Let us consider just how effective Microsoft’s FUD campaign really was.

Microsoft’s entire history is one of creating and protecting a monopoly.

Microsoft prevented competing OSes by making contracts with OEMs that if the OEM ships a box with an alternative OS, that the OEM still must pay Microsoft as though it included Microsoft’s product.

Microsoft prevented competing applications by manipulating APIs. Or moving certain important features into undocumented APIs that only its own applications could use.

When the web came along, Microsoft ignored it at first. Saying “it’s just a fad”. Yes, really!

Then they bought a browser (Spyglass) for $100,000 up front plus royalty percent of sales. Renamed it to Internet Explorer. Guess how many copies of IE have ever been “sold” ?

Microsoft worked to monopolize the web by both pushing developers towards major features only available in its browser, and working to frustrate standardization efforts.

Microsoft also tried to monopolize the server. IIS and FrontPage. FrontPage had a license that forbade you to ever disparage or write negatively about Microsoft or any of it’s properties, Expedia, etc. Guess how much FrontPage got used once this news went viral? Meanwhile IIS was the most hacked web server on the planet. For years simple URL manipulation would allow remote command execution. Each fix was focused on the specific problem, so the broader problem continued.

At the start of the rise of Open Source, Microsoft started a huge FUD campaign. Meanwhile Microsoft continued protecting its monopoly as usual.

But the furry little mammals hidden in the holes in the rocks kept working, and working. FireFox materialized. It was radically superior. Within a few years, it had 50 % share of web users — which was a major wake up call. After years and years of neglect and stagnation, we suddenly had IE 7, 8, 9, etc. Never quite achieving full compliance until it was way too late to matter.

Meanwhile, open source took over the servers. The data centers. Embedded devices. TiVos. Cameras. DVD players. TV sets. IoT. Anything that was not part of the desktop PC monopoly. Netbooks. Phones. Tablets.

Microsoft realized way too late it had to react. Windows Mobile never went anywhere. Android took over the world.

It became clearer and clearer that Microsoft was always playing catch up with open source. Even at the start of XP, the introduction of remote desktop access was a copy of what open source was already doing. Jump to today, Microsoft only got onto the Raspberry Pi 2, because it had enough power to run the core of Windows without any GUI.

Now Microsoft Loves Linux. (Like Sharks Love Fish, and Foxes Love Chickens.) Now it is clear Microsoft’s best days are behind it. It plays catch up with everything. Developers use open source and Microsoft is trying to woo them back.

I have to admit that Ballmer’s move to sell the Surface tablet was absolutely brilliant! In one single stroke, Microsoft pissed off:
1. Their developers, but forcing new APIs, and use of Microsoft’s store, and terms of that store
2. Their OEMs, by directly competing with them, and undercutting them
3. Their customers who purchased the product . . . but the sales already reflect that.
4. Desktop PC users, the core of its business, by forcing them to use a UI that makes their work inefficient. Sacrifice the core business in a futile attempt to sell a sinking product that keeps refusing to take off. (WP 7, WP 8, Surface, Surface RT, etc)

We now live in an open source world. You have more Linux devices in your home already than you have Windows PCs or Macs combined. For all family members combined.

Microsoft is trying to embrace open source in ways that create a one-way street back to Microsoft. (A far worse approach than Apple has.)

So I’ll ask: just how successful was Microsoft’s FUD campaign?
Maybe in the short term.
But not in the long term.

Don’t forget kids: open source is communist and a cancer. Don’t be a freetard that uses open sores.