The future is... Linux televisions

Recently I spoke with Munir Kotadia at ZDNet UK in London about the future of the Internet -- a subject I love to talk about. One of Munir's questions was "How long can Microsoft dominate the browser market?". "Browser market", I said? Sure, if you look just at PC's you would wonder why anyone would try to compete with a monopoly that has 95 percent of the market. However, if you look at the market for Internet devices with browsers on them -- including televisions, PDA's, phones, automobiles and virtually any kind of device that has a chip on it and a network connection -- then you get a much different picture. How many devices will have a chip and a network connection? All of them -- billions of them. Basically, everything becomes a computer on the Web and then no one company dominates that market. There is a huge opportunity for innovation and we are the very beginning of the potential. This is why I am optimistic about Opera Software.

The other topic Munir asked about was why Linux is so popular? There is a perception that Linux is about "free", but my belief is that Linux is about "freedom". I got some feedback from a few readers who said I was more than a little off base with my Linux comments. Maybe, but it is what I believe. It is not about free because it is not free, no software is free. There are implicit costs involved in using any software. The issue is about freedom -- for people to make the choices they want to make with the software they use and to have the partnerships they want with other vendors.

The complete interview is here.

Internet Technology , Personal Computing February 26, 2004 05:35 PM