alarm:clock

Venture Capital - Wednesday, September 13, 2006

African Cosmonaut Mark Shuttleworth Takes on MSFT

New research by a pair of Harvard University academics suggests that Linux will never be able to displace Windows based on the simple economics of Microsoft's head start and its continuing ecosystem advantages.

Mark Shuttleworth, however, thinks that Linux can displace Microsoft in the developing world. Shuttleworth is funding Ubuntu to see to it. As a result, the Linux-sphere is announting Shuttleworth as the 2nd coming of Linus Torvalds.

If you don't know of Shuttleworth, he founded Thawte in 1995, which specialised in digital certificates and Internet security and then sold it to VeriSign in December 1999 for $575M. In 2004 he invested $10M into the development of Ubuntu, a user-friendly distribution of Linux. In the Ubuntu project, Shuttleworth is often referred to with the tongue-in-cheek title Self-Appointed Benevolent Dictator for Life. In September 2005, he purchased a 65% stake of ImpiLinux.

Born In 1973, Shuttleworth was the first African national in space

Shuttleworth gained worldwide fame in April 2002 as a civilian cosmonaut aboard a Russian Soyuz mission, paying approximately $20M for a seat. The Soyuz spacecraft arrived at the International Space Station, where he spent eight days participating in experiments related to AIDS and genome research.