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Businessweek Covers Linuxworld
MadFarmAnimalz writes "BusinessWeek has coverage of Linuxworld up, and it makes interesting reading in places. Amongst things touched upon are the open-source business model, how vendors will be tempted into locking in customers into their offerings, and other things." I'll be out there tomorrow for the Golden Penguin Bowl, as well as judging exhibitors. Busy day.
ABC, Fox, NBC, Reuters, and AP carry news that the majority of people reading it will care about. Linux is a niche market, most people don't (and won't, for years) care.
Linux had its chance in the past few years, and poorly performing stocks (LNUX, etc) have left a bad taste in many mouths across the world.
Mooniacs for iOS and Android
is that pessimistic or what? Those are sad headlines, but Linux future is being readied in the background. Indeed in todays world economy the fresh money linux companies need to survive is to come from the formerly-3rd-world countries. These recon there is no point in using expensive software and are switchig steadily to open source solutions. The same applies for the tech certs. We expect there will be far more people certified RHCE or LPI than MSCE and the like in the near future.
One never knows where the salvation is to come from.
-- Or So Tewfik Wrote. --
Apple chose BSD over GPL.
That's somewhat true, however what's the other option? Come up with your own OS? Why? Who needs it? Besides, I don't think these companies are offering open source software. They're offering closed-source software on an open OS. Big difference.
The reason Linux is seeing this recent resurgence is due to the natrual evolution of the operating system's relevance to the overall picture. If programming languages are at a high enough level such that porting applications (i.e., the real moneymakers) is easy between different OSes, then why not go with the one that costs zero? Mind you, I said "relevance" of the OS, not "importance." For example, deciding which CPU and chipset to use is important, but has no (little) relevance to OS and application selection.
OS X already won. Any geek or scientist worth their salt who wants a UNIX home computer already has an iBook or a G4.
Won what? Was there a race?
It is my contention that nobody cares about Linux on the desktop any more outside of a small group of Linux afficiandos (such as me).
And I gotta say, that I'm ok with that. There are many more interesting places to do operating systems battle, so as far as I am concerned, OS X can try to win the pissing match over the ruins of the desktop market while the rest of us start concentrating on the next generation of computing.
Have a great time.
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These guys have to figure out how they're going to generate some money
What Red Hat and SuSE have to do is create an annuity revenue stream
These seem like the kind of things these companies either already know to do or already know how to do. It seems like these analysts aren't really providing any new insight. Obviously Red Hat and SuSE have to make money... After being in business for years, surely these guys know a thing or two about how to stay afloat.
"I've got to stop masturbating! It makes me too lazy! Stop it, Albert. Stop it." -- Albert Einstein
From the article:
These guys have to figure out how they're going to generate some money," said Aberdeen analyst Bill Claybrook. "If Red Hat Advanced Server is part of a deal with Oracle (9i database software) on a cluster of four Dell machines, each of which has four CPUs, Oracle gets $60,000 a CPU, or $960,000, Dell gets $150,000 or so for the hardware, and Red Hat will get $10,000.
The dollar figures are totally meaningless here without a context for what the costs were going in. How much does it cost Dell in time, resources, personnel, etc, to build that server? How much did it cost Oracl in developer hours to get their product out the door?
The thing is that, revenue numbers can be a hell of a lot lower for an open source driven business and still be profitable because their outlays are substantially less. Sure RedHat pays for some development work on Linux, but it's not nearly the amount they'd have to pay in if they were a proprietary software vendor.
RedHat probably has lower margins than Oracle, but does it really matter? As long as they make profit sufficient enough to maintain the business over the long term, it's irrelevant. Sure, RedHat may never be as big as Oracle or Dell, but maybe that's a positive sign of change in the industry. Less people working at software companies, and more people doing real work with the software that is now cheaper and higher quality.
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This sort of exists already:
.NET and all of the .NET Microsoft Libraries.
There are really neet libraries that abstract the OS to a vague blur. I forget somtimes that I'm using Emacs/Cygwin a Widnows XP-based laptop to code for a Unix/Mac/Windows client that communicaes to a SQL server that could be on any OS.
Increasingly, the OS is becoming irelivent.
MS knows this and wants to push their own abstratios laywer, with a new set of lockin :
Beware.
Moneyed corporations, non-working 'poor' and criminal prisoners are turning productive citizens into tax-slaves.
Well how many stories on Windows do you see in the news? Besides TechTV I can't remember the last time I saw something on Windows on mainstream news. The only time in the past several years MS has been mentioned is at major product launches and during the antitrust trial. So considering how sparsely windows is mentioned is it surprising that Linux doesn't get mentioned? In general mainstream news sources could care less about technology unless its biotech.
If you wanna get rich, you know that payback is a bitch
From the article:
... will announce customers including ASP Futuro Bolivia, which uses Linux and Oracle 9i RAC using four, four-processor HP servers to manage the pensions of about half the retirees in Bolivia."
"HP
An interesting point here is that once you've paid for an Oracle 4 proc license, the cost of adding a proprietry Unix likely won't even change your second-most-significant digit in the price. This means these people believe Linux is better than proprietry, independent of the free/gratis factor.
Quattuor res in hoc mundo sanctae sunt: libri, liberi, libertas et liberalitas.