Microsoft guru to address LinuxWorld Australia

Stan Beer
Tuesday, 27 September 2005 10:00

IT Industry - Development

It may seem like sending a commando into enemy territory, but Microsoft is sending its top Linux guru to address the first LinuxWorld Expo and Conference to be held in Australia in March 2006.

According to a number of sources, Bill Hilf, open source industry veteran and former IBM Linux deployment specialist, received rave reviews for a talk about his experience running Microsoft's Linux/OSS Lab at LinuxWorld San Francisco in August this year.

Microsoft claims that Hilf's focus is on building bridges. At LinuxWorld SF, he led a session at the conference titled Managing Linux in a Mixed Environment.

Hilf says that the Microsoft Linux/OSS Lab is primarily an experiment in interoperability. "By running Linux and a variety of other OSS in a highly Microsoft-centric IT environment, we're learning how those technologies can better interoperate with Microsoft's proprietary technologies. The lab consists of a few hundred servers plus a range of PCs, collectively running over 40 different Linux distributions, together with many different versions of UNIX. These various systems need to interoperate with the Windows-based networking, human-resources, e-mail and other systems that run Microsoft." Hilf says.

According to reports, Hilf is working with the local Microsoft Australia team on the details of his talk at the Darling Harbour conference and expo next year.

Who knows - maybe we'll even see Microsoft setting up a stand at the expo? Well, maybe not.