Gerstner identifies a fifteen-year trend of top tech companies using open source strategically as a defensive weapon, starting with Android.
“And Google convinced the rest of the world, all the handset manufacturers, the carriers to support this model by telling them it was going be open.”
Gerstner says smart Silicon Valley companies use open source as defensive weapon, starting with Google's Android.
“Something happened over the past, I'd say fifteen years, where some of the smartest companies in Silicon Valley have developed a new strategic play, where they use open source as a defensive weapon rather than as an offensive weapon. That's my terminology. Of the first to do it was Google with Android”