Microsoft Corp. is not benefiting from The SCO Group Inc.'s intellectual property dispute with IBM Corp. despite the market uncertainty the legal fiasco is creating. Microsoft Australia's platform strategy manager Martin Gregory has rejected claims the software giant is a beneficiary of the dispute pointing out that software will continue to be chosen on merits and Unix is now being replaced by Linux more than Windows. "When considering operating system deployments, the key characteristic is competition and it's clear that Linux is replacing high-end Unix systems, because the x86 architecture has a better price-performance," he said. "Open source and Linux has attracted a huge amount of attention but a lot of it is inflated."
When asked about Microsoft's motives for licensing SCO's Unix intellectual property, Gregory said there were two reasons for that. "We value our own intellectual property and that of others, so that was just another example of cross-licensing," he said. "Secondly, we are always looking to improve integration with our services for Unix offerings so this agreement furthers our ability to do that." Enterprises looking to reduce total cost of ownership through platform migration will do so for value reasons rather than the uncertainty surrounding Linux and SCO, he said. IT departments are still spending a lot of time "watering and feeding" their systems, he added. "I regularly talk to our customers and find out what they want from Microsoft," Gregory said. "Customers are looking at technology on a broader scale than ever before in order to gain more productivity and spend less time on administration."
News source: ITworld
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