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GNU/Linux vs Microsoft on Research & Development: What's the Truth?
A recent Microsoft Certified Professional Magazine article, Winning the Linux Wars, suggested that Microsoft invests more than $6 billion (USD) in research and development. Rich Freeman, the article's author, reveals some of the arguments Microsoft partners make in trying to keep customers from jumping the Microsoft ship. One of the alleged selling points is the investment in R&D that Microsoft makes. That raises a couple of questions. Just how does Microsoft's R&D investment stack up against the libre software community's investment in R&D? Is Microsoft's investment well spent, or simply a waste? Freeman quotes John Hollinger, an executive for a Microsoft Gold Certified Partner on Microsoft's investment in R&D. "Microsoft invests north of $6 billion a year on R&D. There is nobody in the Linux world" that does that, he says. "Whose economic best interest is it in to invest the extra $10 million or $50 million over some period of time to make sure that's a secure computing platform?" This statement has at least two major problems. The first lies in the notion that no one in the GNU/Linux world invests $6 billion a year in R&D. The second lies in the fact that, for all its investment in R&D, Microsoft's computing platform is no more secure than a wet paper bag. Some in the technology community laugh when hearing about Microsoft's investment in R&D. As one person sarcastically noted, "They spend it on research and development for sure... Researching the market, and developing their marketing ploys, researching their competitors patent portfolio, and developing their own.... The term 'Research and Development' can mean anything you want it to (a bit like statistics, really)." I also question whether customers really are gullible enough to accept "we invest lots of money in R&D" as a selling point for software. I would hope that most IT decision makers are intelligent enough to see through that. However, I think it's worthwhile examining the argument presented, since the article claims this is a selling point. Personally, I doubt it. Still, they fired the volley. First, comparing the R&D investment for the GNU/Linux community to that of Microsoft is absurd and likely an impossible task to accomplish. Microsoft is a single company with a range of software in which it must invest. That is, they not only invest in Windows, they also invest in Office, SQL Server, IIS, and games. They obviously don't invest too heavily in Internet Explorer, or in security for that matter. The GNU/Linux community, on the other hand, has a variety of different companies supporting the development of the Linux kernel. The R&D for the rest of the platform is handled by the individual project teams and distribution vendors. Obviously, while IBM, Novell, Red Hat and others contribute to the development of the Linux kernel, they also contribute a great deal to their own distributions and projects. What makes the comparison so absurd is that, with Red Hat, Novell, Mandriva, Mepis, Linspire, Xandros, and so many variations of the same core system, how do we quantify the overall investment in R&D? There certainly is no need for me to spend $6 billion if I want to start my own new GNU system. I wonder how much money Mepis invested in R&D? Yet, they have a solid, stable distribution that is growing in popularity. In other words, no single vendor actually needs to invest $6 billion in the kernel and core utilities. Now throw in the respective investments of time and money into projects like Apache, Firefox, GNOME, KDE, and OpenOffice.org. The problem lies in understanding the difference in the two economies. Microsoft can pull up the pay records and equipment costs for its R&D teams. So, too, can IBM, Novell, Sun, and others. However, does the KDE project track it's investment in R&D on the same terms? What about OpenOffice.org? Just because a libre software developer doesn't account for their investment in the R&D column of the accounting spreadsheet doesn't mean that no money was invested in R&D. Libre software projects count their investments in R&D - and the return on their investments - in rather different terms. Translated into dollars and cents, one might well conclude that the value of R&D in the libre software community far exceeds even Microsoft's wildest dreams. What of the investments of libre software developers in circuit boards for devices they create to run libre software? Calculate the cost of a libre software developer's time in experimenting with variations in the user interface, or a given library. Calculate the cost of time spend reviewing the users' feedback on your experiments, and then making adjustments where necessary. Just because libre software developers don't always have a balance sheet to show where they spent their time and money doesn't mean they didn't invest heavily in R&D. Again, bring these investments of time and money from thousands of projects into a single platform, and one can begin to see the value of these investments. The members of The Freely Project have been working on a software solution stack that churches and other ministries can deploy. The project is defining the software that churches need, and then will establish a repository for the appropriate applications. Ubuntu is the primary OS. The Freely Project's investment in R&D is minimal. The application stack consists of existing applications, so the only real investment in R&D needed (by Freely) is in defining the