Is Microsoft trying to thwart Linux?

Yes I know, an oxymoron of a statement. Well apparently they are going to release a thin version of XP to the US soon. Since the Dell Redhat deal I guess it has them thinking. If the OS comes without many of the bells and whistles which it surely will there is a window (pun intended) of opportunity for OpenOffice to expand and other opensource projects to make advances which MS will surely kill off in order to sucker the poor dolts that purchase their crippled OS into buying more of their defective software hence making the people even more co-dependent than ever. It is a strategy that if I was in Microsoft's position that I would hav played long before now. It is too late for them to have as much success with this tactic because now the public is becoming more educated about opensource alternatives. This idea was probably in their contingecy scenerio pile and now that bluffing is no longer an alternative they have played their last hand. It could potentially frustrate users that see no economic advantage in the OS once they find out how little they can do with it and turn more people to Linux which would be priced competatively and have more features.

Dell and Redhat

Now this was an interesting move on Dells part. While it has been speculated that the 99 million dollars Dell has sunk into Red Hat may be to short sell the convertible bonds, I doubt that is the case. It would be foolish of Dell to make such a move. There was definite strategy behind this but I personally think it was done to capture early the server market Linux seems to be enjoying so much growth in and the fact that Red Hat is a formidable foe to Microsoft. While I personally do not care for Fedora core Linux in favor of Debian, I see it as a wise venture. Red Hat shares are depressed currently but they are enjoying a good growth rate and broader acceptance. With China's Red Flag capturing Asian market share it will have a hard time competing with the deeply entrenched Red Hat. Turbo Linux of Japan is another option as well. Dell beat people to the punch and it has some scratching their heads. Dell will be well positioned to capture some market share from Sun Microsystems with this move which may explain why Sun has concentrated more of its development overseas.