Actually, I DID mean drop the license to zero dollars. I think the up front cost of the desktop version means it will not be deployed in volume. Large enterprises will deploy free alternatives instead, because that will help make ROI on the whole project reasonable.If this is a correct assumption, then Red Hat will not make much money from licensing WS. If they make it free. then they can compete for support dollars with everyone else, and win some. Their value proposition on servers is more compelling, so the AS offering can help drive WS adoption, which in turn can help drive support sales. No one will be able to garner the sort of revenue stream Microsoft gets from its desktop monopoly. The only way to break their grip, even just a little, is to offer a much lower cost alternative that does the important things businesses look for in a desktop solution just as well. Linux is *this* close to being able to achieve that. If the leading Linux vendor adds license fees up front, it will slow adoption, perhaps long enough to allow Microsoft to leverage its current monopoly into dominating the next wave of client technology, whatever that turns out to be. On Wed, 2003-08-27 at 10:20, Magnus wrote: > On Wednesday, August 27, 2003, at 12:13 PM, Stephen Smoogen wrote: > > > Sure and Red Hat can go belly up in 2 years because no-one is paying > > them for all the work they do. > > I didn't read that to imply that the WS product should be free, but > that the license fee should be reduced to something more reasonable. > In effect, this suggests that RHAT should profit from volume sales > rather than margin (since they can't do both simultaneously like MS). > > -- > > C. Magnus Hedemark > http://trilug.org/~chrish > "The only way to keep your health is to eat what you don't want, drink > what you don't like, and do what you'd rather not." - Mark Twain -- Howard Owen "Even if you are on the right EGBOK Consultants track, you'll get run over if you hbo@xxxxxxxxx +1-650-339-5733 just sit there." - Will Rogers