needs of a variety of churches. Once the repository is made available, churches will be able to download and install Ubuntu Linux, then add the repository to the list, and download the applications they need and want. Thus, by capitalizing on the investments in R&D from the numerous existing projects, The Freely Project can empower churches around the globe to migrate to a platform that enhances their stability and security and reduces their overall computing costs. The Freely Project is taking advantage of a collective R&D investment that probably amounts to millions of dollars, even though its own investment is likely a few hundred dollars. The expected ROI is the ability of churches to enhance their technological capabilities while reducing costs, thus allowing them to re-allocate funds to the church's main mission - ministering to people. It's true that The Freely Project is not a corporate business entity. Still, the same lesson applies to businesses. By capitalizing on the current investments in R&D, no single business needs to make a heavy investment of their own. They can, and may choose to do so anyway, in order to reap the returns from a new technology. This is what the major players in the libre software community are doing. The whole economy benefits in the process. Just as the investments in R&D are measured differently, so too, are the expected returns. A developer who contributes a security patch for Apache or an e-mail program calculates the return on investment, not in terms of dollars and cents, but in terms of the reduced impact of viruses on the global internet. Likewise, what would be the return on investment in the $100 laptop? That cannot be measured in mere dollars and cents. I doubt $6 billion was invested in the R&D, yet the overall impact will be far greater than that. There is also the emotional return - simply knowing that users use and appreciate your software. Calculate that. Let's turn our attention now to that $10-$50 million Hollinger said Microsoft invested to ensure a secure computing platform. There is no doubt that it is in Microsoft's economic best interest to ensure their computing platform is secure. In light of the recent WMF fiasco, one might wonder just where that $10-$50 million was invested - the security of the code, or the new alarm system for the OS development team's offices? Perhaps it's going to the marketing literature about their security improvements. It may be true that Microsoft is improving the security of Windows. Yet the nature and number of vulnerabilities suggest that they should consider shifting their R&D budget. Microsoft's approach to organizing and securing the filesystem doesn't really show much for their R&D investment. Windows 95/98 were pathetic when compared to GNU/Linux. And Windows NT/2000/XP isn't much better. GNU/Linux still does a much better job of separating users and their settings. Also, Windows is world famous for its unchecked buffers and over-reliance on remote procedure calls. The combination of ActiveX and Internet Explorer is viewed by many as an open invitation to attackers. Some might even ask whether that money was invested in researching how to open up Windows to attacks. Microsoft once kept the graphical desktop, Windows 3.11, separate from DOS, the underlying operating system. With Windows 95 Microsoft integrated the graphical desktop into the underlying OS, going against the common wisdom of keeping the graphical desktop separate from the underlying OS. They did so in an effort to increase the system performance. The problem is that Windows 95 was more crash prone than Windows 3.11. It is interesting to note that the GNU/Linux world never made this sacrifice, and every GNU/Linux OS I've used loads quite a bit faster than Windows 98 or XP on my boxes. If you're an IT executive or manager listening to the Microsoft Platinum/Gold/Silver/Bronze or whatever Certified partners talking about Microsoft's investment in R&D, you really ought to ask some questions. Ask them why, with a supposed investment of $6 billion per year, they can't catch more security vulnerabilities. Will that money not pay for enough security experts? Ask them why, with that kind of money invested in R&D, they have to integrate a web browser into the core OS. What Research proved that to be a wise technical decision? (In reality, it was a marketing decision.) In other words, they don't even seem to be throwing money at the problem. They're just throwing it away. If you don't ask questions about Microsoft's R&D, and just blindly accept that spending $6 billion per year in R&D is money well spent, then just prepare to accept the consequences when your network is hacked and your data is exploited all because someone thought that integrating a browser into an OS was a technically sound decision. If you don't think that the libre software community can match Microsoft's expenditures in R&D, it's because you don't understand how R&D is measured in the community. And if you don't understand that Microsoft's marketing and political machine is better developed than their software, then you'll keep paying thousands of dollars for a wet paper bag when you could have a real computing platform to show for your investment. |
LXer Feature: 13-Jan-06Comments (18)
My compliments.
good job
I concur with your line of questioning on how this 'so-called' R&D is spent, and right, how much of that is pure operational overhead (a number we'll never see) ? So I think it's downright disingenuous for MS to promote these 'facts' without any way to see them in context.
