Yes, We Need A Shuttleworth

One news piece which went unnoticed in the Indian media, was about the

Johannesburg-based South African business tycoon Mark Shuttleworth. The first

African to have conquered space, he now dreams of a perhaps bigger

challenge-taking on the global IT giant, Microsoft.

Shuttleworth, who had made his fortune by selling an Internet company he

started in his Cape Town garage, is now working on a free software that he

claims will revolutionize the way computers are used. He has got a very

interesting name for his product family-Ubuntu-an African word that means

caring for your community, and humanity for others. His programs have very

catchy names like 'Hoary Hedgehog' and 'Warty Warthog'. Based on Linux,

and therefore, free they can be modified at no cost by anyone to suit local and

specific needs. And some of the reviews they have got, beating products from the

likes of Apple, are admirable.

A man who believes that open source is the future, dreams that this software

will make the Internet accessible to millions in Africa and other emerging

markets. He stresses that free software could slash the cost of getting

computers into schools, community centers and homes in Africa.

Governments as well as enterprises world over, including large emerging

markets such as India, China, Brazil, Spain, and Malaysia are already using

Linux-based systems for a range of applications. Shuttleworths' model could

work particularly well in African countries because they are starting virtually

from scratch in terms of technology, and users are not already trained on

Windows.

The question is not about taking on Microsoft, or the business viability of

open source versus Microsoft Windows-based programs today. The question is of

having very ambitious and rebellious entrepreneurs who want to break the rules.

While Narayana Murthy of Infosys and Raman Roy, one of the founders of

BPO in India have done India proud and have put it on the global map, we still

haven't got people who will say “We will do this our own way. Damn the

standards”.

Many of us will argue that this approach is like re-inventing the wheel, and

will actually prove to be more costly and cause delays in any computerization

plan-especially when it comes to taking IT to the masses. But the fact is that

only such spirit will ultimately create another Bill Gates (remember, he wanted

to break IBM's monopoly when he started). And India as well as all the

emerging economies today need people who can dream big.

It is also noteworthy that the radical shift in the way software is seen

today has actually happened only after the advent of open source. Until then,

everything around software, was a costly affair. Freeware and Linux have

completely transformed software both in terms of prices, adoption, and usage.

Even in poor countries. Therefore, it must be supported and adopted. Not just by

rivals of Microsoft but even by end users. And the Government. I strongly

believe that it will actually be open source and such similar new technologies

that will make Microsoft much stronger, flexible and creative than it is today.

Another important reason why India needs to identify and promote people like

Shuttleworth, and technologies like Linux, is to break barriers in creativity

and diversity. Today almost 95% of all applications are built on standardized

platforms originally developed for rich nations, including Windows and Linux.

Why should no one be exploring new possibilities which are tailored around

localization, inadequate resources common with poor economies, simplicity, low

cost, and so on?  Actually, more

than India it should be countries like the US, and companies like Microsoft and

IBM that should be encouraging this culture, if they want to do well globally

and in the long run. Because that is where the future markets lie.