Walt Mossberg wrote a positive pre-review of Windows 7 in the WSJ. He's a wonderful writer with a honed skill to express himself with the voice of you and I. His perspective is that Windows 7 looks to be Vista done right, with one major advancement towards UI support of touch screens for the desktop/notebook.
Perhaps, he's right that after 3 painful years, where hardware vendors 'upgraded' us to the PREVIOUS Windows version for $150, Windows OS' will again provide acceptable performance. I think not. What was designed as acceptable 3 years ago, pre iPhone/Blackberry Bold is no longer state of the art in this fast changing computing environment. Nor, as a platform supportive of where the going forward opportunity is for the industry and its entrepreneurs.
Over the past 3 years, many of us have enjoyed a steady migration away from desktop applications, towards cloud based services, including storage. I would love my PC to support, even enable this phenomenon. After watching a seamless feed of Mr. Obama take the oath of office via Hulu it's apparent that bandwidth, though not HD capable yet for a streamed environment, is a good enough, and rapidly improving, viewing experience.
Important innovations in the AJAX world are fueling a rich client feel to web based applications. No doubt we will shortly enjoy measurable improvements in the serving of content, and the web based application experience that will accelerate our move away from a client-centric OS. Already, GOOG's suite of applications, Zimbra/Yahoo, and Salesforce's experiences rival current 'rich' client experiences; and they are rapidly improving with steady browser, UI and computational innovations that are notable for MSFT's absence of leadership.
I would also like a PC to be as DUMB as possible, give me bullet proof appliance-like hardware, browser at the ready, with sufficient bandwidth to fetch cloud based applications, content, and bring relationships to me, or enable me to discover new and exciting places of interest. Facilitate a device to be my personal media server, on call to send my content, or web preferences to a chosen remote device (smart phone or XBox) on demand. Free me from limited content ownership by supporting access (like Pandora). While the PC is getting simpler, let's have an OS design philosophy that supports the stunning price/value equation embraced by consumers in the netbook market.
The metaphor of PC based computing, which happens to be web enabled, has reached its innovative dead-end. Cloud based computing, brought to a device (which may be a PC), is the present and near future. Till MSFT shows the courage to more aggressively 'eats its young' we will remain dissatisfied, as users, with their direction. Sure, Windows 7 boots faster and supports almost as many devices as XP...yawn.
MSFT rightfully earned its dominant position by commoditizing the desktop. They brought incredible value by simultaneously reducing the initial cost of applications, decreasing training through standardization of the UI, and plummeting our total cost of ownership. They have lost their 'permacheap' credentials to a host of competitors ranging from Google, to Red Hat and even a not for profit, Mozilla. This is only a sampling of the first generation of vendors attacking aging application and infrastructure 'permacheap' holdouts. I expect many more will savage the rising cost of ownership numbers, reduce user networked complexity, and cast a light on implicit relationships.
As an investor in early stage software/internet companies, I could not be happier that an older generation of vendors has built a walled-garden of maintenance drug-like revenue annuities. The IT industry's hardware, software and internet vendors are in the midst of a consolidation wave that exacerbates their exposure to permacheap, disposable solutions.
I am wishing them many more good reviews to support their somnolence while they cling to the tyranny of a client-centric time, whistling our favorite Cricket tune
Showing posts with label red hat. Show all posts
Showing posts with label red hat. Show all posts
Thursday, January 22, 2009
Monday, January 12, 2009
A 'permacheap' winner and a new contender
The same week that analysts cut expectations for MSFT, Red Hat announced strong performance for its fiscal Q3 (revenues up 27% when taking into account currency fluctuations) and guidance that Q4 should be within the range previously communicated to analysts.
As many of you know, Red Hat is best known as a Linux distributor, and has expanded up the software stack into middleware. The stock has doubled since mid-November and its financial metrics are a throwback to what we became familiar with during the heyday of software/internet growth; trailing P/E 38x, Price/sales 4.7x.
