Microsoft will migrate users of its free blog service to an open source platform run mostly on Debian Linux
Try to fire up a new blog on Windows Live and you’ll be directed to WordPress.com, the hosting portion of an insanely popular open source blogging platform that, until recently, had nothing to do with Microsoft.
Indeed it mostly runs on the Debian of Linux. This speaks volumes as to where Microsoft’s head is these days when it comes to open source (and maybe even Linux).
Also see: Microsoft: ‘We love open source’
I, for one, wholly applaud this news as good for Microsoft, good for consumers/bloggers, good competition with Google’s Blogger and extremely insightful that perhaps … just maybe … the “build it here” mentality that has hindered Microsoft so badly in the past is fading.
The announcement that Microsoft was ditching its own Windows Live Spaces blogging platform and instead shuttling existing and new users over to WordPress.com was made yesterday at the TechCrunch Disrupt conference. Dharmesh Mehta, director of Windows Live Product Management, said in a post on the Windows Live blog that “there are 30 million people who are actively using Windows Live Spaces and have been eagerly awaiting the next set of new blogging features.”
Microsoft seemed to have angered 29,999,999 of them in June when it introduced changes in the privacy settings for Windows Live that exposed personal info, and a features revamp that deleted gadgets and data from the blogs. Surprise! Live Users woke up one day, logged into their blogs and discovered that some of the stuff on their Web pages (gadgets) was deleted or altered. This included any HTML comments in the guest book because the guest book no longer supports HTML. And no fix came. And no new features showed up.
By eliminating a Microsoft built, Microsoft managed, Microsoft supported blogging platform and going with the beloved and open source WordPress, Windows Live becomes a far more attractive option for users. Because the underlying software of WordPress.com grew organically as an open source project, the GPL-licensed blogging platform has an unheard-of number of add-ons, gadgets, pre-configured designs and a giant eco-system of Web developers trained in customizing it. The hosted version, WordPress.com, is the service that will be integrated into Windows Live.
But wait, there’s more. WordPress.com’s Paul Kim, posted in his blog that the two companies have worked together to make it relatively painless for a users to transfer an existing blog from Windows Live Spaces to WordPress. They’ve created a brand new importer for Windows Live Spaces to WordPress.com. The downside is that Live Space users who don’t want to migrate to WordPress.com will have to manually move their blogs somewhere else. Because after six months, their blogs will be deleted.
And, Microsoft’s IM tool, Windows Live Messenger will get a boost from the partnership as well. says Kim: “As part of this project, we’ve added support for Messenger Connect as a ‘Publicize’ option, which enables you to automatically share updates to your WordPress.com blog with your friends who use Windows Live Messenger.”
I predict that this move will make all of Windows Live more popular. Windows Live competes with Google Apps. It offers a relatively decent set of freebie tools including Office apps that integrate with the Microsoft Office desktop version and free hosted storage known as SkyDrive (a personal favorite of mine).
As huge as WordPress.com already is, this partnership will essentially double the number of blogs (mostly hosted for free) that WordPress manages. It’s a huge infrastructure challenge, points out Rich Miller on DataCenterKnowledge.com. “The WordPress.com service is hosted by Layered Technologies, with much of its infrastructure housed in the provider’s Chicago data center.”
In this 1-minute video from Miller that shows the WordPress.com data center in Chicago, what you’ll see is many servers using quad-core and dual-core AMD processors. But guess what you won’t see? Windows Server. WordPress.com mostly runs on Debian, according to Barry Abrahamson, the WordPress.com “Systems Wrangler.”
What? Microsoft has just shifted 30 million of its users to a platform that runs on Debian? Will world peace be just around the corner?
The more Microsoft is willing to partner with best-in-class technology — even if that technology does not use Windows — the better off all users are.
Now, I realize there may be many a skeptic that thinks Microsoft won’t be able to resist temptation. They may fear that it will instead try to force its servers into the WordPress.com data center and that sooner or later Debian will be gone. But I hold a more optimistic view. I think this partnership shows Microsoft that it needs to become a model of playing nicely with others. Instead of threats, there could be interoperability. Instead of me-too products, Microsoft can hire out, and spend its energies improving its existing products and bringing to market new technologies that people really need.
Julie Bort writes The Microsoft Update blog for Network World’s Microsoft Subnet site. Follow her on Twitter @Julie188.
