Forbes Ventures Bold Predictions For IT, Linux 387
LinuxThis writes "Everyone's favorite, Daniel Lyons and other Forbes journalists have made some bold predictions about IT in 2004. Interesting quotes include 'Microsoft warms up to open source, and tries to make a buck off it', and the best, from our main man Daniel Lyons himself: 'The end of 'free'. Free didn't work for dotcom pet food stores, yet much of the rhetoric around technologies like Linux and voiceover-IP still involves this crazy notion that companies can make money by giving things away. They can't.' Even better, he suggests: 'SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.' This is interesting considering his previous observations about OSS.."
It should be obvious... (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, it would probably be cheaper for them to stop short. But that's kind of like negotiating with people who take hostages - you do it once, and it encourages others. Which is why this one is going all the way to the end, and IBM will not settle for anything less than complete victory.
How to make money giving it away for 'free'. (Score:5, Insightful)
Fear of free-dom? (Score:5, Insightful)
SUN (Score:2, Insightful)
No need to be a wizard to see that time for overpriced and underperformed (and unreliable) hardware (and OS) in internet-related business is finished. Today I can quicker deploy several (even dozens) of Lintel boxen running all needed application services distributed, then I did it before with a big 15K or few E4500s. With Lintel I save money in all aspects (cost of deployment, TCO) and I keep speed and quality not less (often even better) than with Sparc. SUN's customer base is collapsing to those who *do* need a *really* big iron. Just like SGI's one did.
Who reads Forbes ? (Score:2, Insightful)
Real buisness people don't read articles how this or that develops: they just getting their work done right first time.
No real entrepreneur cares about Forbes etc.
Re:Fear of free-dom? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that IBM and Sun have pegged exactly how to "use" Linux. You feed the project and feed off others feeding the project. You then wrap Linux up with non-code-related extras which you sell for a bundle. Any monkey can install Linux on a piece of hardware, but it takes a very skilled monkey to plan and successfully migrate a company from old software / hardware to the newly installed Linux box[es] with minimal disruption to that company's work-flow. The bigger the company is, the more that kind of expertise is valued.
What the Forbes writers seem to have confused is a paradigm, but perhaps not the one you mean. They're still looking at the number of units Microsoft pushes and the price tag attached to these and then try to compare that ratio to the ratio of units shifted by IBM and the price tag on those.
I think where they need to be looking is at the services companies who rely on Microsoft and comparing them to services companies like IBM. What's the profit margin for a Microsoft consultancy that comes in to migrate a company from NT to Server 2003? What's the profit margin for IBM to migrate a company from NT to Suse (or, more lately, Redhat)? How many of these migrations are taking place? How long to they take? How much do they cost? What are the support contracts like?
As long as "analysts" try to compare the "cost" of a Redhat Enterprise license with Server 2003 license, they're comparing fish to rugby boots. The license is not where the game is at.
Re:SUN (Score:5, Insightful)
I might call Sun hardware a lot of things but unreliable ain't one of em. Sorry but the only x86 hardware that comes close is the top end of the Proliant line and the "mainframe" stuff from Unisys. As far as performance goes remember that mainframes are often several generations behind the bleeding edge and yet most of the worlds usefull computing is done on em, some of the time its about knowing that a job will get done on time, not how quickly it *might* get done.
Big mistake (Score:4, Insightful)
The more I read pieces like this, the more I think that people like Lyons are just plain incapable of "getting it." Their world view just doesn't allow for people doing a large-scale project like Linux because they enjoy it, and doing such a good job of it while they're at it. So, they try to map what the FOSS community does onto their world view, and it's hardly surprising that the mapping looks pretty strange to us.
Ah well, the FOSS community will continue to do what it's been doing all along, irrespective of what people like Dan Lyons thinks of it. Happy New Year.
right conclusion, wrong reason (Score:5, Insightful)
IBM could hardly care less about SCO's fate. What is at issue here to IBM is the far more important issue of their software systems' legitimacy in the eyes of the market. SCO has done far more damage to that reputation than anything Microsoft could ever dream of, given their position as a clear competitor to both IBM and SCO. Since SCO/Caldera was very much a Linux company, their FUD rumors have had a tremendous chilling effect.
Now, there is no way to undo that damage with a settlement, as far as I or anyone I've read on Groklaw can tell. Even if SCO admits egregious errors in public, without a clear ruling from a judge and/or jury on the issues of IBM's rightful ownership of their e.g. AIX code, all of IBM's competitors will forever be able to twist the knife in their back. It no longer matters what SCO says or does, because their credibility is only intact with their own investors at this point. IBM, on the other hand, needs to clear their name.
Making Money From Free Stuff (Score:5, Insightful)
Water is free, yet people make money from purifying it, bottling it or flavoring it, and selling the result.
Linux is free, yet people make money from packaging it, enhancing it and supporting it and selling the result.
Linux, like air and water, is free for all, yet through effort and ingenuity one can still profit from it.
false analogy (Score:4, Insightful)
http://www.datanation.com/fallacies/falsean.htm
It's really a shame you lead with a fallacy because it highlights your bias and obstinance.
By its very definition, "Open Source" must remain free. Perhaps you mean you that will cease to exist? Well, perhaps. But if it does then it's because it's unable to keep pace with the innovations from the non-Open Source development programmes. That's possible, but not likely.
A mixed bag this (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Lisa DiCarlio: More cash-rich tech companies start to pay dividends. Microsoft continues to struggle to make its software secure, which means another great year in 2004 for Symantec. The complexities of integrating Legato and Documentum weigh down EMC. HP's stock doubles. IBM buys SCO to shut it up.
These don't look too far-fetched except for the last one. If anything I've seen on groklaw has any connection to reality at all, IBM will fight to the end in this particular battle. Score 0.7 tempered by a -1, Unlikely...
