Ballmer Announces Microsoft Support For Linux

What do you do if you are Microsoft, and you realise that people want to run Linux? Attack its credibility? Try to offer what it does well in Windows for free? Advertise Windows better? No, no. The best thing to do is… [drum roll...] support it. Yes, support it. You did hear that correctly. Windows is going to support Linux. And no, that wasn’t a flying pig you just saw.





Read more…It’s twenty days later, and the comments by Microsoft’s CEO at the Microsoft Management Summit in Las Vegas must be amazing to Open Source followers:





We’ve added support for non-Windows virtual machines being hosted on top of our Virtual Server product, including support for Linux. Remember what I said earlier about interoperability? We’re really believing that. We know folks are going to want to run Windows systems and Linux systems and other systems together on top of our Virtual Server and Windows. You’ll see support for that later in the year.





Microsoft seems to have finally recognized what system administrators and network managers have known for several years. Interoperability between Microsoft and Linux hardware has become a necessity. Ever since Linus Torvalds developed the first stirrings of the Linux kernel, more and more technology professionals have turned to Linux.





Needs for certain server functions where needed in the enterprise without the relatively high cost of a Windows OS license drove the early adopters. Now, Linux vendors such as Redhat and Novell provide a polished corporate face to businesses, and perhaps this is what convinced the Redmond-based technologists to implement Linux support.





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