"For developers who really question if Microsoft is serious about open source, my answer would be 'absolutely"— Mandar Naik,

For developers who really question if Microsoft is serious about open source, my answer would be 'absolutely'

In a freewheeling interview, Microsoft’s Mandar Naik gets candid on a range of topics like releasing the source code for Windows, open source technology, and much more...

Mandar Naik, director, Platform Strategy at Microsoft

Gone are the days when Microsoft used to be an enemy of open source technology. Times have changed and so has Microsoft, to the extent that the company has started its own open source subsidiary. And now, Microsoft has become one of the major contributors to Linux, and is working to build an ecosystem where proprietary and open source technologies go hand-in-hand. Mandar Naik, Director— Platform Strategy at Microsoft and the man behind such efforts in India, reveals how the company has changed over the years.

QMandar, what is your role at Microsoft? My role is probably different from most folks at Microsoft, who sell Microsoft products and compete with open source product vendors. I do compete with open source 'products' as well, but my primary focus is to drive strong partnerships with open source because one of the core things that has happened over the past six to seven years at Microsoft is a vast change in how we look at things. If you go back 10 years, you could have said that Microsoft competed with open source. It was all driven by what customers wanted. Ten years ago, there was this huge debate on what was good—open source or proprietary software. Today, if you look at the mature markets, the conversation has really changed tremendously.

QIn what way? One of the fundamental things that customers have realised is that it’s not about whether the source is open or closed. At the end of the day, it is about getting a job done. So, for CIO's, the objective is to get the business solution going. If there is an open source solution to it, that’s great; and if there is a proprietary solution, that’s fine too. Most IT environments nowadays are mixed source. You can no longer say that a company uses only open source solutions or proprietary solutions. Customers want compatibility of both the open as well as proprietary, irrespective of their operating systems. So customers have driven that change, based on how

their needs have changed. That is the reason why Microsoft has changed. And it’s not just Microsoft that has changed. You can see a lot of change happening across the board even in the open source community. In recent times, we have seen tremendous opportunities where we can partner with open source and vice versa. There are a huge number of developers who use technologies varying from Dot Net and Java to PHP. So, what Microsoft has done is focus on the fact that we don't want to tell PHP developers to give away their expertise in PHP and start developing on Dot Net. We want them to continue with PHP and leverage their expertise in PHP. What we ensure now is to work with the PHP community so that PHP runs as well on our platform (Windows) as it does on any other. So that's the kind of partnership that we are looking at driving.

Microsoft is putting in humongous efforts within the company towards driving strategic partnerships. Today, we are committed to ensuring that every product we come up with inter-operates well with all other products. That's the biggest change that has happened. If you look back two years, we had started seeing these changes coming into our main product. So, if you are a Java developer or a PHP developer, and want to develop on Windows, don't worry about it; we will provide you the tools required for developing on Windows and these tools are open source. That was the good starting point in India. That's where the partnership with the open source community began. We are learning to work with the open source community and the open source community is learning to work with us. If you look at mature markets like the US, there has been tremendous progress. We are in a mixed source environment today.

QSo, will it be correct to say that Microsoft's attitude has changed over six to seven years because customers have demanded it? Look at it in this way—we’ve got to be very realistic on why we exist as an industry. It’s not about Microsoft or open souce companies. Individual developers exist for the purpose of serving the customers’ need. So, for us, it is very natural to always do what customers need. That is reflected in every product that we have come up with and, obviously, there is a whole lot of innovation there. There are times when we have shown customers the right path, when we have seen them struggling in a certain area and have come up with solutions to help them. There have also been times when customers have come to us and said, “These are the changing business needs that I have, so now you go out and figure how you are going to help.” So, I think that this change in Microsoft has occurred a long time ago. Six to seven years ago is when it has started to show, but the change actually began a long time ago and it was really driven by our customers.

QSteve Balmer called Linux a cancer back in 2000, and the Linux Foundation recently released a report, which shows that Microsoft is among the top 20 contributors to the kernel. Do you feel that Microsoft is still struggling with the image makeover? What Steve Balmer said over 10 years ago is not denied, but it also reflected the reality of the software market at that time. It is just like, 10 years ago we couldn't have imagined that enterprises would be willing to give the up control of their onpremise software and put it on the cloud, because the options did not exist back then. It is also natural for the open source community and developers to ask this question. Today, I personally think there are no proprietary software developers or open source developers. A developer is a developer. Look, if we were really not keen and committed to work with the open source community or industry, there would have been no point for all these investments. We always knew that this journey to becoming more open as a company was not going to be a short one and hence we were always in it for the long haul. It has not been merely an image makeover, but a strategic shift in how we see ourselves working with others. If

you look at the mature markets like North America or Europe, our partnership with the open source universe has really made a huge impact on enterprises and customers. As an example, let’s look at our partnership with SUSE that we entered into a few years ago— there are customers who have deployed SUSE and Microsoft in a virtualised environment and this has happened because of the partnership. SUSE, too, was very keen on our partnership. So, honestly, it’s not just lip service. It’s not something fake to keep people quiet.

