Does it matter whether software is open?

This post started as a reply to an interesting comment by Jens Hardings on his blog Hombros de Gigantes, about whether Microsoft understands open source.

I think Microsoft is realizing that software development is evolving the way Tim O'Reilly describes in his article What is Web 2.0.

A question for the non-technical people who read my blog: do you care what operating system this site runs on? Do you care how Google finds the information you need?

Let’s see...

It’s not the service

The wars between open software and proprietary software will end, because Microsoft needs to cover its flanks and because in the future the business won’t be in selling software licenses, or even in the service.

I quote O’Reilly:

Google’s “service” is not a server, though it is delivered by a massive collection of servers, nor is it a browser, though the user experiences it through a browser. ... Much like a phone call, which happens not just on the phones at either end but on the network in between, Google happens in the space between the browser and the search engine and the destination content server, as an enabler or middleman between the user and his or her online experience.

When you visit this blog, an astonishing piece of machinery analyzes the content of these pages, the demographics of the visitors, the topics covered, and so on, in order to serve up a set of ads relevant to the visitors. As a result, a non-trivial percentage of users click on those ads, generating revenue for Google and for this author.

The visitor to this blog wants to read my opinions, but Google tries to improve that user experience on my site by giving them relevant information that may redirect them to a new site with something that is probably more important than “my ramblings”.

Relevance

That is one of the drivers of the new business models. Two years ago people said the online advertising industry was a lost cause. Today we are in a situation where advertising has moved from print media to online media, to the point of hurting the newspaper business.

The web, and the internet, have the advantage of delivering relevance to their consumers. The new business models are about that. People consume more and more information.

It’s cool to know that there might be a movie with Batman and Superman together. Thousands of comic book fans consume that information, and so do thousands of fans of fantasy and action movies. What The Movie Blog does is take advantage of those growing niches, along with thousands of others in the long tail.

O'Reilly, Microsoft and Google have realized that software is no longer a product but a service. But ultimately, as software evolves, what matters is what remains, which is the information, and within it, whatever is most relevant to the user.

As the gringos would say: It’s the data, stupid!

Whether the software is open or closed matters very little at this point.