Microsoft had to report a 30% slump in sales for the last quarter. Their report to the U.S. SEC includes a rundown of their risk and competition factors. Among their concerns are Linux and open source untertakings, but also their own partners HP and Intel.

SCO Group CEO Darl McBride says competition from the open source Linux operating system was a major reason why the company was forced to file for Chapter 11 on Friday. The slump, McBride said, "has been attributable to competition from alternative operating systems, including Linux."

t seems we’ve arrived upon Microsoft open source. In the last couple of years, whenever there was discussion of Microsoft’s open source projects and efforts such as CodePlex or Port25, there was typically the standard open source response: it’s not OSI-approved; it’s not real open source.

Carol J. Rizzo offers five tips on how to bring open-source software into your organization in a way that maps to your corporate risk factors, making open-source software no more or less of a risk than proprietary software.

Microsoft’s partners team through its NXT initiative launched a campaign focused on open source ISVs in 2007 in conjunction with the Open Source Business Conference. The campaign is designed to encourage ISVs to explore how best to deliver their solutions to customers in the Microsoft world, recognizing that many high profile open source projects have 30%-50% of their installed base in the Windows world. The Microsoft program works through partners to assist ISVs.

Just as Microsoft has being accused of playing dirty over sales tactics and patents, the software company has launched its first open source organization. The CodePlex Foundation aims to act as a liason between commercial enterprises and open source developers and communities while increasing open source participation, says the foundation.

A few weeks ago I posted a few articles about Open Source (Still afraid of Open Source?, Eating my own dog food, and Open Source and loving it!). I have now been Microsoft-Free at work for about 7 weeks. I have also found solutions for almost all of the initial hurdles I encountered in the first week.

MICROSOFT says it is under attack by open source. The company complained in its annual report that it was facing increasing pressure from open source companies. It claims they are stealing its ideas and benefiting from its intellectual property.

There are number of factors coming together that lead me to believe that open source's moment is right now, today, this year.