[LUAU] VC and Linux

[R. Scott Belford]

Hawaii Linux Institute wrote:
> 
> I am sure most have heard the news that Google has set a date to go 
> IPO.  What differentiates Google from essentially all the internet 
> bubbles of the late '90s is that it already has almost $500M in cash.  I 
> know Google is "probably" profitable.  But $500M in cash?  I don't think 
> anyone has any idea that Google has been so successful, cash-wise.
> 
> Five years ago, Google comprised of no more than two PhD students, one 
> of them from the former USSR, who built a search engine on a number of 
> cheap-to-free Linux boxes.
> 
> Plse excuse me for doing a little bit Monday morning quarterbacking.  
> But I believe all the financial analysts have missed a key element in 
> Google's success.  As I mentioned in my previous thread, before the two 
> Google founders thought about their ideas, there was already a massive 
> Linux community at Stanford University's ComSci dept.
> 
> This is what we should do: Build a massive Linux user community in 
> Hawaii.  And hopefully some of us will become very big (so that the rest 
> of us can have enough crumbs to pick).  We may not have the technical 
> edge, but we should have some geographical/geopolltical/geosocial 
> advantages that make us unique among the 50 states.  wayne

Each year the University of Hawaii's School of Business has a Business 
Plan Competition.

http://www.cba.hawaii.edu/bpc/

 From a field of 60, one of the five finalists was a VOIP provider using 
linux hardware for the PBX.  They did not win, but the Venture 
Capitalists in attendance, and they were each pretty special, were 
impressed.  Comtel is already combining OSS with a business solution, as 
is Pau Spam, Tiki Technologies, etc.


HONTECH
     Provides unique IP telephony services and solutions
     using a combination of proprietary and open-source
     software


--scott