“ZDNet: How do you use commoditization
strategically, and how is it used against you?
“Schwartz In general in the industry, you ascribe
the word ‘commodity’ to your competitors’ problems, and that
enables you to engage in a theatrical debate about whether or not
their pricing is appropriate, or whether or not they’re
overcharging, or whether or not they’re locking you in. But I
thought it was telling that Rod [Smith] from IBM is willing to
admit there’s no binary compatibility across Linux and that’s a bit
of a fantasy; that’s not the layer at which you expect to find
interoperability…”