“If you look at open-source software like Linux or OpenOffice, they’re stable platforms that do a great job for basic tasks, but you can’t realistically expect the latest innovations in cloud, data processing, and AI from them.” says Microsoft corporate vice president Commercial Cloud Solutions Mark Chaban in the Belgian business weekly Trends.
Jan Guldentops, a well-known Belgian IT and security expert and a fervent advocate of open source, responds: Some statements make you wonder what it is: a failed attempt at humor, no insight at all into how the world works, or just fake-it-till-you-make-it?
Years ago, I asked a Benelux CEO of Microsoft during an interview what the biggest innovation the company had ever produced was. Jet lag or joking, I still don’t know, but his answer was: “The scroll wheel on the mouse.” I won’t mention him by name, he hasn’t worked for Redmond for a long time. But for me, it perfectly sums up how much Microsoft has meant for innovation in the tech sector and in our society.
I dare to put it even more sharply: Microsoft has rarely been the real forerunner in the past three decades. Where they do excel: commercializing other people’s concepts and, above all, ensuring that customers are stuck with them forever and one day.
And security? Look at their track record, not their marketing. After the hack of Exchange Online by Chinese state hackers, the US Cyber Safety Review Board of the US Congress ruled “Microsoft’s security culture was inadequate and requires an overhaul.” According to the council, the burglary was “preventable”, the result of a “cascade of security failures”.
The most painful thing is that Microsoft itself knows better. Brad Smith admitted in 2020 that the company was “on the wrong side of history” when open source broke through. Today, Microsoft is one of the largest open source contributors in the world. According to Microsoft itself, more than half of all new virtual machines run on Azure Linux.
So that “basic” platform keeps their own cloud straight.
Let’s face it: most innovation in cloud, data processing, and AI today is driven by open source. Any organization that thinks a little also realizes in Trump times that fully committing to proprietary technology at an American hyperscaler is no guarantee for the long term.
Without open source, our digital world would be a lot smaller. So is Azure, by the way.
