Rob Enderle Is No BloodworthRob Enderle Is No Bloodworth

Carl Hiaasen's novel "Tourist Season" features a character, Bloodworth, who is hungry to become a newspaper columnist. He has written some sample columns which are wonderfully perverse, guaranteed to somehow manage to offend BOTH sides of several highly polarized issues:

Mitch Wagner, California Bureau Chief, Light Reading

July 20, 2004

2 Min Read
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Carl Hiaasen's novel "Tourist Season" features a character, Bloodworth, who is hungry to become a newspaper columnist. He has written some sample columns which are wonderfully perverse, guaranteed to somehow manage to offend BOTH sides of several highly polarized issues: "Abortion: What's the Big Deal?" "Vietnam: Time To Try Again?"

Analyst Rob Enderle is no Bloodworth. For one thing, he only manages to tick off ONE side of the Microsoft-Linux divide: the Linux users. In past columns, he's argued that it's a terrible idea for enterprises to install Linux.

He's defended the Microsoft monoculture.

And he's said Microsoft is hated because it's misunderstood.

Oh, my, do we get letters when we run Enderle's columns! Oh, heavens, the language some of you know!

Enderle quite simply doesn't like Linux, and he does like Microsoft. But Enderle is still useful to the Linux community--even if he doesn't mean to be--because he raises issues that the Linux community needs to address.

This week, Enderle tackles why Netscape failed, why Microsoft succeeded, and what the Linux community needs to do to beat Microsoft.

Hint: It's not the technology, stupid. Microsoft software did not succeed because it's better--we all know that--it succeeded because the company enrolled hardware vendors, software vendors and enterprise users as allies, who succeeded when Microsoft succeeded. Netscape couldn't do those things, and so it failed; Linux will need to do those things to thrive.

The main reason Enderle is no Bloodworth is because he's smart. We can learn a lot from our friends--but we can also learn from our enemies.

We hope you learn from Enderle's columns, even if you hate them. And keep those e-mails coming. But remember: it's spelled "M-O-R-O-N." Also: "I-D-I-O-T" and "S-H-I-L-L." Even if you're hostile, that's no excuse for poor orthography.

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About the Author

Mitch Wagner

California Bureau Chief, Light Reading

Mitch Wagner is California bureau chief for Light Reading.

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