3. Daniel Lyons SCO Group will settle its lawsuit against IBM. Both sides will declare victory. The Linux community will turn on IBM.
IBM vs SCO as before, IBM will not stop at anything less than full victory. And IBM as the new enemy? Whatever would have happened to Microsoft then? He might be seeing something I do not see of course, it just seems too unlikely. Score 0.2
4. Victoria Murphy: Microsoft warms up to open source, and tries to make a buck off it.
Much as I'd think that would be a smart move on MS' part, I am not sure if they can leave their current closedness behind in time. To them it would be a big change. Maybe this explains what happens to MS in the previous prediction. Score 0.6, I Wish it Were True.
What does concern me is that some managers may read all of this and not realize it is all matters of opinion.
Re:Fear of free-dom? (Score:3, Insightful)
Sivaram Velauthapillai
Re:Daniel Lyons is a -1, Troll (Score:4, Insightful)
He seems to be trying to start that tradition now with Linux/Free/Open source software, even though it's going strong now for 10+ years and getting stronger and stronger.
The guy is a joke. And it's obvious no one who reads Forbes takes him seriously, as Linux still makes huge inroads to business.
Contradictions too! (Score:3, Insightful)
"PlayStation Portable will fail to make significant inroads against Nintendo's Game Boy. The handheld gaming market is huge--the Game Boy Advance outsells all consoles combined"
Then:
"In 2004, Nintendo will have followed Sega's lead by exiting the console business"
So Nintendo will keep its dominance in the handheld console market, but they will also exit the console market?
Hello? Handhelds are also consoles!
I'm sorry, but where did they find these people? In addition to your comment about the GameCube, Nintendo actually makes a profit, and in addition to dominating the handheld market, it also has lots of cash in reserve for bad times.
These "analysts" really piss me off. Why do they get to write these things, and why do they get the publicity, when they are obviously incompetent fools? Does anyone have this moron's e-mail address?
Beauty is in the eye. . . (Score:5, Insightful)
Anything that reduces profits is, by definition bad. Anything that reduces profits reduces the GNP which is, by definition, a social evil.
If a thing has no price it has no value. Replacing things that have a price with things that don't reduces riches. The more of these things you have the less you are "worth." (As if value only meant "price." The primary value of your house is that it provides you with shelter)
From the standpoint of economics free software is just looney. That would be like cars just being free for the taking, like leaves on the ground in the fall. Everyone would be poor if they just get what they wanted like that.
Wealth means buying shoddy things with a high "value." Less stiches, more riches.
Of course things that are "free" can be used as well. Since the river next to your plant has no price it's fine to use it to dump toxic waste into. Clean water and air have no value because you don't have to buy them. They're just there until you pollute them.
Now businesses that aren't directly tied to the ideas of the software industry as part of the their own profit or adding to the value of the GNP are now starting to realize that OSS is like that stream next to the factory now. You can just use it. For free. (And maybe pollute it, but that'a another post).
But if you're in the software industry or an economist the idea of reducing an item that can be produced for free and "sold" (over and over again to the same customer) at usurius profit margins to free as in leaves on the ground is just daft. It can be literally unthinkable.
Of course from the "consumer's" point of view software is truly a consumable. You buy it. You use it. But you don't have anything of your own for it. Your "worth" is reduced. Then you have to buy it again. The flow of "value" is all one way.
But from the economic point of view that's a good thing. There is a schizophrenic rift in economic theory between man the consumer and man the producer.
Everyone's heard about it, but no one these days has read it. Pick up a copy of E.F. Schumacher's classic work "Small is Beautiful." It delves into these very issues.
Finding a copy of Stephen Leacock's (professor of economics at McGill) "Too Much College" wouldn't hurt either.
Even the autobiography of G.K. Chesterton has some interesting things to say about the issue, just ignore the religious stuff if you are so inclined.
KFG
It worked for Microsoft... (Score:3, Insightful)
No such things as bad publicity... (Score:2, Insightful)
And check netraft. www.forbes.com is hosted on a Linux server. I wonder if they even know that?
Value is different than price (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to me that capitalism is based on people always wanting more. If people decide that they want less, capitalism will fall apart. Of course, that has yet to happen.
Money made from 'free' products long before Linux (Score:2, Insightful)
Every other disco has no door charge, charging only for drinks sold. Since the 1970's there have been free advertising papers allow adverts to be placed for free (I used to work for http://www.quokka.com.au); only paper sales are charged for.
Furthermore, many things are simply not products. You crack some funny joke, then your friends tell their friends, and the rough corners get cut off with every retelling. Sure you don't make any money of it, but that was never the purpose of the joke. Who really thinks that people will stop telling the jokes they want to tell; instead telling expensive pre-packaged jokes which aren't funny in the current situation because you can't adapt the `source code' to your current needs.
Shall we call it a draw? (Score:3, Insightful)
Isn't it interesting to see SCOX supporters like Lyons now claiming that this will be settled out of court? Why? Because SCOX has no fscking case? Even Lyon's realizes that they have no case and they can't keep making threats with nothing to back them up. Hell, they even threaten their own customers? This is not a normal company. It deserves to be wiped out.
It's like the fight scene in Monty Python's The Holy Grail with King Arthur and the black knight who has his legs and arms chopped off and says, "Shall we call it a draw?"
And then as we walk away, you can here in the background, "Come back you pansy! I'll make the LGPL illegal next!"
Re:SCO will settle? Isn't that backwards? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Daniel Lyons is a -1, Troll (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe not. Perhaps he's nothing more than a mouth, repeating what he hears in the community around him. And he lacks the intelligence or insight to notice that he's surrounded himself with "experts" that are experts in all things Microsoft and not in computing in general.
What he needs are more informed friends.