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Linux Entrepreneurs:
These are good times to be a Linux entrepreneur despite the low valuation of computer and electronics companies currently. The technological and demand fundamentals (buttressed by Linux's low cost and legendary user-freedom) means the outlook has never been better. Here are a few reasons:
1. The release of the Linux 2.6 kernel is a major milestone towards the deployment of license-free, royalty-free Linux in large area networks, database servers, high performance web servers etc. There is also renewed impetus in the open-source database, web-server and LAN-server projects
2. For x86 processors, the release of the 64-bit Processors (The Itanium from Intel and The Sledgehammer from AMD) will lead to many Linux-based applications of x86-based network-appliances. The SH5 ( a 64-bit Hitachi/ST RISC processor with many integrated functions ) will also open many network-multimedia applications for Linux. Its older sibling the SH4 powers the SEGA Dreamcast for which there is already a Linux distribution.
3. The desktop has also become very attractive for Linux to be applied. The release of KDE3 and gnome2 are large steps in making Linux more 'desktop-friendly'. In addition, there are the recent releases of OpenOffice 1.x and KOffice 1.x. Both projects have significant heads of steam. The current small number of Linux-on-the desktop users is set to change quite significantly. There is also a significant number of high-quality multimedia projects. A notable one is the media application server.
4. However the desktop has probably peaked and embedded, instrumentation and distributed computing devices are expected to show much demand in the coming years. Network-centric Linux is well placed with direct support in the 2.4 and 2.6 kernel for the MIPS family of processors, the SuperH family of RISC processors from Hitachi, the StrongArm processors the NEC VR processors and of course the Crusoe from Transmeta - Linus Torvald's employers. These processors are designed for low power-consumption use.