“Robert Young, co-founder and chief executive of Red Hat Inc., a
Durham, N.C.-based Linux developer, spoke recently with CRN Deputy
Managing Editor Sean Keating about the challenges of communicating
the upside of open source technology to both investors and chief
information officers….”
“CRN: So when you are talking to investors and CIOs, what do you
tell them the upside is?”
“Young: There are actually two different answers there.
Obviously investors want to know what the potential for your
business is, and we explain that [Linux] is a revolution in
software development. And that the companies that understand the
revolution [and] that know how to harness this software development
model have at least the potential to achieve significant size.”
“We simply go through with the investors the fundamental idea
that Red Hat’s position in the market is not accidental. We
don’t treat open source software as manna from heaven, [as if we
somehow just download] a Linux operating system and put it on CD,
then sell it and get a wonderful capitalization out of
it.“