No, Bob Young did not make that particular comment about the proportion of Red Hat on servers and/or workstations. The facts and figures he did present were the familiar ones from IDC and NetCraft (e.g., the 17% server share in 1998, the 212% growth rate, the 27% web server market share, etc.)
I agree with you that the PMs and analysts are more concerned about what sort of advantage or lead Red Hat possesses; Bob Young's comments, however, which are consistent with those he's made in more technical forums, are that the network effects of open source development move the value add from the development of the software itself (which of course is handled by the unpaid "community") downstream to the assembly and testing of a distribution (Sorry, I got kind of buzz-wordy there...).
I can answer your question with the following analogy: A plumber uses technology that is "open source," i.e., knowledge of basic mathematics, hydraulics, hydrology, and so on. So what does a plumber offer? The answer is that the plumber knows more than the layman, and the knowledge base of the plumbing industry is sufficiently complex to prevent a layman from threatening his/her livelihood.
Red Hat and others may not control the technology they use, but the technology (GNU/Linux) is and will remain sufficiently complex (particularly in its interaction with other technologies such as networking or telecommunications)so as to require experienced people to write/debug/install/upgrade it. So Red Hat's value proposition is that they will offer a professional service, and will charge prices commensurate with their customers' belief that they have solved problems and/or made them more productive.
And the customer chooses Red Hat (or any Linux-based service provider) because the customer pays less money because the software components will cost less than closed source equivalents.
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No, Bob Young did not make that particular comment about the proportion of Red Hat on servers and/or workstations. The facts and figures he did present were the familiar ones from IDC and NetCraft (e.g., the 17% server share in 1998, the 212% growth rate, the 27% web server market share, etc.)
I agree with you that the PMs and analysts are more concerned about what sort of advantage or lead Red Hat possesses; Bob Young's comments, however, which are consistent with those he's made in more technical forums, are that the network effects of open source development move the value add from the development of the software itself (which of course is handled by the unpaid "community") downstream to the assembly and testing of a distribution (Sorry, I got kind of buzz-wordy there...).
I can answer your question with the following analogy: A plumber uses technology that is "open source," i.e., knowledge of basic mathematics, hydraulics, hydrology, and so on. So what does a plumber offer? The answer is that the plumber knows more than the layman, and the knowledge base of the plumbing industry is sufficiently complex to prevent a layman from threatening his/her livelihood.
Red Hat and others may not control the technology they use, but the technology (GNU/Linux) is and will remain sufficiently complex (particularly in its interaction with other technologies such as networking or telecommunications)so as to require experienced people to write/debug/install/upgrade it. So Red Hat's value proposition is that they will offer a professional service, and will charge prices commensurate with their customers' belief that they have solved problems and/or made them more productive.
And the customer chooses Red Hat (or any Linux-based service provider) because the customer pays less money because the software components will cost less than closed source equivalents.