Via Peter O'Kellys reality check: The Seattle Times: Microsoft: Plugged in to Microsoft's biggest rival:
"My belief is that open-source software is going to help drive the acquisition cost of software down toward zero," he said, a shift that will require software companies to move "over to a maintenance and support model."
Strong words coming from a Microsoft employee...
The problem for Microsoft, of course, being that maintenance and support is a market that is a lot harder to monopolize than software sales, and if they do attempt in order to keep their margins they won't be able to stay economically competitive as real competition drives down support and maintenance cost for the alternatives.