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If you had 1 billion dollars to improve the tech industry...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:33 pm
by JAB Creations
If you were given one billion dollars that you could only invest in the tech industry (obviously to be specific the internet in general and you couldn't keep it for yourself or use it for personal use as in never run out of Mountain Dew) where would you invest that money? Would you invest to improve existing technology, upcoming technology, start something to fill a void, or a combination?

Re: If you had 1 billion dollars to improve the tech industry...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:36 pm
by alex.barylski
In my own software and business initiatives. :D

I only need about 200g never mind billions.

Re: If you had 1 billion dollars to improve the tech industry...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 2:52 pm
by onion2k
I'd spend the whole lot marketing top quality OSS projects like Linux, Firefox, Thunderbird, etc. 30s adverts before every major film, every prime time TV show, full page ads in newspapers and magazines.. that sort of thing. Open source tech doesn't need more investment in the tech itself, that side of things is easily good enough. What's needed is the stuff that people can't do for free. With a billion dollars I could achieve that.

From my hollowed out volcano 'office', natch.

:twisted:

Re: If you had 1 billion dollars to improve the tech industry...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 3:12 pm
by Eran
Build a stealth task force that could enforce web standards with deadly efficiency

Re: If you had 1 billion dollars to improve the tech industry...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:18 pm
by matthijs
I'd buy Microsoft :D

would love to be able to bully Balmer around

Re: If you had 1 billion dollars to improve the tech industry...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:33 pm
by alex.barylski
I think you'd need more than 1 billion to buy Microsoft. :lol:

I don't care so much about bossing anyone around, but I'd love to step in the ring with Balmer and give him a couple jabs...god that guy is annoying...

Ever watch those YouTube videos wher he's just going nutts on stage, trying to be all energy, all the while being significantly over weight and running out of breathe within seconds of running? :lol:

I'm like "DUDE" give it up...your not in the right condition to be acting like Tony Little or Billy Banks. :lol: :banghead:

Re: If you had 1 billion dollars to improve the tech industry...

Posted: Tue Jun 24, 2008 4:49 pm
by JAB Creations
You can't buy Microsoft for a billion dollars. I don't think you could even ten years ago? Maybe fifteen...

I really like pytrin's idea. :mrgreen:

onion, dude that's cool, but THIRTY?! They would BECOME the movie! :lol:

I'd invest the money in ensuring Linux and software vendors release RPM installers and prevent the need for me to have to muck around in the console. If all I use DOS for these days is to ping and do tracerts then the only thing I should have to do in Linux is a tracert unless they have a GUI for that too! Seriously this is the major issue holding Linux back and Vista is a wide open target for mass migration. Too bad Linux gurus can't get over how great the console is because really it's not part of being productive in a work environment.

I'd also invest it in hiring people to fix bugs in Gecko, get Opera to actually put some useful CSS3 properties in to their browser before the 25th century arrives, see if I could lure Microsoft in to an agreement to actually support XHTML (application/xhtml+xml), force HTML 5 to have a version declaration in their doctype and if not create my own version of HTML 5 that won't create conflicts with newer versions (as the lack of a version declaration essentially declares 'hey everyone I'm the final version of HTML ever! I'm so confident that I don't need to declare what version I am!' I'd also see if I could get an independent browser project started where you could have a cross platform Webkit browser though without the can't-opt-out bold text. Lastly I'd give another portion to the W3C to get their butts rolling on CSS3. Seriously they need to get their priorities straight!