RMS and Microsoft find common ground [sort of, well not really]

My colleague Brett Roberts, our National Technology Officer for New Zealand, mailed me yesterday with a story from the UK’s Guardian newspaper where Richard Stallman seemed to be agreeing with a key part of Microsoft’s cloud computing strategy.

As a company we talk a lot about Software + Services. In our view software in the cloud and software on the desktop complement each other, leaving the user in a position to make decisions about control over their own data and applications.

Stallman makes his point in his usual straightforward way, assuming that I’m reading the interview correctly then it is clear that he is not a fan of cloud computing, this quote sums it up;

“One reason you should not use web applications to do your computing is that you lose control,” he said. “It’s just as bad as using a proprietary program.

The headline of this post and of Brett’s is obviously a stretch, but it is one of those moments that leaves me thinking that even the most extreme points of view – from both sides of a debate – can find some areas of common concern and opportnuity.

If you are interested in understanding more, I think Brett sums up Microsoft’s S+S view pretty well using Microsoft Exchange services as an example;

In a nutshell, Microsoft’s view is that while some software and services will end up ‘in the cloud’ customers should have the choice about whether or not they want to head down that path and, importantly, have the choice to move in the opposite direction (i.e. move from the cloud to partner-hosted or self-hosted solutions) if they choose to do so. A great example of this in action is Microsoft Exchange.

Customers can host their own Exchange servers, outsource that hosting to a local hoster or they can have Microsoft do the hosting for them. When it comes to the client end of the equation, customers can choose from Microsoft Outlook or they can use a browser and access their Exchange-hosted email via Outlook Web Access. A Windows Mobile device is also an option. That implementation matrix provides customers with a lot of choices while preserving their ability to change their mind further down the track. We call this approach Software + Services (S+S).