When Microsoft dons battle gear, it's best to get out of the way. Pastmaster in the art of warfare, it has the reputation of having won every single battle it has fought. It decimated Apple, routed IBM, blasted Borland and broke Netscape's back. As geeks love to say, this company knows how to use FUD devastatingly - stoke Fear, catalyse Uncertainty and create disproportionately large room for Doubt in the minds of competitors. Classic Sun Tzu!
Until now, however, it has always fought and beaten foes with a definite face and form. To put UNIX out of favour with the computing world, it had to beat IBM. In its battle for supremacy on desktops, Steve Jobs and Apple Computers were Enemy No. 1. In the office productivity suite market, it needed to target Lotus and Borland. More recently, during the browser wars, it simply had to focus on Netscape.
But now, for the first time in its life, Microsoft is facing an amorphous enemy. Linux, the free source operating system (OS) that has evolved over the years, owes allegiance to none and is built on the back of a world view totally alien to Microsoft. It is backed by an amazing number of supporters, big and small. The problem with Linux, in Microsoft's view, is that there is no clear target to take aim at.
