The rumours and speculation are flying that Microsoft might be interested in buying Red Hat.

An anonymous reader writes “Various news sources including ZDnet [blog] are today reporting that Microsoft is considering buying out Red Hat, speculating that ‘Microsoft could see Red Hat’s acquisition as a nice way to undermine IBM, but might not consider that a sufficient reason to do it,’

My first, immediate reaction via IRC was: I think microsoft feels in a sort of obligated way about Linux the way it does with Apple; it is willing if they have to support the platform on one level because ultimately it sells software and they should want to be on as many platforms as possible.

The flipside, however, is they also want to control their proprietary OS and if they also own Red Hat which is free online, but can be packaged with goodies and sold like Red Hat does in stores like Best Buy, they would be competing with themselves. But is competing with themselves such a bad thing?

Think about how many people believe Microsoft hates open source and doesn’t want to work with the open source community. It could even drive that crowd even more batty or it could start to change them.

Or could it land them in another anti-trust situation? jvastine thinks that’s a possibility, writing in the Script School IRC chat: “MS buying RedHat would be highly scrutinized as a monopolistic move.”

Forser, a .NET developer and blogger has a slightly more optimistic opinion: “It would rock if they bought Red Hat and kick some dirt in the machinery .. Hail .NET.” Forser originally alerted me to the Slashdot story above, BTW.

Google buying Red Hat seems to make more sense, but I doubt we’ll see that. This could also be a power play to force IBM’s hand. Then again, Steve Balmer announced recently that Virtual Server 2005 would be supporting Linux.

Russell Beattie who works for Yahoo, recently wrote a long, passionate piece about how Yahoo really had no choice but to go with Microsoft and their DRM because it was Microsoft or Apple and at least Microsoft wants to work with people via Janus. Apple is sitting on a Janus alternative but it thinks it can call all the shots.

I’m one of those paranoid guys (if you can’t tell) that thinks the main threat to Yahoo’s business is not Google but the old enemy Microsoft. Y! is making more forays into Hollywood, but we’re basing our services on Microsoft’s techology! That’s insane! I guess, hey, this isn’t really new - I’m sure 90% plus of the people using Yahoo! right now do it on Windows and IE. But this is different - DRM adds a new level of control which will allow Redmond to eventually push competitors out of the market with proprietary extensions and or future licensing changes.

Should Mr. Beattie or anybody else be paranoid? Two separate issues, the Red Hat purchase and the Janus DRM but the funnel leads unserendipitously to the famous Redmond campus.

Scoble will be all over this soon, I imagine. Will be curious to read what he thinks about these Red Hat rumours.

Did this post make you go hmm?

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