"For developers who really question if Microsoft is serious about open source, my answer would be 'absolutely"— 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; DnG LI WhHUH Ls D SURSULHWDUy sROXWLRn, WhDW’s finH WRR. 0RsW 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