Red Hat Invades Washington

Paul Coe Clark III writes: "I caught Michael Tiemann, CTO of Red Hat, in Washington yesterday and grilled him about the DMCA, the SSSCA, the Sklyarov case and the future of Linux."

Comments

Good points, but *how* is the market different?

[fiddlesticks]

The most interseting comment in that i/v -
that he thinks the PC desktop market is dead, and that other markets (embedded, appliance-led products, networked devices) are the way forward, was not picked up by the interviewer IMHO.

'...all show high projected growths, except for PCs. Tiemann taps the dismal PC projection] That is what I'm saying is dead..'.

How is RH addressing these markets? I am sure they are, but more clarity would be nice. I work with Interactive TV boxes in the Uk, and we dont care about the OS, and neither do the consumers.

It's the middleware that counts. Pace boxes running Liberate middleware run VX Works OS, but as a developer for the Interactive box I'm not allowed anywhere near that level of code. So, is RH gonna go for the OEM market, or is it going to what is the *equivalent* of the desktop and build OSs that fit nicely with higher level code?

Nope, I'm not making much sense, but as this is, after all, as he has said, an entirely different market than the one he's used to, I'd like to know more.

Re:Good Interview

[krmt]

So Microsoft is responsible because people are satisfied with their computers? I don't think that's really what you were getting at.

No, that's not what I was really getting at. I'm not saying it's a bad thing that Microsoft is making people satisfied with their computers. What I mean is that because they are a monopoly, people have nothing else to compare to (except Apple, which they don't even look at) to realize that they could have better. In that sense, their absolute domination has killed the market.

And I think that the point about set-top boxes is mistaken. He's not really promising on any of this, he's delivered a package that people can use. I'm betting most all of the devices that use embedded linux won't be consumer-oriented. They'll be for corporations and engineers and such, people doing highly specialized work who need something more than a palm pilot. That's where I think Linux will make inroads. It won't be something most of us see or really care about, but I think he's right to go there.

let's look at what he said

[Erris]

It is certainly possible to be successful using Linux on the desktop, as I do, but from a commercial perspective, as long as there is a monopolist who continues to behave in a way that violates antitrust law, I don't think there's much hope for an alternative desktop. The desktop market is not an exciting market. It has reached a point of saturation.

Translation: we could do it, but we won't make any money on it, M$ has effectivly blocked us there so we are going to look elsewhere.

He's wrong. Packaging a slick easy to install set of desktop software was a great Red Hat strength, and there is great demand for what they offer. They need to position themselves as the solution to the problems of propraitory code: programs that don't talk to each other, shifting "standards" that waste work, poor security, and massive IT budgets that churn junk all day without being able to fix anything. They have not done a good job of getting the word out about specific issues and how they have a solution. No one else in the US has the training network, name recognition and ability to do what they can. The market is there, you just have to make it happen. Think of Sony and the Walkman. The demand was there, despite a downturn in consumer electronics. Sony just created the product that people really wanted. Red Hat will only be defeated if they give up, or start acting like M$ themselves.

Re:Opportunity or opposition?

[krmt]

Building up to meet the UNIX-to-Linux migration or the migration to UNIX that is OS X? RH basically conceded the desktop in the face of M$ monopoly. Embedded is certainly the place for growth. But aside from that, is Apple the real competition?

No, when he said UNIX, he meant it. Like you said, Apple isn't really a competitor, they're a niche market. OSX Server ain't bad (used it plenty myself) but it's really going to be a minor player in relation to 2k (and whatever follows) and other *NIXes. Everyone knows Linux is a great server OS, there's no denying it,and that's where the meat of Redhat's income will be coming from for now. The way to make that income grow is to gather more of the server market, and the easiest way for them to do this is to make it easy to transition from their HP's and Solaris servers.

And as for rumors of OSX Server on other platforms, I'll believe it when I see it. There's no way, given Apple's past, that they'd do this now.