I can’t help react to Microsoft’s new found love for Linux and Open Source with extreme suspicion. If you’ve been in the IT industry for a while then you’ll remember Steve Ballmer’s extreme vitriol for Linux, proclaiming “Linux is a cancer that attaches itself in an intellectual property sense to everything it touches“.
So where exactly does Microsoft stand? You can’t love it and hate it and the same time. Or maybe you can. I understand a change in leadership can bring a change of direction, but a radical 180 in opinion doesn’t exactly bring much confidence in their strategy. Is Microsoft finally acknowledging the rest of the world deploys their production systems to anything but Windows? Are they admitting defeat and looking for a slice of the Linux pie?