A few weeks ago, I wrote a weblog entry about Microsoft's perception that Mac OS X uptake is too slow, versus my experience that users are moving to OS X in droves.
It became clear in the course of that conversation that Microsoft was looking at the OS X market only in terms of people moving from OS 9, where my experience has largely been with "switchers" -- people who are coming to OS X from some other platform. Apple's Switch ad campaign focuses on people making the switch from Windows, but it may be the case that there's an even larger wave of switchers from Linux and other Unix platforms.
I decided to do an informal poll. I sent a message to Dave Farber's IP (Interesting People) mailing list, asking:
I'd love to hear from IP readers who have adopted OS X. Were you switching from OS 9, Windows, Linux, or Unix? Are you still using your old system as well, or fully switched?
First, a disclaimer about the validity of such a poll: IP is far from a typical cross-section of the public. The list consists of high tech "thought leaders," including many of the architects of Internet standards, key technology journalists, educators, and technology activists and policy wonks. It skews towards the people I have elsewhere called "alpha geeks" (though I've also argued that these people are good predictors of overall technology trends, as the broader market eventually catches up with their early enthusiasm). Nor do the 15 responses I got from IP's thousands of subscribers represent a significant sample. And of course, any poll with self-selected respondents is not statistically valid. Nonetheless, the responses are suggestive and intriguing.
The 15 responses were as follows:
Where things got interesting was the platform people were switching away from. Despite the implication of Apple's switch campaign, that users are coming from Windows, the majority of the defections were from Linux, or from a combination of Windows and Linux or another version of Unix:
In other words, switchers appear to be adopting Mac OS X at twice the rate of Mac OS 9 users. Linux users, and Windows users who also use Linux or another Unix, appear to be the most common switchers. What's more, two of the five Mac OS 9 upgraders were also already Unix users. While this skew may be due to the demographics of the IP list (as well as of the O'Reilly customer list, since people already familiar with O'Reilly might be more likely to respond to my query), it suggests both an opportunity for Apple -- to go after the high-end professional markets where Unix and Linux are strong -- and a potential upper bound to Apple's increase in market share.
The anecdotal evidence suggests too that Apple and its third-party developers do in fact need to do more to entice existing users to switch. The upgrade price (not just for the operating system but for new applications) was cited as an obstacle by existing Mac users, while Unix/Linux users are quick to see the benefit of having a desktop Unix that "just works" and don't have an application switching cost to swallow.
Here are some of the stories, reprinted by permission:
Technology and public policy advocate Jim Warren was one of three Mac-only upgraders. He wrote:
Interesting that you should be commenting about X switchers right now.
I is one! "Been meaning to" try it for maybe a half-year, but a soon-to-depart about-to-be-in-college daughter of a property-mate forked over about $2,300 of her own loot -- earned after school and on weekends -- to get a shiny new iBook ... and that prompted me to go ahead and install it on my desktop G4/733. (Otherwise, I might lose my resident-guru status. :-) )
It's taken a coupla weeks and several false starts -- but I'm getting more and more enthusiastic about X. And (as I am about to write in some "public" comments) David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual is an absolutely stellar -- and ESSENTIAL! -- tool for understanding X and getting the most out of it. (Apple's idiotic "Help[less]" files verge on being worse than useless -- partly because one can spend unending time slogging through their links, only to FAIL to find most of the answers. <grrr>)
However, for your survey purposes, I have to admit that I'm a long-time Mac zealot (and an equally ardent Microshaft critic -- in print, online and in person). So I'm not making a "major" switch ... even though, in fact, it IS a MAJOR switch.
BTW, I also envision that X will (is!) be pulling me into finally learning "real" Unix. (One of the things I missed by finishing my last grad degree circa 1975. I wuz goin' out the door, jus' as Unix and C were dribbling in the door.)
[self-inflating puffery: Playboy Foundation Hugh Hefner First-Amendment Award; Soc.of Prof.Journalists-Nor.Calif. James Madison Freedom-of-Information Award; founded InfoWorld, DataCast Magazine, and Computers, Freedom & Privacy Confs.; Electronic Frontier Foundation's Pioneer Award (in its first year), blah blah]
Embedded systems hacker Steve Roberts of Nomadic Research Labs (creator of the BEHEMOTH (Big Electronic Human-Energized Machine... Only Too Heavy) and Microship projects) wrote:
I switched to OS X at the beginning of this year, and have never looked back. I've been a Mac user since the Mac Plus days (wow ... about 15 years!), and had no difficulty or regret in making the move from the classic environment. The system is very stable, and once I dumped IE in favor of Mozilla the single most fragile app was eliminated.
