|
San Francisco, CA - Linux advocates returned from last week's Embedded
Systems Conference, an annual event more commonly dubbed "ESC
West," dismayed over recent Microsoft advances in the embedded
device space. Aarno Savlaeven, who traveled from Sweden to attend
the conference, reported, "they had devices everywhere, all
over the show floor! Everywhere I looked there was that stupid 'Windows
Powered' logo; I couldn't get away from it!"
 Mr.
Savlaeven, who works for a company building Linux-based PDA devices
for the Scandinavian market, said "You don't get it; the worst
part is that [the devices] all worked! Every one of them!
Not a single almost-works prototype in the bunch! Do you know what
that means?"
Although most would consider that an extreme unlikelihood, what
Mr. Savlaevin saw has been confirmed by many other attendees and
by several leading industry analysts. Says L. Curtis Ovborg, an independent
analyst who closely monitors the embedded systems marketplace, "This
is clear evidence that [Microsoft CEO] Steve Ballmer has sold his
soul to Satan. I have suspected this for a while, but it's still
nice to get some solid confirmation despite what this means for the
industry."
It is well known in the software world that Microsoft founder Bill
Gates long ago sold his soul to the Prince of Darkness to secure
the success of the Windows operating system. That Steve Ballmer has
done so as well suggests that Microsoft is willing to do whatever
is necessary to succeed in embedded systems, a market segment historically
free from Microsoft's influence. "Microsoft has always said
they were entering this market for the long term," says Ovborg, "but
I didn't figure they meant for eternity itself."
When asked how many souls Microsoft would have to sell to ensure
victory in the embedded marketplace, Ovborg concludes "Probably
just the one. However, what most people don't realize is that the
very necessity of selling Ballmer's soul reflects a strategic blunder
by Microsoft: by entering the embedded marketplace with Windows CE--a
new codebase developed from the ground up--Microsoft opened up a
loophole in its original agreement about the desktop Windows OS,
which the Father of all Lies was only too happy to take advantage
of. Had they instead stripped features out of desktop Windows to
make it small enough for embedded [applications], Ballmer could have
kept his soul."
Ironically, Microsoft's early work towards embedded and PDA-like
applications, most notably the ill-fated WinPad device, took just
such an approach. However, those efforts were abandoned because the
hardware at the time could not support the Windows OS in such small
form factors.
Linux newsgroups have been abuzz with discussion ever since ESC-West
concluded last Friday. One poster, clearly dismayed by this development,
wrote "How can we possibly compete with this? I'd gladly sell
my soul for Linux, but the Devil doesn't want it! I typed 'Lucifer
hear me' into a root shell over and over till he appeared, but he
just said open software developer souls are too innocent and pure
for him, melted my keyboard, and left!" Whether the the Devil
was referring to the poster's software development mentality or to
his presumed lack of mortal sin was not clear, however.
In unrelated news, the WinHEC conference has been renamed the WinHELL
conference.
More
Microsoft News
Recommend this
Story to a Friend
|
