Dennis Byron

Microsoft Spending on Vista Confirms Linux Foundation Theory

Thanks for the comment Kirk but sorry I don't understand your first question. If this helps explain, the overall point of the above post is to confirm using Microsoft data that the LF theoretical data talked about in the earlier post (vis a vis the R&D expense behind a major software project) is reasonable.

As for the difference with Intel, the difference is that the Linux ecosystem is "open sourced." Google, HP, IBM, Sun, etc. could use all of the LF and related software at no cost but in fact we know that the big companies are realizing some expense because they fund LF, Apache and also devote their own resources to open source. Sun funds most of openoffice.org, Google funds most of Firefox, etc.

The goal is to find out if what they spend as a group and individually is substantially less than what they would be spending if they were all still developing their own ecosystem. (And secondarily, are such savings dropping to the bottom line?)


On Nov 06 09:49 AM Kirk Lindstrom wrote:

> What is the difference between that analysis
>
> "It might have spent the whole $28 billion on XBox but we don't have
> the data to know that."
>
> and throwing paint on the wall and calling it art?
>
> It is an interesting analysis but isn't the question similar to asking
> "how much does Intel developing microprocessors save HP, Apple and
> IBM?"
>
>
>