There is a high probability that OS X will be the core of the Microship embedded system; I'll be taking my iBook anyway, and the embedded system will be another laptop with remoted display, USB hooks to all the I/O, and a few layers of wireless networking with the rest of the flotilla (transparently degrading to slower links as units drift out of range) with a software bus architecture (spread) that imposes a sort of publish/subscribe model on all distributed objects. This is all platform-independent, and since OS X finally gives us the best of both worlds in one package, it is the logical choice for this integrated system as well as the stand-alone "productivity" tools.
Bret Fausett of Hancock Rothert & Bunshoft switched from Mac OS 9 to Mac OS X, but he's not happy about the upgrade costs. He wrote:
I'm a lawyer, and I use a Titanium Powerbook as my primary workstation. (My law firm provides a Windows PC for my desktop, but I hardly use it.)
The biggest impediment to my complete migration from 9.x to OS X has been the cost of the software -- the unadvertised cost of switching. I first paid Apple $129.00 for OS X (and the company apparently expects another $129 for 10.2 when it's released later this month). Forget that I had purchased Microsoft's Office 2001 for the Macintosh (OS 9.0 compatible) in 2001 for $239.00; Microsoft wanted another $239.00 for the OS X version less than a year later. An upgrade for BBEdit set me back another $65.00.
Don't get me wrong, I appreciate that there are real development costs in rolling out a new application for a wholly new operating system, and I don't mind paying for those development costs. But I just don't want to do that all at once. So I set my priorities, purchased a couple of things (including the new Office), and I'll buy the new OS-X-compatible versions of software only when I really need them. Expensive applications that I don't use day to day (for me, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Pagemaker), I plan to continue to use in their OS 9 incarnations until I'm really forced to switch.
My other two "upgraders" were already Unix users as well as Mac users. Mikki Barry of NetPolicy.com wrote:
I switched from OS 9 (after having started off with a 128k mac while also using unix and dos). I have totally switched over, and have switched one of my FreeBSD servers over to a Mac OS X server. I am 99% switched except for the rare old programs I still need that aren't OS X compatible.
OS X has as free many of the networking utilities and applications that we used to sell as InterCon Systems. While TCP/Connect II's mailer still beats the pants off of Entourage, Eudora or Mail, I've still switched over anyway :-).
Scott Bradner of Harvard wrote:
switched from OS9 and MachTen (i.e. have been using UNIX-on-Mac for many years)
classic still there to support
- Meeting Maker (Harvard supposed to switch a month ago)
- American Heritage Dictionary
OSX up on 4 machines at home (2 desktops & 2 laptops) and one desktop at work
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Many of the Windows switchers echoed the theme from the article "Windows by Day, Linux by Night" that I wrote a few years ago. That is, they have needed to use both Windows and Linux/Unix to get their job done. Some still use Windows at work, but use OS X at home.
Professor William Arbaugh:
I'm a reader of IP and one of Dave's former students. I'm now an Asst. Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park and I just this week switched to OS X from Linux and Windows XP. I say both because I needed to use both to do the things that I wanted to do.
I've been considering switching to OSX since it was announced. I decided to switch when I saw a friend at the IETF in Japan using an iBook. This person is a devout NetBSD hacker, and I asked if he was using NetBSD. He said "No -- OS X," and proceeded to show me all of the cool things one can do under OS X. I ordered a new Powerbook that day. It arrived this Monday. I played with it for a day,and decided to switch everything over from my Thinkpad.
Needless to say -- I'm very excited about OS X. It is everything that I've been looking for in a "stable" OS. It has the BSD undercarriage and the commercial UI. I love it, and I'm showing all of my friends and associates. And -- some of them are converting now as well. So -- I think you are correct in your theory about a "new mac market."
p.s.s. A bit of history -- my first computer (one that I bought) was an Apple IIe. I upgraded to the fat Mac while in grad school the first time, and I remained loyal to the Mac family until the Linux kernel was around v0.80. At that time, I realized that I could run UNIX at home on a PC. At that time, I switched from Macs to Wintel and Linux until this week. I'm back to a Mac!
