MSN Powered by Apache

Parts of Microsoft's MSN run on the free Apache Web server on top of Unix. Does Microsoft know something we don't about NT? By Leander Kahney.

Who does Microsoft want to run its MSN homepages today? Why Apache, of course.

At least part of Microsoft's Microsoft Network runs on the free Apache Web server on a Unix platform, the German tech magazine C't has uncovered.

"Microsoft seems to have not very much confidence in its own products," the magazine declares on its Web site.

C't discovered Microsoft's server choice by typing in a URL for a nonexistent page, like this one, and noting the standard Apache error message.