Microsoft announces that they're preparing to take on the search engine technology space again, and suddenly everybody's wondering if Google can survive. It's an incredible tribute to your success, but it's also a hindrance to the open-source space - who wants to try and compete with Microsoft, particularly when I'm not getting paid for it? - Ted Neward A few observations on this otherwise good entry: Some people are doing open source for reasons aside from money. Some people are doing open source for reasons aside from competing with big software companies Big software companies have little much to do of interest except a) get bigger, b) not get smaller. It you do anything of value, anything that creates a significant market, a big software company will attempt to compete with you - they'd be silly not to and you'd be silly not to expect it. Bill Gates recently said (effectively) that Microsoft had missed out on search and now Steve Balmer says they have a lot of smart people in search. No doubt. The point is that Microsoft did not create or energize that market, someone else did. What big software companies do well, if they're smart, is turn the ship around as needed....
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