Michael Dolan Dot Com

Friday, April 13th, 2007

Forbes interviews Bob Young

Bob Young is someone I’d definitely like to meet someday… until then, I have to read his interviews ;-) I must admit, I tend to agree with his view.

Is the market for open-source software growing to make room for more competitors?

You talk to any start-up company, and literally 100% are using open-source platforms. And you know, 20 years from now, these companies will be the new Dells and Compaqs. Microsoft and Oracle might have delayed the transformation to open source, but this thing is inevitable.

Will Linux ever compete with Windows as an interface for consumers?

I’ve always said, “You don’t replace technology on an existing platform. You replace the platform.” It’s like what Google is doing. The concept is, you leave the intelligence on the server, and you just have a browser. That’s where the interface is going. Our kids will use a device that doesn’t store anything locally, a network appliance that is basically just used for accessing data somewhere else. They won’t need a heavy, feature-rich environment like Windows. They’ll all run Linux.