Microsoft comes to LCA2009 and has Novell give it good coverage in Holland

"Bill Hilf, Microsoft General Manager of Platform Strategy, announced two things last week at the O’Reilly Open Source Conference in Portland."

Microsoft recently tapped the Philippines for its open source initiative citing mobility applications and e-commerce as some of the potential open source areas, according to Bill Hiff, general manager for platform strategy of Microsoft Corporation. His visit in the country also marks the launch of Microsoft's Shared Source Initiative and Customer Platform Value Campaigns.

Information Week has published a fawning interview with Microsoft’s Bill Hilf (right), now general manager of Windows Server marketing and platform strategy, stating he was “revealing” the company’s open source strategy.

At the Linux Collaboration Summit, held last week in San Francisco, an interesting panel discussion took place about Linux' position in the wider operating systems market. Included were Jim Zemlin, Linux Foundation executive director, Ian Murdock, Sun community and developer vice president, and Sam Ramji, Microsoft platform strategy director.

Microsoft has appointed a new point man to put a face on its interaction with the open source community. That man, Robert Duffner, takes on a big task as senior director of Platform and Open Source Software strategy at Microsoft. His IBM and BEA roots will help him place his mark on the Microsoft strategy, but the core message remains the same.

Back at the 2003 OSCON, r0ml Lefkowitz gave a talk called "Six Missing Open Source Projects".The next year he gave a talk titled "More Missing Open Source Projects". At the top of his first list was CRM, or Customer Relationship Management, systems...

When Sam Ramji, Director of Platform Technology Strategy and the Open Source Software Lab at Microsoft, describes his company's open source strategy, I believe him. Every word.

A couple of months back, at Australia's national Linux conference, a young Microsoft employee sat down with me and discussed ways in which Microsoft has contributed to open source.