It will be interesting to see if IBM picks him up as a Fellow. In better times, the VC's would grab him as a "celebrity executive" for one of their start-ups, but things are pretty cold in that sector right now. |
It will be interesting to see if IBM picks him up as a Fellow. In better times, the VC's would grab him as a "celebrity executive" for one of their start-ups, but things are pretty cold in that sector right now. |
"Pretty cold?" How 'bout Antarctic-cold?
And I doubt if they'll ever warm up for someone who passionately believes in the Open Source movement, because it's very hard to make money when you believe everything should be free.
Open Source may or may not be a good idea for the consumers (it depends on circumstances), but companies that depend on Open Source software for revenues have a built-in cap on how much they can make. Venture capitalists don't like that.
HP's competitors will use this firing, at least for a while, to insert a little FUD into the buying decisions of UNIX shops where Hewlett-Packard has a bid on the table. Nobody can tell what this firing really means, and it might mean a strategic shift by HP away from linux. If I'm the IBM or Dell salesman, I'll make sure my linux customers know about this.