I attended my first seminar at SBS today which was organized by the "Women in Business" special interest group. More specifically, Jane Silber, the CEO of Canonical Ltd and an alumna, addressed a select group of SBS students, alumni and faculty. The event was organized by two students from the 2009-2010 batch, Annika Dubrall and Emily Chew.
Overall, the seminar was well organized but the attendance was a bit muted as perhaps many students were preparing for the end of their course, arranging possible logistics of moving out of the country or otherwise. Nevertheless, the cause of women in business, I would think, could have done with a little more support. Anyway, I found Jane Silber to be humble, sharp, unpretentious, dedicated and technology focussed. Being a techie, I know that Canonical's product Ubuntu is a great operating system(OS) for PCs. It is one of the most popular and easy to install versions of the Linux, and its focus on ease of use has won it several laurels. Even though for server based system Red Hat Linux rules, as Jane Silber herself said,Ubuntu is the undisputed king of PCs running Linux. I feel that the next few years will really test her leadership and vision as Ubuntu faces intense competition from Google's new Linux based OS, increasing dominance of web (which will favour Red Hat) and a resurgent Microsoft, to name a few. Yet, with its excellent brand, a strong user community, ties with OEMs and increasing popularity, Ubuntu and Canonical will remain a force to contend with, and I wish Jane Silber all the best steering this ship.
Overall, the seminar was well organized but the attendance was a bit muted as perhaps many students were preparing for the end of their course, arranging possible logistics of moving out of the country or otherwise. Nevertheless, the cause of women in business, I would think, could have done with a little more support. Anyway, I found Jane Silber to be humble, sharp, unpretentious, dedicated and technology focussed. Being a techie, I know that Canonical's product Ubuntu is a great operating system(OS) for PCs. It is one of the most popular and easy to install versions of the Linux, and its focus on ease of use has won it several laurels. Even though for server based system Red Hat Linux rules, as Jane Silber herself said,Ubuntu is the undisputed king of PCs running Linux. I feel that the next few years will really test her leadership and vision as Ubuntu faces intense competition from Google's new Linux based OS, increasing dominance of web (which will favour Red Hat) and a resurgent Microsoft, to name a few. Yet, with its excellent brand, a strong user community, ties with OEMs and increasing popularity, Ubuntu and Canonical will remain a force to contend with, and I wish Jane Silber all the best steering this ship.
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