Microsoft: We are a 'mixed source' company

Microsoft no longer believes it has to position itself as a proprietary software vendor against open source options. At a lunchtime interview, Horacio Gutierrez, Microsoft's top intellectual property lawyer, noted that Microsoft has released "plenty of stuffs" as open source. Similarly, a vendor like Red Hat also issues commercial licenses. As a result, the battle of open source solutions versus proprietary software is basically over. Gutierrez noted that, "increasingly in the future, we are all going to be 'mixed source.'"

You might be interested to know that Microsoft is currently defending about 50 patent cases right now--most of which are against companies that don't even make products related to the patents they hold.

For more:
- check out the CNET News article

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