What is "going to go 100% on Intel or x86 hardware"?

Posted Mar 31, 2004 10:43 UTC (Wed) by Duncan (guest, #6647)
In reply to: What is "going to go 100% on Intel or x86 hardware"? by proski
Parent article: Marc Andreessen: "Linux Has Matured" (BusinessWeek)

You took the quotes out of context. The first part of the quote was in answer to
one question, the second was in answer to another, in a different context. Taking
from two parts of the interview like that.. of course it doesn't make sense!

If you look at the original article, the 50/50 quote is in answer to a question
mentioning the market-share MS has been gaining (from the context, the server
market, since that's what the previous question/answer was referring to). Even in
your quote, "it's" would refer to "the market".

Thus, he's predicting that "the (server) market" will soon be split nearly 50/50
between MS and Linux, both of them running on x86 style hardware. I agree with
that viewpoint (with the caveat that x86_64 is included in x86, as that migration is
in its early stages as well but looks to pick up steam, now that Intel has blessed the
platform as well).

The part of your quote below the "...", as mentioned, is excerpted from the answer
to an entirely DIFFERENT question, referring to embedded devices. Within
context, then, that part of the quote again makes perfect sense, and I agree with
his prediction, that it won't be long until most of the embedded space including cell
phones, pdas, and automotive microprocessors, will be running Linux instead of
the assorted proprietaryware platforms they are running now. Indeed, a recent
LWN article covering one of the electronics shows (I forget which), made the
observation that while last year, quite a number of companies were trumpeting
Linux inside. this year, few mentioned it, and when asked about it, the prevailing
attitude seemed to be "Well, DUH!! OF COURSE it's running Linux inside!"

Thus, I agree with him on those points. However, there WERE a couple points
about the article that struck me as odd. One was the "language" comment, as
already covered, and, as I abruptly paused to go back and re-parse, to see where
I'd gone wrong, as others have already mentioned, I decided he was simply using
"PR-Speak", shortcuts. That is, he was referring to the tech sub-culture with it's
own "mini-language" that has developed around both Linux and MS. His point
there, then, as I took it upon re-parsing, was that "kids" coming out of college now
speak "Linux" as their technical "native tongue", just as they did MS and Office, a
few years ago.

The second one, from the point of view of a Libreware user and supporter, was the
question that was NOT asked. We know the history of the Mozilla code and how it
was open-sourced. We also know that Marc Andreessen remains in software, altho
in a new company. The glaringly obvious question that was NOT asked, therefore,
was whether he'd considered the open source approach for his company's current
products, what made them choose the other path, and what might change that in
the future. Of course, this was a Business Week article, originally, NOT an LWN
article, and given the different target audience, I suppose one can understand the
omission of this question..

Duncan