concept or execution, or that it isn't a good choice? Not at all. But over time, I believe that this is the sort of game that IBM and, perhaps, Red Hat, will be in the best position to win. And no doubt everyone will accuse the winner(s) of behaving just like Microsoft.
What do you think? Will Red Hat win? Will Sun? IBM? The United Front? Microsoft? TalkBack to me below.
