Microsoft has posted the prepared text for today's talk on “The Commercial Software Model” at the New York University Stern School of Business. The talk was presented by Craig Mundie, Microsoft Senior Vice President. Here are a few selected excerpts . . .

“. . . during the last year, the U.S. economy has hit what could be regarded as its most substantial speed bump of the past two decades. Illustrated most starkly by the declining valuation of the NASDAQ, we've witnessed a notable decline in consumer confidence that has people wondering whether we're at a brief respite or whether we've reached the end of an economic era.”

“. . . companies and investors need to focus on business models that can be sustainable over the long term in the real world economy. A common trait of many of the companies that failed is that they gave away for free or at a loss the very thing they produced that was of greatest value — in the hope that somehow they'd make money selling something else . . .”

“As a result of Microsoft's statement of position today, many people will attempt to say that Shared Source is Microsoft's failed attempt at being an Open Source Company. This could not be a more incorrect statement. Shared Source is not Open Source. We recognize that OSS has some benefits, such as the fostering of community, improved feedback and augmented debugging. We are always looking for ways to improve our products and make our customers more successful, and to that end we have incorporated these positive OSS elements in Shared Source. But there are significant drawbacks to OSS as well.”

“The OSS development model leads to a strong possibility of unhealthy 'forking' of a code base, resulting in the development of multiple incompatible versions of programs, weakened interoperability, product instability, and hindering businesses' ability to strategically plan for the future. Furthermore, it has inherent security risks and can force intellectual property into the public domain.”

“. . . open source software based on the GPL mirrors the .com business models that proved the least successful during the past year. They ask software developers to give away for free the very thing they create that is of greatest value in the hope that somehow they'll make money selling something else.”

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