The New York Times on Sunday profiled Ubuntu and their version of Linux too. With more than 10% of computers sold by IBM, HP and Dell shipping with Linux installed, it is logical that other suites of Open Source Software, not as widely known, will follow the trend. Expect vendors/organizations, such as the following to accelerate market share capture:
Drupal
Firefox/Thunderbird
Asterisk
Clamwin
It's interesting that so many of the Open Source articles highlight how satisfied users are with the code, and the community support is lauded. Price seems to be something that gets the software in the door, and quality and low(er) cost of ownership keeps them there. I suppose there's a bit of self-selection inherent in early adopters taking an extra dose of pain, but it's clear that this is exactly the environment where mainstream customers are open to trying new things; especially, when vendors of the ilk of IBM, HP, and Dell lend their brands/trust to the effort.
It's a well trodden path that application vendors follow the success of OS and middleware vendors, so folk, such as SugarCRM. would logically see positive momentum too.
These subjects have been widely followed in the press for the past few years. What is now different and to me significant, however, is the ability to discover, materialize and assemble the various components that developers use to build applications suited to particular needs of organizations.
The open source movement has been conservatively embraced by hundreds of thousands of programmers who have developed countless components that are embedded in applications and systems throughout the world. In a similar way that end users now customize their home pages, organizations will demand the same flexibility, at reasonable cost of ownership to do the same with their applications. To achieve the dual objective of flexibility and cost savings, it's critical that engineers have ready access to leverage the work of others. They need to understand what components are available, what's their quality, and are there any dependencies in the underlying code. These, and many more questions underlie trust.....'if I use this code, rather than developing my own, or buying a proprietary system, will it work?'
Systems such as Krugle or Google's Code Search address the 'find' part of the issue. A second generation of companies, such as Cloudsmith, where I am an investor, delves more deeply into the aforementioned elements that build trust (community ratings, popularity, dependencies, etc). Grab a look at one of the posts by fellow investor, Chris Horn, founder of Iona, who speaks eloquently on the topic.
As many of you know, Red Hat is best known as a Linux distributor, and has expanded up the software stack into middleware. The stock has doubled since mid-November and its financial metrics are a throwback to what we became familiar with during the heyday of software/internet growth; trailing P/E 38x, Price/sales 4.7x.
The New York Times on Sunday profiled Ubuntu and their version of Linux too. With more than 10% of computers sold by IBM, HP and Dell shipping with Linux installed, it is logical that other suites of Open Source Software, not as widely known, will follow the trend. Expect vendors/organizations, such as the following to accelerate market share capture:
Drupal
Firefox/Thunderbird
Asterisk
Clamwin
It's interesting that so many of the Open Source articles highlight how satisfied users are with the code, and the community support is lauded. Price seems to be something that gets the software in the door, and quality and low(er) cost of ownership keeps them there. I suppose there's a bit of self-selection inherent in early adopters taking an extra dose of pain, but it's clear that this is exactly the environment where mainstream customers are open to trying new things; especially, when vendors of the ilk of IBM, HP, and Dell lend their brands/trust to the effort.
It's a well trodden path that application vendors follow the success of OS and middleware vendors, so folk, such as SugarCRM. would logically see positive momentum too.
These subjects have been widely followed in the press for the past few years. What is now different and to me significant, however, is the ability to discover, materialize and assemble the various components that developers use to build applications suited to particular needs of organizations.
The open source movement has been conservatively embraced by hundreds of thousands of programmers who have developed countless components that are embedded in applications and systems throughout the world. In a similar way that end users now customize their home pages, organizations will demand the same flexibility, at reasonable cost of ownership to do the same with their applications. To achieve the dual objective of flexibility and cost savings, it's critical that engineers have ready access to leverage the work of others. They need to understand what components are available, what's their quality, and are there any dependencies in the underlying code. These, and many more questions underlie trust.....'if I use this code, rather than developing my own, or buying a proprietary system, will it work?'
Systems such as Krugle or Google's Code Search address the 'find' part of the issue. A second generation of companies, such as Cloudsmith, where I am an investor, delves more deeply into the aforementioned elements that build trust (community ratings, popularity, dependencies, etc). Grab a look at one of the posts by fellow investor, Chris Horn, founder of Iona, who speaks eloquently on the topic.
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