Ozzie on Longhorn and Groove

eWeek has an interview with Ray Ozzie. Some excerpts:

If anybody had any doubt that the rich client is alive and well, this should extinguish any of that doubt. [Microsoft is] pouring billions into keeping the rich client alive and well and healthy, and there are just an amazing number of very smart people working on the stuff.

We [at Groove] stay focused on solving the business problem that we’re working on, which is to reduce the cost of coordination between individuals.

As a client side developer, I really want to take advantage of that stuff. It lets me be a whole lot more productive. But the more I do that the more I rely on higher-level infrastructure being around. So what I would ask you is the following: Are the Linux community and the Mac community prepared to step up their client-side investments to build higher-level frameworks to make it easier for me to code like a Microsoft is doing?

I don’t think Linux and the open-source community can win by trying to out-spend or out-innovate Microsoft. Client-side software is a sustaining innovation. What is needed is a disruptive innovation – and that is there the combination of thin clients and server-side software comes in, in conjunction with a focus on the new markets (the next billion users).

Published by

Rajesh Jain

An Entrepreneur based in Mumbai, India.