I'm surprised he said this but I think it could ultimately have a beneficial effect. I imagine some linux fanatics will be so up in arms about this that it might generate a "right, we'll show him!" type of response.
I think the IT industry is in a sorry state considering it is nearly 2004. I simply could not pick a "2nd favourite OS" in the opinion poll, because Windows, say, is pretty intuitive, with some terrific apps, but so obviously dated and clunky with the way the underlying stuff works (or doesn't). Linux is technically fantastic but has you pulling your hair out when you hit the common RTFM brickwall about something where you know exactly what you WANT to do and then hit the 200 page long document which could really be 20 pages. BeOS it seems was superb and was deliberately killed. Macs, ewwww, never liked 'em, but to be honest haven't tried MacOS X. I think AmigaOS et al will take some time (maybe a year or so) to mature to properly embrace mainstream technologies.
So that leaves ... errr, nothing (truly satisfying).
As he said though, linux needs to get to that level of simplicity for broad appeal, and it will. AmigaOS etc. have the appeal of simplicity already and need to play "catch up".