I don't know, but I recall MS claims to have and hire many young, energetic and 'brilliant' people into their ranks, and that may continue to be true, but somewhere up the ranks, the brainpower and optimism seems to be squashed out by Marketdroid tactics and kind of an inbred 'arrogance'. It's sad really. It ends up manifesting itself in a bunch of mid-level Ballmer-like 'yes men' who'll say and do anything to promote a really inferior set of products. MS is not the best software company in the world, they are (arguably) the best _marketing_ company ever. They shine sh-- like nobody's business. MS is nothing about software, they are all about "keeping Ballmer happy", and it shows, doesn't it ?
IMHO, they seem to think very little of and have very little respect for the day-to-day, hard-working IT managers and administrators out there, or heck, even casual home users of their software. They care only for their bottom line and stock price.
Quoting:IMHO, they seem to think very little of and have very little respect for the day-to-day, hard-working IT managers and administrators out there, or heck, even casual home users of their software.
I'm reminded of the movie Chinatown, when Jack Nicolson's character asks John Houston's character, "how much is enough?"
Oh, I forgot. I thought of that movie. Maybe I supposed to make a micropayment to someone? I played it in my head. That's a Linux device right? DRM for the brain?
Now, I'm all confused :)
Do I own it or what? Well, maybe I just have a license to watch it. I don't know. What is it?
Good start.
You could even possibly excuse such if they added to the products. Viseo is almost identical the version they purchased. SQL Server has added a number of features but few survive into the next version of SQL Server. Except for a nice GUI SQL editor they really are still packaging Sybase but with more bugs and security problems. Windows itself brought only fluff. Think about it. My computer being the greatest contribution of the windows desktop. Not exactly groundshaking was it? Windows continues to add features long availible in Nix OS's but it will take decades to catch up even if Nix quit inovating.
As for research value. Most OSS contributers do so without a paycheck. There are thousands and thousands of such people. Whether it be the guy who wrote the driver for this or that obscure piece of hardware or one of they key kernel developers. Few people get the luxory of making a living writing OSS software. Can you picture what would happen if more companies thought of OSS along the lines of what US companies put up with for members of the National Guard? Or even better allowed them 5 hours a week to work on OSS software on company time.
So yes there is a deffinite difference in economics. I feel OSS is better at inovating because it has the most motivated people. OSS has attracted the risk takers, Microsoft the conformists. OSS has been blessed with talented and dedicated people willing to give their hard work away for literally no personal gain. Microsoft is well known to be a sweat shop that wrings massive hours out of fresh collegiate graduates and foriegn workers. Many lines of Microsoft's are written by people with no other proffesional programming experience. Most OSS coders cut their teeth writing other code and code OSS as a sideline. Think about it this way. Who wants to be on an airplane with a pilot making thier first take off? That is what you are potentially doing. Your very life depends on the quality of code more and more each day. If it is windows that flight control, train control or other software is running on you are putting your life in the hands of mostly inexperienced coders with poor motivation and poor objectives. Worked long hours to meet tight deadlines. Before Microsoft shipping code as buggy as Windows was unheard of and unacceptable. Back then nobody would trust something like a street light to a company who had such obvious QA issues as Microsoft. Wall Street learned the hard way as have other industries.
So Microsoft R&D is truely an oxymoron. The economic models defy comparision. It is like comparing rotten apples with an apple tree. The tree produces apples which produce more trees. That is OSS. Microsoft buys apples but nurtures no orchard. Microsoft's harsh and conformist environment is a hinderence to inovation. Microsoft's business model itself is not condusive to innovation. Unlike Xerox which contributed heavily to the development of computers with it's R&D efforts which were blinding ignored by Xerox to the benifit of the world,
Microsoft doesn't even contribute by accident. It is a festering black hole of conformism that sucks the life out of even good ideas before they can be born. Take the registry for example. Great idea. A place for all those random configuration files. Why would anybody in their right mind take such a good idea and destroy it beyond use like Microsoft has? The Windows registry is obtuse, prone to corruption, requires special editors to read/backup/restore. It requires special OS calls to read and write too. Despite all of this it is completely unprotected. Any application can modify the registry. A simple database with strong user controls would have worked quite well. If it is a system setting then only root/admin should have write rights to it and many values should be read restricted to root/admin as an example. Protect it with file system rights to prevent copying by unathorized users. There you go. Nice simple, effective and works. How to you mess something like that up?
