Short of Microsoft’s consumer side and my honest love for Windows Mobile, I have a hard time finding things that Microsoft creates these days that will truly ‘get me going’ with a real sense of excitement. And having said that, even this is not making me jump and down, but it’s a huge step in the right direction and deserves a thumbs up.
Now I fully realize that Linux based companies have made ‘services’ their business model long before this news above, but the fact that Microsoft is looking to get their toes wet with the services add-on idea, shows that Microsoft is looking to evolve with the rest of the world rather than continuing to fight against it. I think that is fantastic.
Remember, I’m a MS Exchange customer who uses this groupware application via DSL Extreme on my Windows Mobile based Pocket PC. A Linux zealot I am not. With that said, did I mention that I use my personal exchange account is also setup on Evolution on my Ubuntu and Linux Mint machines as well? See, Microsoft products can indeed, work really well on Linux machines when IP threats are not being shoved down our throats.
To close, I’m thrilled to see Microsoft taking this idea of adding services seriously, wish them lots of success with it. And maybe, just maybe, we’ll see them loosen up a little bit in other depts as well. Because it did not take special agreements to get Microsoft utilizing ideas long since employed by other companies, many of which happen to be selling ‘value’ with their free software. It’s a wild idea, but some companies are doing rather well with not making idle threats in hopes of maintaining their customers – especially on the OS front.
So if Microsoft would like to offer all of us services, without demanding that I use everything they offer – fantastic. And thus far, their Exchange/MS Mobile products have been a good fit in this area, let’s hope to see more of this without them tossing up roadblocks in the future.
[tags]software, Microsoft[/tags]