As Microsoft's director of platform technology strategy, Bill Hilf spends half his time trying to figure out ways Windows can work better with Linux and the other half trying to outflank the open-source rival.
Of course, he doesn't describe it quite that starkly.
"My life is like a yin and a yang," he said in an interview at this week's LinuxWorld Conference and Expo in San Francisco. "There is just as much time thinking about the competitive...as there is about the cooperation,interoperability, and opportunity. It's equal time."
Microsoft's Linux and Open Source Software Lab serves as both a place to examine the threat posed to Microsoft products by open-source offerings and a venue for testing software from Microsoft and others that's designed to span that divide. The lab is home to hundreds of servers and desktops that run dozens of different types of Linux and Unix.
The lab's dual purpose reflects an evolution in Microsoft's mindset when it comes to Linux and open-source software.
Linux is still seen as a competitor that needs to be addressed head-on. The company spends plenty of time and money on its anti-Linux "Get the Facts" campaign, for example.
At the same time, though, Microsoft seems to have accepted that Linux is not going away, and the company wants to make sure it's not turning off customers--or leaving dollars on the table--by ignoring its very real rival.
Bill Hilf
Linux lab chief,
Microsoft
It's been almost two years since Hilf joined Microsoft after a career managing Linux and Unix for corporations, a tour of duty that included a stint at IBM and the building of a Linux-based data center for dot-com retailer eToys.
Hilf said his conversations with Microsoft developers have evolved since he first joined the company.
"Originally there was a lot of 'tell me how this works versus my thing,'" he recalled. Until Hilf arrived and set up shop, Microsoft relied mainly on outside consultants to provide reports on how the other half lived.
Shrewder
These days, Microsoft is growing shrewder about
open-source software. The Redmond, Wash., company has realized that some of its
businesses--such as the management tools and Virtual Server units--can boost
their bottom line by offering better Linux interoperability.
"Microsoft is a very opportunistic company," Hilf said. "It is looking for ways to increase its business. We want to continue to build software that sells well."
Hilf said that on the Redmond campus, in discussions with colleagues, he often finds himself acting as a proxy for a customer who runs Linux.
"They will come to me saying 'Hey, Bill, is this something you think Linux customers would really be interested in, or is this stupid?" Hilf said.
Hilf's ability to straddle the divide between the Windows and Linux worlds also makes him popular with Microsoft customers, who ask him for advice on getting the two to work together. "A lot of customers say, 'I have mixed stuff too; you must have figured out how to do blah, blah, blah,'" Hilf said.
Even setting up shop amid Redmond's all-Windows world was a challenge for Hilf.
He started with the ambitious goal of creating a server room with dozens of flavors of Linux, along with commercial Unix software from Sun Microsystems, IBM, Hewlett-Packard and
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"...Bill Hilf spends half his time trying to figure out ways Windows can work better with Linux..." Not likely. He surely spends 100% of his time trying to make Windows NOT work with Linux.
Posted by dsblank on Monday, August 29 2005 09:09 PM