How Microsoft Measures Open Source Success

For more than two decades, open source was anathema to Microsoft, but times have changed. Microsoft in 2016 is increasingly embracing open source across multiple areas, both participating in open source efforts as well as supporting open source technologies on Microsoft platforms.

As a public company, with shareholders and a board of directors to placate, how is Microsoft now able to demonstrate that open source is in fact delivering value to the company? That’s a question that Wim Coekaerts, Corporate Vice President of Enterprise Open Source at Microsoft, answers in a video interview.

Coekaerts spent 21 years working at Oracle, much of it running Oracle’s Linux efforts. Five months ago, he left Oracle to join Microsoft and is helping to lead the company’s open source charge. For Coekaerts, Microsoft’s open-source participation can be measures in multiple ways, including customer sentiment, which can be very subjective

“There are folks saying we don’t really trust Microsoft in open source,” Coekaerts said. “That really has to change and it has changed, but there can be more of that.”

Another more tangible metric is usage of Linux and open source technologies on Microsoft’s Azure cloud platform. Coekaerts wants to see more Linux virtual machine running as guests on Azure.

Watch the video with Wim Coekaerts below:

Sean Michael Kerner is a senior editor at Datamation and InternetNews.com. Follow him on Twitter @TechJournalist

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