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Project: Linux triangle Interviews triangle

"Linux is a very strong and reliable operating system"-- Philippe Kahn

By Prakash Advani <Prakash@freeos.com>
Posted: ( 2001-05-09 06:35:15 EST by gatha )

CEO, Chairman and Co-founder of LightSurf, Philippe Kahn's name seems to be synonymous with success. This is his third successful company: Starfish Software (founded in 1994) and Borland International (1982) being the other two. Having done his graduation and postgraduation in pure mathematics, Philippe was one of the first key programmers for the Micral, the Intel based machine developed in France and recognized by The Computer Museum as the first personal computer available outside a build-it-yourself kit. Prakash Advani interviewed the man who spearheaded the object-computing revolution and the move to component-based software, changing software development methodologies forever.

Do you currently do any work in Linux or do you plan to do some work in the future?

Phillipe Kahn picAt LightSurf for our ASP and MSP services to companies such as Kodak and others we actually use Linux extensively. We are the leaders for end-to-end infrastructure for Multimedia Wireless Communications.

What is your perception about Linux? What do you think Linux currently lacks technically that if added, can make it more successful then it already is?

I perceive Linux to be a very strong and reliable operating system. But what Linux needs is better end-to-end tools, specially in the testing area.

What do you think needs to be done to make Linux more popular on the desktop?

A great front end like Mac OS X.

What do you believe is the future of operating systems?

Microsoft will continue to be very successful with the Windows family of OS's and Linux will be the only serious alternative.

What do you think about the open source model of development?

It is an excellent paradigm for a certain category of projects.

Did you consider open sourcing your products when your founded Borland?

Open Source did not exist as such and we were building tools that allowed others to do later, Open Source projects.

Borland is now shipping Kylix for Linux. Do you think that will turn their fortune around?

Borland is actually doing quite well these days. Take a look at the company's stock performance vis-a-vis the rest of the industry. Yes, Borland competed hard with Microsoft and Microsoft got the better of it. But now Borland has found its stride again. Kylix is an excellent example of one of Borland's new product successes.

Borland made Interbase open source. Do you think that was a good decision?

Absolutely, the team at Borland made an excellent decision. I also think that it is fantastic for the Open Source community to have full access to a tool such as Interbase.

Do you expect Borland to contribute more to open source in the future?

It is clear that Borland has a greater commitment to Linux and OpenSource than any other major commercial company in the industry. With Kylix and the Linux Interbase as core elements of any serious Open Source Linux developer, I believe that Borland's contributions to the Linux and the Open Source community at large is second to none.

More about Kahn

A French-born mathematician, Philippe worked in Zurich, Switzerland under Niklaus Wirth in the 1970s on Pascal. Under his direction, Borland International, the industry independent leader for professional software development tools, grew from a startup to become the largest supplier of professional software development tools with several thousand employees worldwide and $500 Million in revenues. His company, Starfish, which was successfully acquired by Motorola in 1998, is the pioneer and the leader for multi-point synchronization of wireless devices. Its founding vision: `Global synchronization and integration of wireless and wireline devices' remains the company's entire focus.

Other articles by Prakash Advani

Current Rating: [ 6.59 / 10 ] Number of Times Rated: [ 17 ]

More Interviews
* Interview: Morphix founder Alex de Landgraaf
* A talk with Paul Leroux
* In conversation with Martin Konold
* "Linux is a very strong and reliable operating system"-- Philippe Kahn
* Sun shines on Linux too!

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