John Spooner and Mary Jo Foley, write in ZDNet News . . .

“Feeling pressure from Linux in the embedded-device market, Microsoft Corp. is contemplating giving away Windows CE to some developers for free.”

“The company is unlikely to go so far as to try to claim its effort to be Linux-like open source, but it nonetheless seems to be counting on riding the open source movement's coattails.”

“Microsoft Corp. could make public its plans to open the Windows CE source base as soon as its Windows Hardware Engineering Conference (WinHEC) in late April, sources claim.”

“For embedded-device markets such as set top boxes, Microsoft easily could afford to give the OS away to encourage developer support. Licensing fees for the purpose of a set top box for cable companies costs very little money on a per-copy basis. One source speculated that in large deals, Microsoft charges less than $1 per copy. Microsoft's revenue comes, instead, on development tools and maintenance contracts, sources said.”

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