My two cents. Excuse my spelling and grammer.
Quoting:"...surprised M$ HAS an R&D budget to be honest. 6 billion is staggering. With that kind of budget you'd think they would proudce inovations every week. Think about it. When was the last time Microsoft added anything to computing world?"
You are presuming that is their intent.
What if they like things pretty much as they are? Then removing some of the best and brightest to do very long far out research? What's the harm? Get the drift?
Quoting:removing some of the best and brightest to do very long far out research? What's the harm? Get the drift?
A few years ago I ate dinner with the Department Chair of University of Colorado's Computer Science department. He did a good deal of complaining about how Microsoft Research hired a few of his most promising researchers away from academia.
And then he (and a few others at the table) went on to describe MS Research as a "roach hotel": scientists go in but no papers ever come out.
This is another instance of a problem stemming from $40 BILLION in cash, controlled by a fairly small group. In the case of MS Research, they're buying all the industrial research that has (for the last 15 or 20 years) gone on in various universities. Unlike the Universities, or even Bell Labs, nothing gets published.
I am not surprised that MS spends 6 billion on R & D. In that expense, only a small portion of that money is for the desktop. The other part is for new software drivers, compilers, technology, networking methodologies and ideas that can be patented. And R & D research into legally blocking potential competitors.
Microsoft sees it's future as having a captive user base, of controlling the internet, and hence of blocking alternate technologies.
In the end, if MS has their way, the only alternate technologies will originate where Microsoft, has no control. That means, you will eventually have to look for innovation offshore. Any onshore alternate technologies will probably only come from the military, or brought in from outside the borders of the United States.
The question is, aside from money, spam, and virus's, and corporations making small fortunes selling system protection for flawed desktop software, what harm is there in having only one way to do things? It, the Microsoft technology way is a money tree, and should not be disrupted. Charity does not begin at home.
By the way, Microsoft bought the DOS operating system. So their start was being business smart. As the top of the hill die with the next generation of management, as we see Gates and the others retire, then I believe that MS will die the same way as other monster.
And there will be operating systems to replace Linux. Linux is a today thing. So don't become a Linux biggot.
Disrupting the Microsoft money tree is in the best interests of the global consumer market. It is time for people to recognize that the Microsoft money tree causes far greater harm than good. More people will benefit from a free-market economy not dominated by the all-controlling Microsoft.
I have no problem with the BSDs or other libre OSes, even if I prefer to use GNU/Linux.
On Windows NT
My biggest fear is that M$ will start exercising it's portfolio of patents such as they are doing with FAT and bog the open source development down in endless litigation.
Best regards tg
They're not throwing it away! Nothing so pleasant...
Great Rebuttal
Researching "how to take over your product"
They want to take over everything, Games (XBox/playstation), Office (Word/Word Perfect), Internet (explorer/netscape) , (MSN/Google) etc..
They have the finances, Government support and use of the legal system to out last every company.
There is nothing you guys are working on that is safe and the more you keep supporting Microsoft XP, Vista etc instead of moving into say Linux, the more you finance their R&D. You are all going to be picked off one by one..
Novell saw the writing on the wall and have made the only long term viable option of moving to linux and creating business based on support, not just on selling software, because guaranteed Microsoft can "sell" software better than you...
Quoting: ... the more you keep supporting Microsoft XP, Vista etc instead of moving into say Linux ...Correction: depends upon which "Vista" you are referring to, i.e. the pre-existing medical records program just look at these links. http://www.tldp.org/HOWTO/Medicine-HOWTO/record.html - begin at 4.3. [Note paid for by the federal government ...] and http://www.medicalcomputingtoday.com/0nvemrproj.html (where every link to Vista is now dead, though it began it the '80s - MS foresight?). Here is a VA company, whose site has not disappeared http://www.henryelliottandco.com/va-vista.html that talks about Vista (financed by the V.A.).
Yes this seems to support your contention, even the name is being gained by theft. In this case, we need to support the real Vista not the phony.
Microsoft's R&D
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