InformationWeek: Business Technology: Don’t Go Slow Over SCO

“Last year, a couple of colleagues and I had an extended
discussion with Randy Mott, Dell’s CIO and the former CIO of
Wal-Mart. In the course of our interview, the subject of Linux came
up, and it was no surprise to hear Mott explain how bullish he is
on the increasingly popular operating system, particularly as the
Linux-on-Intel combination in systems such as Dell’s continues to
grow in performance and reliability while also declining in price.
At one point, we asked if the potential legal liabilities swirling
around Linux would slow the rate of acceptance of Linux on Intel at
Dell, and/or among Dell’s customers.

“Now, Randy Mott is a guy whose tenures of more than three years
at Dell and, before that, more than 20 at Wal-Mart give him
almost-unmatched insights into the workings of large, high-growth,
intensely IT-dependent global corporations. So this guy knows
whereof he speaks when he talks about deploying new types of
systems and architectures to drive internal scalability,
efficiencies, speed, consistency, and ROI to enable customer
intimacy, market agility, and profitability. And in that context,
he didn’t skip a beat before saying, in essence, that leading
companies can’t allow themselves to be hamstrung by what might
happen in some legal battle or what might be decided in 18 months
(or not decided)…”

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