Lixia Zhang of UCLA wrote:
I moved to OS X from windows+unix (my old laptop was windows, desktop Sun). Now OS X alone is enough (or almost enough).
Our dept. computing staff (all Mac fans :-)) is trying to convince all faculty members to move from (mostly windows, some linux) to Mac; they might have succeeded in moving a dozen of us over by now if not more (I dont really know the exact number)
In some cases, the user has managed to turn a personal switch into a work-related switch. For example, network administrator John Lyon wrote:
I've been using PCs since 84, or 85. Since the mid 90s, I've been making my living at supporting them. At some level, I think they're monstrous. Well, maybe not monstrous. But at Indiana University, I'd be one of three or four guys answering the support lines for PCs, while the lone Mac guy would be downloading audio files off the net. Sometimes, I'd even go into the student labs and download DOS shareware on the Macs, because it was easier. And I used to pray that the people wanting the Internet on their computers were Mac users, because all I had to do was give them a floppy diskette. But I still didn't switch. I continued to support PCs, and became a network administrator. I got my first laptop, a Dell. I quit having fun with computers. Windows 2000? No fun. Windows ME? No fun. Windows 98, Windows XP? No fun. Then I got a new job, where I had to support Macs. So I got a used PowerBook G3. OS 9 was OK. But OS X? Shiiineeeeey. And fun! Computing was fun! A computer, was fun. Laughing at the viruses that tried to infect my computer, was satisfying ... and fun! So in January, when I wanted a new laptop, I started lusting after a PowerBook G4. I wanted fun. I wanted style. I wanted ... no, I needed, OS X. I got a PowerBook G4. It's fun. It's stylish. I love it. And I can even run Windows on it, if I really, really need to.
My wife, who's also a network admin type, was confused at my choice. She likes her Dell, with WinXP, but I can hardly stand to touch it.
I still have to use 'Doze at work, and don't mind 2000. But it's the last MS OS I'll put on a box of my own. I'm not pleased with the GUI in XP. I'm not pleased that it's an incremental upgrade sold as a new OS (ver reports it's 5.1 -- while win2k is 5.0). I'm not pleased that MS seems to rearrange where all the admin tools are from NT4 to NT5 to NT5.1. Active Directory is crap. It makes NDS seem like child's play. Or maybe I'm really dense about the DNS server.
And I don't like the service packs that update my OS so that MS can automagically install whatever functionality they want. They already render old versions of MSN Messenger useless -- what's to stop them from doing the same to Win2K in a few years, with a sleeper function in Service Pack 6 for Windows 2000?
And let's not get started on the crippled "home" version of XP, or the activation scheme.
My wife took over the old Dell laptop I was using when I got my G3 Wallstreet. When she upgraded, I got the Dell back, and after futzing around, ended up turning it into a 2K server for file, print and Web services, as well as a home automation (X-10) server. But it's still not fun to play around with it. Actually, the most fun I have with it is using the OS X RDP client MS released to connect to it.
That's pretty much my story. -- John Lyon :: http://jelyon.com :: Random Abstracts - JELyon's Rampage
One exception to those mentioning Unix as well as Windows was Brian Dear. I will note that since Brian previously worked at mp3.com and Eazel, both heavy Linux shops, even he may not qualify as the sole Windows-only switcher in the poll. Brian was also one of the only correspondents who was critical of OS X despite the switch. He wrote:
I moved from Windows98 to Mac OS X primarily because I was a NeXT developer back in the good old days of NeXTcubes, NeXTstations, Canon Object.stations, and NeXTSTEP. When NeXT acquired Apple (at least that's how I tend to view that particular merger) I was hopeful that NeXTSTEP would come back, and it has. I'm very happy using OS X. However, there are some issues, specifically related to Apple's "Switch" campaign.
In my view, Apple and some of the software vendors out there have done a poor job helping users switch. In my own case, I still use Win98 for email -- I'm an old Eudora user who used to use NeXTmail (which is essentially what OS X's Mail app is now) and looked forward to migrating my hundreds of megabytes of email over to the OS X platform. Unfortunately, I've been unable to. No matter what tricks I use to get the Eudora mailbox files massaged, converted, or otherwise imported into Mac email apps, nothing works, so my mail stays on Win98 in Eudora.
