Don't let the recent selloff in Linux stocks shake you...it is a fait-a-complit........".Open source is a whole other and different interesting drama, but just in terms of
technologies, Linux is the biggest thing to happen in the software world since Java. Linux will grow
much more quickly in terms of its presence in the business environment than Java did because Linux
only requires that you download it, install it, run it on an inexpensive PC and you have a high
performance, scalable, robust cycle. This is just perfect right now because people are running around
implementing this (often times alongside Java) multi-tier scalable, enterprise, Internet computing with
a client server, an application server, a data server. Where Linux is really emerging into the market is
between the big-horse Unix servers, and above the NT departmental enterprise servers. So it's pretty
easy to deploy and take advantage of, unlike Java. I think it'll spread very broadly, and as such I think
it'll be significant in the market.
The idea that this whole new paradigm of open source is going to transform the way we do software is, at this point, still a religious
issue. For too many years now, vendors delivering value to the market, have claimed that their brand of infrastructure software-printer
drivers, operating systems, network tools- had to be bought from the vendor because the vendor really cared about the customer and
produced a better product. Principally, it's been there to secure an unbreakable relationship between the vendor and the customer. I
think you will see over the next 3, 5, 8 years that increasingly, groupings of infrastructure software will tend to move in the direction
of open source tentatively, but I think unstoppably. Linux will be part of that. " |
