Cuba recently launched its own answer to Windows this week, or, in the bigger picture, what the Cubans are calling “US Hegemony.” Nova, the new open source OS being offered by the Cuban government, is being made to boot out US-based Microsoft products.

The leader of Microsoft’s integration efforts around open source software and its proprietary technologies is expanding his role by adding the title "general manager of Windows server marketing," further indication that Microsoft plans to crank up the volume on its Windows/Linux story.

One common misconception about open source software is that it can be changed by anyone and is less secure; however, most open source is strictly governed. For example, the Apache Software Foundation has tight configuration management controls for developers. Its products are so good that most major software vendors include some Apache software in their products including Microsoft, IBM, Oracle and Sun.

Even as Microsoft has slipped into the mainstream of open source by embedding it in its products and adopting open-source strategies for services such as customer relationship management, it continues its subversive fight against Linux.

Microsoft is redefining "open source" using media muscle and sponsorships.

Microsoft is usually very good at presenting new products years ahead of the actual launch - but there continues to be a very remarkable absence of a single strategy for support of Windows applications or Windows as a well integrated desktop.

At OSBC, a company exec noted that Microsoft relies upon a diverse ecosystem that includes open source to satisfy customers

Talking with Microsoft officials last week, I was surprised to hear a key reason for the company getting involved with things like optimizing Windows for PHP: it was the only way to ensure products like PHP work with Microsoft technology at all.

Microsoft's forthcoming Windows Server 2008 provides a two-for-one bonus: virtualization software with the operating system itself, and potentially closer integration with some Linux operating systems than it has ever offered before, according to an early, initial look at the server's Release Candidate 1.