I've been disappointed with Qualcomm's support to help users migrate easily from Eudora for Windows to Eudora for OS X. I've also been disappointed that Apple has not done more on their own or encouraging ISVs to create tools that make the "switch" happen for users in a "point click done" way.
Networking is another one: I've had bad luck getting my Win98 machine to share files with my new G4 and vice versa. I'm using ftp until I get Samba or something like that working well in Mac OS X, but I refuse to spend weekends and late nights fiddling, Linux-hacker-style, with the scripts and codes and config files of Samba and the same on the Windows side to try to get it to work. I just don't have the time, nor do the millions of mainstream users who, theoretically, Apple wants to encourage to switch to OS X.
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There were several people who reported switching only from Linux. A common complaint was that Linux on the desktop remains a struggle.
Mark Luntzel wrote:
Like a lot of my pals (and tons of other folks as well), I switched from fighting linux on the desktop to OSX and I never want to go back (I never ever want to touch another windows box, as well). linux is a great server platform, no question, but I look back at the last couple of years of literally fighting with the linux desktop as a waste of my time.
OS X is the holy grail as far as I'm concerned. You're spot-on with what I've seen as far as developers adoption of OS X.
My wintel box gathers dust in the corner.
Developer Jim Thompson wrote:
OK, I "switched" from Linux. I was formerly with Musenki. We were building "open source" APs. (I may know as much about 802.11 as Rob Flickenger.)
These APs ran a Moto 8245 PowerPC chip. Long story short, I had purchased an old "Blue and White" G3/400 and put Debian on it for a build machine. (Some things like Perl don't like to build in a "box.")
When Musenki ended (for me, I'm with Vivato now, and the alignment between the two projects/companies is amazing) I had this B&W on my hands. So I reconfigured it a bit (256MB -> 1024MB of memory, G3/400 to G4/550, RagePro 128 display card to ATI Radeon 7000, and added a 80GB IDE drive), put the two 18" LCD panels I had on my Intel/Linux box on the "B&W," and installed OS X(.1.5).
"Well, thats cool," I thought. So I went out and bought Office v.X for it.
Then I bought a (20GB) iPod.
Then I plugged my wife's Epson 820 printer into the USB port.
Everything works. I'm not sure the power of that simple statement gets my mental state across. Everything *JUST* works. Its weird. No fiddling, no editing of files. Its a little creepy for someone who's first response is to open "Terminal.app" and dredge though /etc and /var for config and startup files to let the machine handle it. I guess I've seen a lot of companies try and fail to tame Unix administration with a GUI (hell, my wife was one of the first 40 employees at Tivoli.)
But here, it all works. It's pretty (lickable), it's fast (my first job was @ Convex. I think Vector processors are cool), it has Unix where I can get to it, and in a lot of ways, it's just like having a Linux or FreeBSD box, except it all Just Works.
I have a decently-fast machine with dual displays and a gig of RAM, about 100GB of disk, Office, a working (color) printer (which I never did get to work on Linux), emacs, Opera, and about every unix utility I care to think of, courtesy of "Fink."
When Vivato started talking about a high-end IBM/Intel notebook with WinXP for me, I asked if I couldn't have a TiPowerBook instead. After a bit of internal discussion, they said "Yes' (hey, it even runs SAP!) so now I also have a G4/800 with 1GB of ram and 40GB of disk in my hands for a notebook.
So, I guess I switched both ways. Does that make me AC/DC?
I'm not sure that Linux has a huge future as a "desktop" OS, thought people will certainly try. I've lived with Unix as a "desktop" OS for a long time now (since 1980, and this includes stints at Sun (building their internal network) and Tadpole (where I built SPARC/Solaris notebook machines (and IBM/PowerPC/AIX, and DEC/Alpha/OpenVMS, and Intel/Pentium/Windows/WinNT/OS-2/Linux notebooks)).
As a desktop OS, Unix, including Linux, is just not "there."
I am sure that it will grow to completely dominate the embedded market, and that the various hardware types will continue to promulgate it as a server OS, and if nothing else, the combination of these two will block a lot of the damage that Microsoft would otherwise attempt.
Now I'm waiting for Jaguar (and wondering how to get the upgrade for the PowerBook), since the reviews say it should be that much better.
