Microsoft breakup proposal may be boon to Linux

Many companies developing products around the renegade Linux operating system said a possible breakup of the software giant would be a boon to Linux, which has already been making inroads against Microsoft’s Windows NT software in network servers running Web sites and email servers.

Where Linux has not made much headway is on the desktop, where it has been seen as too unwieldy to use, and because of a lack of popular applications such as Word running on Linux.

"Linux is on track to beat Microsoft regardless of what the Justice Department does," said Larry Augustin, chief executive of VA Linux Systems Inc, a developer of systems and services optimized for Linux in Sunnyvale, Calif.

"I think that separating the company into an applications piece and an operating systems piece though, could significantly accelerate that, particularly since the applications piece of the company would have a strong economic incentive to Port Office to Linux," Augustin said. "If Microsoft Office ran on Linux immediately we would see Linux with a 10-15 per cent share of the desktop operating system market," he added.

Linux currently has an estimated 4 per cent share of the desktop operating systems market, which is primarily dominated by Microsoft’s Windows products.

"There is no guarantee they will do that (develop applications for Linux)," said Bob Young, chairman of Red Hat Inc of Research Triangle Park, NC, and the largest distributor of Linux. "But they will be subject to the demands of their customers and they would be foolish to ignore those customer requests."

Another Linux company executive, David Sifry, co-founder of Linuxcare Inc in San Francisco, said that he thought the break-up proposal was "relatively tame" and suggested that Microsoft be split up into four parts, operating system, applications, Internet properties and developer tools.

"Microsoft still has tremendous control over standards (with developer tools and languages like Visual Basic etc)," Sifry said. "I think if Microsoft has its way, they will put all the developer tools into the operating systems company."

Calif-based Sun Microsystems Inc, whose chairman Scott McNealy has been a big proponent of breaking up Microsoft, was fairly subdued in its immediate reaction.

"The proposal submitted today by the DOJ and the States is complex, and we will be studying it carefully over the next few days," said a Sun Micro spokeswoman in statement. "It is an appropriately serious response to the serious harms caused by Microsoft’s violation of the antitrust laws."

Industry excutives also noted that it was impossible to speculate on how long it would be before an actual break-up of the company occurs, based on Microsoft’s zealous determination to fight the proposal in court. It has said it will fight all the way to the US Supreme Court.

"It’s very important to me that we keep the company together," said an angry Bill Gates, chairman and now chief software architect, on a conference call with reporters. "Microsoft would be greatly damaged by this kind of split."

And while Silicon Valley is typically seen as a bastion of Microsoft-bashers, not everyone agrees with the notion of government interference or the proposed breakup measures.

"I have mixed feelings," said Promod Haque, a general partner with Norwest Venture Partners, a venture capital firm in Palo Alto. "Microsoft has been tough to deal with but what concerns me here is that this remedy is pretty extreme, pretty radical. Overall, I don’t like the government interfering. I do think Microsoft did break rules and should be penalised, I just get the sense that this is far too extreme."