Company official attends the Red Hat Forum 2019 in Melbourne

Oct 15, 2019 08:27 GMT  ·  By

While Microsoft is betting big on the open-source world going forward, the “Linux is a cancer” nightmare keeps coming back occasionally, especially from customers who aren’t necessarily sure that the Redmond-based software giant expanding in this direction is the right way to go.

Microsoft, on the other hand, tries to convince everyone that it loves Linux on every single occasion, and one such moment took place earlier this week at the Red Hat Forum 2019 in Melbourne.

Microsoft Australia CTO Lee HIckin took the stage and the first thing he said concerned the controversial statement made by former CEO Steve Ballmer back in 2002.

"I recognise the irony of Microsoft here at an open source community event. I'm really proud to do that, and I'm humbled and privileged that we can be on the stage with Red Hat to share our story," Hickin is quoted as saying by ZDNet.

“An open-source company”

Just like before, Hickin insisted Microsoft is a different company now, and the long-term strategy is betting big on open-source, not as a competitor, but as a fully-committed partner.

“I say that with my hand on my heart in a very serious way: We are an open source company, we are committed to open source, we're committed to Red Hat, and we're committed to continuing our engagement and our support to a broad open source community through a range of technologies, not least of which GitHub is one.”

Microsoft is indeed betting big on the Linux world, and living proof are its efforts to bring together the open-source concept and Windows. Windows 10 now ships with Windows Subsystem for Linux, a platform that has already reached its second generation and which allows users to run Linux on top of Windows 10, with several large companies supporting the project, including Canonical.

And Microsoft says that investing in other products, like Azure, and working together with open-source partners, is living proof it’s not all about Windows these days.

“We are not the proprietary Windows company; we are the open source cloud that has a range of services across a whole bunch of tools and technologies,” Hickin concluded.