Assume a spherical cow ...

The Linux community, overall, would be unlikely to embrace unless Microsoft
was giving the products away. If Linux had a larger, non-technical user base,
this could be a profitable direction; otherwise, it could well sink the
company through the theft of intellectual property, legal through the open
source license, of course.

While you seem to have little regard for Microsoft (evidenced by the $ in
M$), each of us developers wants to make some form of profit for our products
(or get paid to develop). There is a level where a product is too expensive,
certainly, but it is hard to support the MS is bilking their customers idea
when examining the direction of software prices. You can argue both a) that
there is a potential of bilking when MS is monopolistic or b) they have, in
limited instances, overcharged in some markets. But, you cannot support the
overall bilking scenario without puttiing an indictment on all software
companies.

Perhaps that is the goal, but companies like Oracle do not have a place to
put the $. ;->

Linux may be a viable market some day (not attempting an argument here, as I
do realize Linux is viable in a limited sense today), but I do not see many
MS products moving to the platform. Some are keyed in to Windows
archictecture. The next SQL Server is tied in to .NET. Currently, .NET is not
Linux oriented, as it reflects many Windows APIs. Perhaps in the future.

The bottom line is MS does not have to move to markets other than Windows
right now. Not sure what the future holds.

---

Gregory A. Beamer
MVP; MCP: +I, SE, SD, DBA

***************************
Think Outside the Box!
***************************