The IT industry is consistently and continuously changing, and we have to adapt to those changes. Our commitment of partnering with the open source community is a part of the journey. But that doesn't mean that we are not going to compete. We see competitors today even in the open source ecosystem, just like we see competitors in the proprietary ecosystem. This competition is separate from the overall development of the industry. So, when we speak about partnering with the open source ecosystem, we mean to work a way forward. When it comes to competing, we will keep on doing so with our open source competitors. So, if you talk

I personally think there are no proprietary software developers or open source developers. A developer is a developer. Look, if we were really not keen and committed to work with the open source community or industry, there would have been no point for all these investments. Microsoft has not struggled with this image makeover.

about the cloud, for example, we compete with Amazon. It’s a proprietary platform. Similarly, we would compete with other open source cloud platforms. We see this competing as distinct from partnering with the open source ecosystem. The open source ecosystem is separate from the open source vendors. Red Hat is our competitor, and we compete with it.

I think what people in India need to see is that Microsoft is not competing with the open source ecosystem or the ideology. I think this has been proven enough by the fact that more than 80 per cent of all open source projects that exist in the world run well on Windows as well. If we were not serious about really partnering with the open source ecosystem, we would have never built something that makes open source work on our system. For developers who really question if Microsoft is serious about this, my answer would be 'absolutely'. So, I would urge those developers to go to www.microsoft.com/ openness to get a feel of what we are actually up to. There are open source enthusiasts who are as actively participating in projects as Microsoft is. That's what people in India need to see and that's my job. Given that India has the second largest developer base in the world, there need to be a whole lot of positive messages going out from our side. And we really want people to converse with us as much as possible.

Microsoft is investing in open source technologies like NODE.JS to make them mainstream on our platform. With the new IaaS offerings on Windows Azure, we now support various flavours of Linux on our popular cloud platform. So, it’s up to Microsoft and the leaders of the open source community to start seeing this as an opportunity. If you develop an app that is not compatible with Windows, then you are simply cutting yourself out from almost 90 per cent of an opportunity. We don't want developers to do that. If people choose to be Java or PHP developers, we are not stopping them. We are, in fact, here to provide an extended opportunity to such developers to take their solutions to market. That's why it is important that the open source community and Microsoft work closely. Competition will remain, just like Red Hat competes with Canonical and SUSE. We are just a vendor when it comes to competing. So the ‘compete space’ is very different. What unfortunately tends to happen is that people bring that compete situation into the ideological conversations. For Microsoft, a developer is a developer. For the developer, there are just two things that are important —to really drive the technology forward with passion and enthusiasm, and two, to be financially successful, and known for their good work. I don't see a reason why developers should be bound to a platform—be it open source or proprietary. They should have access to everything.

As interest in interoperability and open source evolved to the cloud and devices, we brought in Microsoft Open Technologies Inc as a wholly owned subsidiary. We believe it is the best way to serve developers, customers and partners better. Microsoft is committed to openness. Microsoft is becoming more open in the way that we work with and collaborate with others in the industry, in how we listen to customers, and in our approach to the cloud. While this subsidiary has been formed in the US, the existing openness initiatives and those going forward through this subsidiary will definitely benefit customers, developers and the open source ecosystem globally, including those in India.

QSo, if I were to read between the lines, is Microsoft giving open source developers a chance to commercialise their work? It’s not just about commercialisation. It is about innovation and ensuring that they are successful, both commercially and in terms of popularity. Why would a developer or a company invest a huge amount of time and resources on something that would not give them a great growth opportunity. That's what the fundamentals of any business are. Our view on the whole thing is that the developers should choose. If they think proprietary technology can give them growth, it’s their choice. If they think open source can do it for them, it’s great. What is even better is when they use opportunities involving both technologies.Let’s be honest, there is nothing called 'free' in the world today. If users get something free and are stuck with it, and then have to pay somebody to help them use or maintain it, it is not ‘free’ ultimately. So at the end of the day, there is nothing that is totally free. Ultimately, it’s about the customers and developers. And beyond all that, it is about innovation.

I would urge those developers to go to microsoft.com/openness to take a feel of what we are actually up to. There are open source enthusiasts who are as actively participating in projects as Microsoft is. That's what people in India need to see and that's my job.

