The key battleground might be in server configuration and management. And unlike the desktop space, where only one huge corporation, Microsoft, has been dictating terms and pricing, there now seems to be real competition going on between Microsoft, Sun, and the various entities pushing Linux and Unix. Spelling out the state of affairs further, Donald Rosenberg, author of Open Source: The Unauthorized White Papers, says, “Open source turns the proprietary high-margin software game into a lower-margin service game.”
Solazzo [of IBM] says the biggest moves in the near future will be in “virtual servers,” where workloads are consolidated on one networked server, and in “server clustering,” where companies can get the “supercomputer feel of distributed workloads.
The last paragraph quotes Donald Rosenberg: “Very high-level people at Microsoft see the big picture and are horrified. Open source is the end of the software business as we know it. Very simply put, it will enable the majority of software that is written to emerge from its hiding place within corporate IT departments and be traded and jointly worked on because of the mutual advantage.”
Rethinking the Desktop +T
