Posted on September 26, 2007 - by Jordan H

Microsoft vs The World - PHP vs ASP

I’ve just been reading a news article on BBC News that claims Microsoft are reported to be considering buying a chunk out of Facebook. It takes me back to the reality that Microsoft is buying up the world. If the unlucky case came to be that Microsoft bought out Facebook, then would it change everything to ASP? It wouldn’t do Microsoft’s closed-source image very well if it kept with PHP files.

In the ongoing war between open source and closed source software, it’s not a case of choosing with our feet. More and more people are switching to open source and they all have justified decisions. Most run along the lines of “it’s free” or “it’s better”, which is true and right. Microsoft and other closed-source companies argue back with “We provide support” and “Ours is better”.

Is open source taking the world by storm? Consider this: Firefox’s market share of internet browsers has almost tripled since it launched in late 2004. It now has just under 15% of all browser market share in the world. Big enough to push a dent into IE. And yet more than that same percentage of all websites in the world don’t have support for Firefox. Not to mention Microsoft’s. Some have accused it of deliberately trying to make their websites look bad in Firefox and other browsers such as Opera.

It occurred to me while doing ECDL in ICT yesterday that even widely accepted examinations like that still use closed source standards. For example, the file types in questions only cover Microsoft’s .doc, .xls and .ppt, not Open Office’s free standards. It calls .html documents “Internet Explorer files.” What’s next for the world?

Lets downsize Microsoft to a position where it no longer dominates the market with it’s closed source standards and lets the open source revolution through.