QYou just mentioned the interoperability factor. Windows 8 is being heavily criticised for not being friendly with open source because of the secure-boot feature. It is being said that users will not be able to boot Linux operating systems on Windows 8 PCs. How do you defend that? Secure boot attempts to protect the PC against boot loader attacks, which can compromise a system before the OS even loads. Secure boot is actually a feature of Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI), a new type of boot environment that has gradually been replacing the standard BIOS process. Windows 8 taps into UEFI's secure boot to ensure that the pre-OS environment is safe and secure. The secure-boot feature is an innovation that has come through to ensure that there is security. I think, today, security is a major concern,

whether it is a Windows PC or a non-Windows PC. What we are leveraging in Windows 8 is just features and innovations that are coming up at the hardware level. I don't see a problem there because I know for a fact that there will be coexistence eventually, because this is a hardware innovation. It is just like how every product has to adapt to something or the other. There will always be features that may seem like blocking initially, but technology doesn't remain stationary and adaptation is required of everybody—whether it is Windows, Linux or different distributions of Linux. Infact we’ve already seen SUSE and other distributions adapt to the secure boot feature in UEFI.

QMicrosoft has joined hands with the state government in Tamil Nadu. As soon as Microsoft signed the agreement, the Tamil Nadu government changed its stance of using 'only' open source in the free laptops it gave students as soon as it inked a pact with the company. The students had to switch over to Windows, abandoning BOSS Linux, which generated ire from the community. The government finally settled for providing the dual-boot option rather than just BOSS or only Windows. Don't you think such efforts are a threat for the community? See, I cannot comment on the political aspect of things. But I see it as a positive, because when the student graduates and is looking for employment, the student would have both options. Let's be honest—if they had gone for just Linux, it would have been a loss of opportunity for Microsoft, just like when we win something, it is a loss of opportunity for Linux. Every vendor, whether it is for Windows or for Linux, is going to capitalise on the growth and opportunities that India offers. So, at the end of the day, there will be times when X will win and times when Y will win. Regarding the particular case you mentioned, I think it is a perfect situation because as a student, I will get access to both. There is no cost issue involved here.

Going back to the fundamental issue, I would re-assert that there is nothing that is free (monetarily). Whether a government adopts a proprietary platform or an open source platform, there is a cost involved. That might be the upfront purchase cost or the cost of implementation, maintenance, etc. But there will be a cost. There are enough research studies today that mention companies saying that you cannot look at acquisition as the only cost. When you think about software and technology, you have to think about the longer term and the total cost of ownership, which includes not just the acquisition cost but things like implementation, deployment, maintenance, downtime, the security impact and all of that. So I think your point that proprietary software is more expensive and open source is less expensive, or free, is not true. Otherwise, there wouldn't be a commercial distribution of any open source software. Take any open source software company. They will have two versions of their software—one is the open source version and the other is the commercial version. Have you seen any company providing implementation, consulting and deployment support for free? Not really. Everybody has to make money.

For Microsoft, we openly say that we are a proprietary software company in a majority of the things that we do and here is how much our software will cost. Open source software is slightly different. Those companies say that if people use their commercial software, they need to buy a subscription and that comes at a cost. I think what has happened in Tamil Nadu is great actually. Today, the student gets both Windows as well as Linux. What could be better for a student! Ultimately I think the Tamil Nadu government would have taken a decision based on what it thought was right and what was in the best interests of the students. I think it’s time that we moved ahead of the debate about which one is better—open source or proprietary technologies. I think the need of the hour is that both proprietary and open source technologies join hands. So, if students get laptops with both software, they get exposure and choice and we should let them have it. This will help in increasing their employability. The focus should be on building capabilities as opposed to discussions on technology.

Microsoft is committed to openness. Microsoft is becoming more open in the way that we work with and collaborate with others in the industry, in how we listen to customers, and in our approach to the cloud. While this subsidiary has been formed in the US, the existing openness initiatives and those going forward through this subsidiary will definitely benefit customers, developers and the open source ecosystem globally, including those in India.

QWhat about Codeplex? It has over 28,000 projects. Are there projects that open source developers can make money from? Absolutely! It would be very difficult for me to say who is making the money, or how much. I would like to use the example of Sugar CRM. The way they are making money is phenomenal. So I think it’s not about Source Forge or CodePlex, it’s about the developer having an idea, and willing to invest that amount of time and effort in turning that idea into a viable business proposition.

By: Diksha P Gupta

The author is assistant editor at EFY. When she is not exercising her journalistic skills, she spends time in travelling, reading fictions and biographies.