From: "Joe Barr" 

http://www.eweek.com/article2/0,3959,1121581,00.asp

June 9, 2003
Microsoft Feels the Linux Heat
By Peter Galli

Microsoft Corp. is starting to react more aggressively to the Linux and
open-source threat, last week slashing the price of its SQL Server 2000
Developer Edition by $450, to $49.

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The second major price cut in as many weeks followed the Redmond, Wash.,
company's decision to reduce the retail price of Office XP by 15 percent.

For the first time, Microsoft officials are admitting that Linux is
affecting the way the company prices products. Paul Flessner, senior vice
president of the Server Platform Division, told eWEEK at the Tech Ed
conference here last week that Linux factored into Microsoft's decision to
cut the price of its SQL Server 2000 Developer Edition, effective Aug. 1.

"Microsoft is about making technology available to all audiences and
as ubiquitously as it can," Flessner said. "Giving developers
great access to our technology helps further that mission, so that was the
call around the developer edition." (For more from Flessner, see Face
to Face, Page 26.)

Flessner said Linux was not the only reason for the price drop, but he said
he would be "remiss if I said that wasn't one of the factors. ... It
was. Linux has certainly brought these things to our attention."


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