The world does like paying for software, a fact which has been proven overtime with extreme popularity of pirated software in the market. However, free software has seldom produced the quality that pricey software is able to present, and this fact alone is the reason why companies like Microsoft (NASDAQ: MSFT) are so popular.
Microsoft Windows is the most popular PC operating system in the world today, even though a free alternative to the Windows, Ubuntu by Linux, is readily available in the market. The reason behind this is the fact that Microsoft Windows is simply better in terms of functionality and user accessibility. It’s easier to operate and very dynamic in its capabilities.
However, now it seems like Microsoft firmly believes some good software should be free, hence open-source. Last year, Microsoft embarked on the journey to bring open-source software of a high quality to the world under its flagship, when it signed partnership agreements with CoreOS and Cloudera, the former a startup operating systems company, and the latter a large data company.
The initial principle of Microsoft set by founder Bill Gates was the exact opposite to the concept of open-source software. Bill Gates was of the opinion, at the time Microsoft was founded in the year 1975, that software should not be given out free of cost but should be sold for a price. Going against the common practice of open-source software around that time, Bill Gates was one of the first few to charge a price for a software.
According to Microsoft, however, now the time has come that the needs of the consumer be put first by the company in order to ensure a stable (and increasing) market share in the industry. Considering how it is impossible for the company to meet with all the needs of the consumers, especially when certain needs can only be fulfilled with a freeware (free software), it has become imperative for Microsoft to team up with companies that develop open source software. By teaming up, Microsoft would be providing the companies guidance into developing their software to be better and more stable than their current form.
This week, the company has acquired Revolutions Analytics, furthering a step towards the open source realm. According to a spokesperson, the agreement, which has been signed, entitles the company to support and evolve both open source and commercial distributions of Revolution R across multiple operating systems.”
With the popular data science language, casually termed “R” by developers, is now under the flagship of Microsoft, and, like the .NET framework, will be incorporated within many of Microsoft’s software. Previously, the famous software language Python was incorporated by Microsoft in software like Visual Basic, in order to provide the power of multiple software to its consumers for the price of one. By doing so, Microsoft is making its software more competitive in the market, as they carry more features compared to competitor software.
This changing trend at Microsoft has got many developers excited. According to Azure’s CTO, “It really demonstrates the new Microsoft.”
