I consider it a privilege to articulate a vision of Internet based business software within the context of a truly open, universally connected world.

An open, connected world is a vision that is created by the entire UNIX and Free Software community: vendors, developers, users and resellers. It is absolutely true that the UNIX and Free Software community has spent forty years staking out and perfecting the vision of a world-wide network of interoperability and open standards.

The community has pioneered a model of communications which has brought us to the next great stage of information automation. Ninety percent of Internet solutions are UNIX and Free Software based. This is the leading platform for Internet tool development. For over four decades, UNIX and Free Software have been about open standards, flexibility and end-to-end connectivity. Thousands upon thousands of professionals and devotees have worked for decades toward ensuring that disparate systems can connect and be useful in their diversity. When people think of open systems they justly think of, and justly credit, UNIX and Free Software.

This community has always been about choice; it's been about putting control of that choice where it belongs - in the hands of the customer, rather than in the grip of any single vendor. The emergence of the Internet computing model is truly a thrilling hallmark of our era; it stands in testimony to its achievements of connectivity and scalability.

Networks mask complexity, but we who attach systems to networks and who develop applications for networks must grapple with complexity.  The GUI is the battleground where the complex is rendered not only simple, but useful, and at a price which is affordable to anyone, anywhere.

The World Wide Web only took off when the interfaces that made it approachable and usable appeared for everyone who wanted them. This is similar to what happened in the touch screen Point of Sale business, starting in 1985 when we put the first application specific, graphic user interface POS system into operation.  We're tremendously proud of our role in demonstrating the need for specific purpose POS GUI's which are better suited to the end user than the general-purpose GUI's provided by the companies which wrote the operating systems.

No important technology in the history of the world, not the automobile, not the toaster, not networks, became ubiquitous until it was easy to use, useful, affordable, and conformed to the standards of the day.

There are, of course, proprietay operating systems and user interfaces which are very much UNIX & Free Software wannabe operating systems.  There's nothing open about them.  These operating systems are expensive and allow the companies which produce them to intrude into the domains of those who use them.  In the eyes of these companies, the only thing wrong with UNIX and Free Software is that it is an open OS platform that they don't own, control and make money from.  So, they'll do what they always do; they create duplicates of it, ridicule and denigrate what it is they are copying, then replace what they have attempted to copy with their proprietary knock-off. It's a high tech shell game.  These operating systems are being crafted into workalike versions; their makers are spinning stories of ease of use, of shrink wrapped client/server consistency from the desktop to the server.

POS system solutions integrate the food & beverage enterprise, making it more efficient. In many ways, intranets and extranets fulfill the promise of client/server -- they give customers something they've already been looking for and investing in. However, when we move to Internet based e-commerce, this is uncharted territory for most customers. These are applications that bring the world of consumer products to  a world of consumers - - connecting an enterprise with a billion potential buyers of its goods and services. The Internet based business model is harder to describe and the pay-off is harder to predict. But the potential is enormous.

As more and more net based applications come online and people make the shift from browsing to buying and working, we'll see a redefinition of the term "killer application." A "killer app" will not be a shrink wrapped program that sells millions of copies. A killer app will be any usefulness available from the Internet that touches millions of people and helps them do what they want to do. Business to consumer. And business to business. For your company, the next killer app will be the Internet and the usefulness you make available with it.

You won't think of useful software as "applications." You won't "download" them. You'll just tune in various Internet `channels' to get something done.  And we'll see another fundamental change -- applications won't come just from software companies.  Every business with an Internet presence will make them available -- for their customers and their employees.

-- Gene Mosher