Webpavement was founded in 1999 and internally debated whether to design our digital signage player software for the Linux OS or Windows OS. We talked about our future plans and the risk for our customers and investors. Linux came up as a discussion point because it's free and would lower the end user cost. Many industry analysts can argue that the total cost of ownership for Linux may be higher than Microsoft operating systems.
We chose to develop on the Microsoft platform using Microsoft development tools for the following reason. We believe it is risky for software manufacturers to utilize Open Source Software (OSS). SCO Group (NASD: SCOX) is litigating against Software/Hardware manufacturers and end-user customers that utilize Linux. Webpavement does not utilize any OSS operating systems or components. Further, should an organization want to acquire Webpavement - they would surely go through our intellectual property and source code to identify open source components. In other words, acquirers see OSS components as a risky investment.
Today's news regarding Linux is further evidence that we made the right decision. Linux may appear to be free, but is it really? Today's news story indicates a trend for Linux that companies will try to cash in on Linux end customers. The Forbes article http://www.forbes.com/enterprisetech/2004/08/02/cz_dl_0802linux.html?partner=yahoo&referrer - in our opinion - depicts the trend has started.
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