Take a Network Break! Cisco lights a Spark to take another run at unified communications and blunt Slack’s momentum, buys a small startup to make Spark more searchable, and touts a favorable finding in its patent battle with Arista.
Microsoft announces SQL will run on Linux, and rolls out a cloud switch OS that it will bring to the Open Compute Project.
Not to be left out, Google announces its own plan to finally join the Open Compute Project, and shares a new hardware rack specification with the project.
Network Break brought in three guests to help fill in while Greg was away. Many thanks to Russ White, Denise Donohue, and Tom Hollingsworth for top-notch pontification and erudite analysis!
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Show Notes:
Cisco Lights A Spark
Doubling Down on Cloud Collaboration, Cisco Invests $150M for Developers and Delivers Cisco Spark Service – Cisco Systems
Cisco Announces Acquisition of Synata – Cisco Systems
Cisco Vs. Arista – The Next Round
Protecting Innovation: ITC Releases Detailed Ruling and Remedy – Cisco Systems
Microsoft, Linux, and Open Compute
Announcing SQL Server On Linux – Microsoft
Microsoft Provides Open Source Cloud Switch Software – SDX Central
SONiC FAQ – Microsoft
Google Joins Open Compute Club
Google joins Facebook’s Open Compute Project, will donate rack design – Ars Technica
Just wanted to drop a line to point out the intechwetrust podcast (http://intechwetrustpodcast.com/e/077-microsoft-loves-linux/) which also delved into the Microsoft Linux “hug”…
Interesting point was the discussion on if Microsoft is looking to disaggregate it’s application from the OS in the long run (think 10+ years) opening up new revenue streams and lining up more with customer expectations about application portability.
Would be interesting to get your views on this as a long term strategy from Microsoft.
Hi Alan,
Thanks for the comment. I touched briefly on Microsoft disaggregating from its OS in a blog, but I’ll speculate here too:
There’s no longer a strategic advantage in a tightly-coupled OS/application stack, especially when it comes to the cloud and mobile, and even more so as containers and microservices take over the world. More development efforts are shifting to cloud and mobile, and Microsoft knows it can’t dictate the OS layer there. Rather than try to fight the inevitable, I think the company recognizes that its applications have to run on any platform if it wants to stay relevant. I would be surprised if it takes them 10 years, or even 5. They don’t have that much time.