|
Tim O'Reilly--The Software Paradigm Shift. "We're at the end of the personal-computing era. We're at the beginning of something profoundly different."
Ask most people what software they use, and you're not likely to hear
Linux. Yet many of the most popular web sites are based on Linux and
other open-source tools. Tim says the operating system no longer
matters--no more than the browser or the CPU matters. Applications now
live above the level of a single device or operating system. The
"paradigm failure" is that people don't understand the importance of
sites like Amazon.com, eBay, and Google, because they are so locked
into the PC application model. "We're commoditizing software in the
same way as hardware was commoditized in the '80s," he says, "and value
is being driven up the stack to next-generation information services
and applications."
Get to know the man behind the animal-woodcut covers that fill our bookshelves. His mission: "Technology transfer--helping important technologies become more widespread" and to "create more value than we capture."
Many forget how influential O'Reilly & Associates was during the early days of the Internet. They created Global Network Navigator (GNN), the first portal and serious e-commerce web site, which they sold to AOL, who proceeded to drop the ball. (Tim tells us why he doesn't regret selling GNN.) And remember Internet In a Box, a collaboration of O'Reilly and Spry Software?
All of this and more in a great IT Conversation with Tim O'Reilly.
Posted Tuesday, September 23, 2003 10:03:23 PM 
|