BTW, the last Mac I owned was an original 128KB Mac, in 1985 and 1986. I traded it off for a 68000-based Unix machine (a Valid, one of the early CAD stations).
Mike O'Dell (former CTO of UUnet, now at Compass Rose Labs) wrote:
I'm typing this on a 1GHz twin-G4 with a 22" cinema display.
I moved back to Mac OS X after running Linux on the desktop for a couple of years (with the occassional foray into Win98 land for email attachment reasons), and early FreeBSD and BSDI before that. Previous to moving to Unix-on-Intel, I used a series of Macs as my personal machines, starting with a Mac Plus (upgraded in several unnatural ways), an LC-III, and ending with a PowerComputing PowerBase machine. As of Mac OS 7.x, it was becoming evident that the principal use being made of faster processors was reducing the time between OS crashes. Then when the clones were officially axed, that sealed its fate.
About 6 months ago I tried Mac OS X because of a project I am doing which requires some mechanical system design -- not drafting, but design. I tried numerous programs (free and *very* non-free) on both Linux and Windows and the overwhelming conclusion was that the ones that weren't out and out busted (core dumps, etc.) had user interfaces designed by disciples of the Marquis de Sade.
One day I was in a store that carried Macs and I sat down just to get a feel for Mac OS X. Lo and behold, there was Appleworks. On a whim, I tried the drawing program just to see what it could do. In less than 10 minutes I did a good draft of a drawing that I had literally spent hours trying to do on the other platforms.
That sold the machine. I gulped hard, spent the money, and have been utterly *delighted* since then.
I had forgotten what it was like to use a computer that "Doesn't Suck(tm)."
Great Unix system, great productivity apps, together at last! I've only waited 20 years for this.
And I can still use tools like troff, er, groff if i need to do something really serious, like format an Internet Draft, which is impossible to do with MS-Word.
I haven't been able to give up MH for email (still done on the home server running FreeBSD), but I guess the tools will eventually get there.
But on the whole, Mac OS X is a dream come true for a Unix user who wants to use the system, not spend all his available cycles trying to get the desktop software to work right.
And having started as a Macintosh developer back when a Lisa was required to compile code for it, I simply cannot understand why *anyone* would want to keep developing for the "classic" Mac environment. Yes, you have to learn new stuff for Cocoa, and you have suffered mightily to get a good app working under old Mac OS environments, but that was then, this is now.
Here's to the future!
Joe McGuckin of via.net wrote:
I switched to a Powerbook from an IBM laptop running Linux.
My primary OS at work is FreeBSD and my use of Linux was due to its better PCMCIA support.
When it came time to replace the IBM laptop, I noticed that all my friends had the Titanium powerbook. At conferences (NANOG, IETF) the TiBook seems to be the laptop of choice.
OS X gives me the Unix OS I need to perform my job (I'm a network admin) and it allows me to run the desktop productivity software that I need (someone is always sending me Word or Excel attachments). It's really the best of both worlds.
Also, I purchased MS Office for X. As a vocal Microsoft critic, it really hurts for me to admit that this is a really nice piece of software. It's not the usual piece-of-crap MS software that you get for Windows.
If you asked me why I chose OS X over Linux, I'd have to say that it's just the overall fit and finish of OS X. It's really polished compared to Linux. On Linux, most hardware support "sorta" works. PCMCIA works about 90%, APM works about 90%, etc. On OS X, all hardware related features work 100%.
To put it in terms my mom would understand, I'd say that OS X/TiBook is like a Mazda Miata: Stylish, sexy, with good manufacturing tolerances. All the paint matches and the body panels have consistent gaps. Linux running on a generic PC laptop is like a typical British sports car from the '70s. Lots of engine, but it has a lousy paint job. The car "mostly" runs, but the electrical system is erratic. The hand-built body isn't square and gaps between panels vary so that it's noticeable to the eye.
By now, we're hearing quite a theme. OS X "Just Works" compared to Linux.
