Budget cuts are causing many companies to rethink how they deploy technology -- but rather than causing them to dump Windows Server in favor of Linux, the situation is prompting them to build on whichever platform they already know and use, a Microsoft official said today.

The comments by Sam Ramji, Microsoft senior director of platform strategy, contrast with Linux vendor Novell's characterization of an IDC study it commissioned. Novell, which partners with Microsoft, said it sees businesses migrating to Linux to save costs in the down economy. Speaking on the phone today from the Open Source Business Conference in San Francisco, Ramji said Microsoft isn't seeing a big shift in the market.

Ramji described the prevailing customer philosophy as, "Stick with what you've got, and where you have new initiatives, build those on top of what you already have in terms of your infrastructure -- operating system level, your database level."

Based on what Microsoft is seeing, Ramji said, IT budgets have been reduced to the point that companies are focusing on the strategic projects that are most critical to their business. Hardware and software purchases and training are being deferred. Ramji said companies are also more risk averse, they're looking for high reliability and value in the systems they deploy, and they want to get more value out of their existing hardware, software and staff skills. That makes big platform shifts less likely.

He noted that it's important to distinguish between Linux and open-source applications. In fact, open-source apps are benefitting Microsoft, Ramji said. "We've seen increases in packaged applications on top of Windows, but we've also seen growth of open-source application adoption on top of Windows infrastructures, so we think that interoperability is leading some growth for us there."

Separately, I asked Ramji if he was getting a lot of feedback from the open-source community about Microsoft's lawsuit alleging patent violations against TomTom for its use of Linux and other technologies in portable navigation devices. Generally, it hasn't come up, he said, but when it has, people seem to see it as a private dispute between Microsoft and TomTom.