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.."
what does it matter some little amount of money (Score:3, Interesting)
Now centering ourselves on the topic. I love Linux, but it's still mainly for the computer geek or the Soho user that has time enough to experiment and discover things for him/herself.
Distros has to center themselves. The fact is that many of them offer too many options and most people are a little bewildered: "Geez I liked it better when it was only Windows, Office and IE."
On the other hand, the way LINUX has implemented new solutions over the years (USB, Firewire, all sort of mass storing devices, and so on..) it's simply amazing.
I love the current policy of offering things free for download or very cheap in a package and charging for the know how. When more and more people say to his boss Geez, I like Linux plus OpenOffice better, and the boss adds some figures in his head we'll start seeing things change
Some other ridiculously bad predictions (Score:4, Interesting)
Delhi Method Forecasting .. Re:on crack (Score:5, Interesting)
The method of forecasting by asking a few people what they think is going to happen is called the Delphi Method [hypermart.net] It is, in my opinion one of the overall weakest methods by far, and especially if the views are collected the way Forbes has done. In normal practice the initial and raw opinions are improved by feedback to the group for more refinement, which obviously has not happened in the Forbes article - hence, the almost idiotic "predictions."
And as you rightly said, these people don't have the faintest clue as to what is happening. Their job is to get paychecks by telling their clients what they want to hear ... and they will keep on telling it ... Henry Blodgett anyone ? [consumerjusticegroup.com]
There are tons of other methods to do Technological Forecasting, [hypermart.net](an article that I wrote many years ago) and I wish some more work that has more solid basis is presented for Tech Forecasting at /. We deserve better "predictions" than this ....
Woah, hold on a minute there... (Score:2, Interesting)
I'm sure this is all MS FUD, with their "Shared Source" initiatives giving it to a privilaged few, it seems that Microsoft is even less willing to give away their precious source code these days.
To quote bill gates: "To all those open source types who came down here looking for my code, I have only five words for you: From my cold, dead CVS."
Why Would IBM Settle? (Score:2, Interesting)
IBM doesn't stand to save much money by settling, if any. And by not settling, they have the benefit of crushing this lingering nonsense about SCO in the minds of many PHB's who would be hesitant to buy IBM's Linux products, no matter how unjustified.
I have to wonder who the heck this Lyons guy is. He acts like he has his fingers right on the pulse of the Unix/Linux/OSS community, when his opinions couldn't be further from what many in that community feel. Reeks of ulterior motives. Too bad Joe Forbes Reader doesn't know any better.
People here... (Score:2, Interesting)
When you pay for Red Hat Linux, you don't pay for the software but for the time and investment the likes of Red Hat make IMPROVING the bundled software and ensuring that there aren't any issues when running the software in tandem with other pieces of software.
In otherwords, the distributors are like a resturant, they choose the integredients and it is up to us to pay for the work done.
What is also holding Linux back is a lack of third party developers. Sure, we have people here who just love to hate Microsoft but lets be completely honest, what is Microsofts greatest asset? its strong developer base which is created through good development tools and leadership.
Just look at Red hat, they refused to pay a piddly $10 per-unit fee to SUN for the ability to bundle StarOffice 6/7. To me, it simply re-enforces the notion that we have distributors unwilling to make the necessary investments to get the ISV partners onside.
Just look at the developer conference and how much time was spent EDUCATING their partners, great and small, about the merits of their future product range. Love them or hate them, you can't take away the fact that they do provide great leadership when required.
As much as I hate the annual MSDN developer crusades that sweep through towns and have people who speak with the same pasion of Billy Graham, the fact remains, the people who will make the decisions over whether to get behind Linux are the same who are impressed with flashy shows, fast talking buzz word compliant spokes persons and great corporate boxes at the local sporting fixture.
When were dotcom petshops free? (Score:2, Interesting)
Prerequisites for the viability of the Free Model (Score:5, Interesting)
1) Price insensitive customers: "Free" can work as long paying customers are tolerant of paying higher prices to support the cost of providing some level of free product or service. For every "free' customer (e.g., who does not pay for the bandwidth & IT to provide the download) there must be a paying customer who is willing to make up the difference. If two companies are equal in quality and features of the product and service offered but one company is "giving it away for free", then the free company will have extra costs from offering that free product/service and have to charge higher prices. If customers are very price sensitive, they will eschew the company that offers "free" wares and pay lower prices at the non-free company.
2) Low total cost of "free": The unreimbursed cost of the free product or service must be low relative to the revenues generated by paying customers. This occurs under a combination of two subconditions. First, the marginal cost of the free product or service might be low (e.g., the modest cost of bandwidth). Second, the fraction of freeloading customers might be low (e.g., something prevents everyone for taking advantage of the free offer). The lower the marginal cost, the higher the tolerable percentage of freeloaders.
3) Customers who contribute services: The viability of free is enhanced by service contributions from customers. Thus the definition of a paying customer goes beyond money -- some customers provide valuable services in the form of code contributions, beta testing reports, and support on discussion forums. These contibuting customers provide a voluntary service in exchange for the "free" product. Although such customers do not help pay the bills, they do reduce the organization's costs (eliminating salaried programmers and helpdesk personnel) and they increase the value of the organization's offerings (thus justifying the payment of subsidies by paying customers).
4) Nonconfident customers: If customers are not confident of their choices, they may prefer the "free" model as a way of try before you buy. At some level many proprietary software companies do this by offering "free" trial versions of their software. The companies give away a time or function-limited version of the product and get paid for the full/unlimited version of the product.
5) Obligatory follow-on purchases: "Free" can also work if acceptance of the free product obligates the customer to buy additional products or services down the road. Giving away the printer in order to gain an ink cartridge customer is a good example of this. The challenge, for the provider of the "free" item, is to segment the customer population to ensure that only heavy users of ink cartridges, for example, will accept the offer of a free item (maintain a low percentage of freeloaders who take the printer but don't use it much).
These are neither mutually required, nor mutually exclusive conditions. Some combination of all 5 can ensure the viability, even the superiority, of the free model over more pay-for-what-you -get business models. I'm sure others here can think of other conditions that enhance the viability of the free model.
Re:SUN (Score:3, Interesting)