Alastair Scott of London hasn't quite made the switch yet, but he's ready to. He recapitulates the entire history of high-end users in quest of a better platform. He switched to Linux from Windows out of discomfort with Microsoft business practices, but is switching to Apple for fit and finish, cool hardware, a hoped-for escape from nagware, and appreciation for Apple's forward-looking stance on digital rights management. (Note that Alastair could also be considered a Windows switcher, since he continues to use Windows at work.) He wrote:
Here's someone who's just about to make the switch; I've gone Windows, then Linux, then Mac OS X. Reasons for the switch are very complex, and here are some of them in no particular order:
i. I was disgusted at some of the facts that came out of the "Microsoft trial" and those on their own prompted me to look for alternatives. Having battled the UK telecommunications industry successfully -- see www.unmetered.org.uk -- I've seen too much corporate misbehaviour and trickery.
ii. Although Windows XP is technically very well done, the amount of nagging and cajoling from the user interface annoyed me and, I think, will only get worse.
iii. The Mac OS X user interface is excellent and the operating system keeps the best parts and ditches the principal weaknesses of Unix/Linux -- in particular X, which is an inappropriate behemoth for a desktop system.
iv. Where I work is a Microsoft shop -- 100 per cent -- and it's nice to use something at home which is completely different.
v. Apple's grown-up attitude to digital rights management is refreshing; I don't think it'll be caught sneaking in EULA changes in an upgrade or otherwise treating customers as fools at best.
vi. Although Linux is definitely ready for the desktop, the possibility that I might buy or have to use a peripheral which didn't work or was only supported in a basic manner was, in the end, too much; this is a particular problem with ADSL as, in the UK, ISPs and telecommunications operators have a fascination with ADSL USB modems that are poorly supported under Linux. To this end, Apple's complete control of hardware has its advantages.
vii. The astonishing iMac design; I've used PC flat panels that have come with completely inflexible and ugly bases, yet Apple has solved how to mount one without spending £200-£300 for a "specialised" arm.
viii. Although Macs are more expensive up front, they seem to last longer; I know people who've had Macs going for six or eight years or more, yet PCs tend to last only two or three years before either they become outmoded or crack up. In eleven years I've had four PCs; the three previous ones all had crushing failures, usually the motherboard blowing and bringing down other components with it.
ix. Quietness: I think Apple doesn't make enough play of Macs not having fans. PCs seem to be running hotter and hotter: I've seen Athlon-based PCs which are ridiculously noisy, with two or three fans needed, and would probably be illegal in an office.
Because I detest wires going everywhere the old PC (running Linux) will be given away to a local boys' club, which will make good use of it!
My new Mac, as you might have guessed from a couple of comments above, will be the 17" iMac.
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Related Reading 
Learning Unix for Mac OS X |
In preparing this report, I looked at one other set of data points: the additional purchases of customers who bought David Pogue's Mac OS X: The Missing Manual. This book has sold faster than any title we've published since The Whole Internet User's Guide and Catalog back in 1992, and has been the #1 bestselling computer book at Amazon, Borders, and Barnes & Noble for most of 2002. I figured that if purchasers of this book were new to Unix, they might buy an introductory Unix book at the same time; if they were already using Unix, they might buy more advanced books; and if they were using Windows, they might also be buying Windows books.
My very unscientific analysis of approximately 1300 customers who bought Mac OS X: The Missing Manual directly from O'Reilly via our Web site is as follows:
Apple may be wise to target Unix/Linux rather than Windows in their switch campaign. (As the authors of Crossing the Chasm noted, it's best to dominate a niche, and expand out from there, than it is to tackle a market that's too big for you to digest right away. And capturing the Unix desktop market would likely double Apple's market share in one swoop.) Apple software vendors need to keep upgrade pricing fair. Take all of the above with a grain of salt.
Tim O'Reilly is the founder and CEO of O'Reilly Media, Inc., thought by many to be the best computer book publisher in the world. In addition to Foo Camps ("Friends of O'Reilly" Camps, which gave rise to the "un-conference" movement), O'Reilly Media also hosts conferences on technology topics, including the Web 2.0 Summit, the Web 2.0 Expo, the O'Reilly Open Source Convention, the Gov 2.0 Summit, and the Gov 2.0 Expo. Tim's blog, the O'Reilly Radar, "watches the alpha geeks" to determine emerging technology trends, and serves as a platform for advocacy about issues of importance to the technical community. Tim's long-term vision for his company is to change the world by spreading the knowledge of innovators. In addition to O'Reilly Media, Tim is a founder of Safari Books Online, a pioneering subscription service for accessing books online, and O'Reilly AlphaTech Ventures, an early-stage venture firm.
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