Q: Red Hat's Bob Young argues that Linux (news - web sites) will never take over the desktop, but that it will make the desktop largely irrelevant by controlling the Internet back-end. What are your views on the desktop debate?
A: I think Linux will take over the desktop, and I think the reason it will doesn't have much to do with whether we clean up and polish our interfaces or not. Linux will take over the desktop because as the price of desktop machines drops, the Microsoft tax represents a larger and larger piece of OEM margin. There's going to come a point at which that's not sustainable, and at which OEMs have to bail out of the Microsoft camp in order to continue making any money at all. At that point, Linux wins even if the UI sucks.
|