Gates undaunted by Linux

InfoWorld - Microsoft Corp. Chairman and Chief Software Architect Bill Gates, during an appearance Friday at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, Calif., expressed no fear of Linux usurping Windows in the software industry.
Speaking to technologists, Gates touched briefly on a number of topics ranging from Linux and Web services to grid computing and digital rights management. Regarding Linux, Microsoft has seen other potential threats to its dominance come and go, Gates said.
"Microsoft has had clear competitors in the past. It's a good thing we have museums to document that," said Gates, eliciting laughter from the audience at the museum. "I'm not saying, 'This computer will go away,' but OS/2 was supposed to kill us."
IBM, with 10 times the number of employees as Microsoft, couldn't stop Windows with OS/2, he said. "The same thing was said that Novell Inc. will kill us, Borland Software Corp. will kill us, and that makes my job interesting."
An audience member said that almost 50% of servers being purchased today are running Linux. But Gates disputed that figure. "It's just not a right number," Gates said. "Well over 50% of servers that are sold run Windows Server. First, start with the facts, then proceed from there."
Gates said that Unix, not Windows, is being displaced by Linux. "We do compete with Linux. The shift of Unix share to Linux has been dramatic," he said. "[Linux will] wipe out a lot of the stuff that's been out there down to very small numbers, [based] on current trends."
He predicted that Windows and Linux will eventually dominate market share.
Unix, in faltering, has lacked the advantage that Windows has in that it comes from one vendor and has one set of instructions, Gates said.
As for grid computing, Gates said it's being done on Windows. Microsoft is building into its Web services capabilities the notion of grid, and the company's Beowulf project for clustering on Windows entails grid computing.
Touching on the issue of spam, Gates said the problem is diminishing, thanks to filters. "Spam is down from a factor of 10 from where it was a year ago. The bad news is this malware [malicious software] thing is so bad."
Microsoft will provide a malware cure to address issues such as adware, he said.
Identity theft and phishing need to be addressed through "infocard" technology. Password technology, meanwhile, needs to be succeeded by smart-card or biometric technology, Gates said.
Gates also spoke about digital rights management, suggesting that license fees will be used

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