(9 votes, average: 6.56 out of 10)
Loading ...Does anyone want a Linux desktop?
Dell was the first to ship PCs and notebooks with Ubuntu Linux, while Lenovo is giving Linux a whirl in the U.S. only. At the recently concluded Novell Brainshare conference, HP announced it, too, will ship PCs and notebooks with SuSe Linux.
But does anyone really care about Linux? All this activity might suggest Linux is effectively competing with Windows in the marketplace. Judging by what many in the marketplace say, Linux still continues to barely make a dent in the world of desktop OS.
Solution providers have told me for years that customers are simply not interested in switching from Windows variants over to Linux. The main reason is support. Few are trained on Linux so many partners and end users simply can’t support the platform. The Linux community like many other sectors also faces an IT worker shortfall. There aren’t enough IT people in general and certainly much fewer Linux experts.
Microsoft is hardly shaking in its boots at the news that even its top three hardware partners are offering Linux options.
Perhaps there’s an opportunity for other PC makers. Might this action by HP, Lenovo and Dell prompt Acer and Toshiba to demand better OEM pricing from Microsoft because of exclusivity to Windows? Acer and Toshiba could use a bit of a competitive advantage in the market place. What about Tier 2 vendors such as Asus, Fujitsu, Sony and MSI or even the “white label” system builder community? Should they be rewarded for exclusive Windows loyalty?
Linux often gains a foothold with customers with lean or slashed budgets. As Microsoft licensing costs increase it does prompt some to look for alternatives. But while some organizations have in the past reportedly switched to the Linux environment for the desktop, many have likewise switched back to Windows, often because they can’t find or afford the support for the OS.
Notebook and desktop makers may want to offer Linux as an option to buyers, but I really have to wonder who’s interested.
One quick hit before I go. I was happy to learn that Mary Ann Yule has been promoted to Canadian GM of CDW. She is a highly skilled executive with great passion for this industry. I have written a lot lately about local leadership and I tip my hat to CDW for recognizing that and promoting from within the subsidiary. Pete Edwards leaves CDW Canada for a position in the company’s Arizona office.
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April 1st, 2008 at 10:23 am
You had me going. I was almost ready to waste some time responding to some of your “opinions”. Then is saw it “Posted on April 1st, 2008″.
April 1st, 2008 at 11:09 am
Each time the IDC releases a so-called “Piracy Study”, or one of their related studies on Linux market penatration, we are the victim of an April Fools joke that happens on days other than April 1’st.
April 3rd, 2008 at 9:34 am
And I suppose that explains why I, a simple accountant, am posting this from KDE on Mandriva 2007…
Much as Microsoft would be more than happy to trumpet successful transitions FROM Linux TO Windows (anything, especially Vista), I haven’t heard of more than one - and at that one, a school, the head of IT resigned shortly after the transition.
April 3rd, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Your views are accurate for North America, but not for China, India and elsewhere in the world. Linux desktop are a reality where as you mentioned cost is important. In China there are philosophical reasons for not choosing MS Windows as the desktop of choice. It will be interesting to revisit this topic five to ten years from now.
April 7th, 2008 at 2:34 pm
The biggest dis-service Microsoft has done to business computing is to make unreliability acceptable. We now, thanks to the near-universality of Windows (and MS Office for that matter) accept that we will lose work, time, productivity and money thanks to computer crashes and other lesser “hiccups.”
There is no reason for this at all. It is possible to create reliable, stable operating systems, but Microsoft has never done so. The Vista mess proves to me they cannot.
Buy L:nix; buy Apple, buy a pencil. but if you value your business, do not buy Microsoft products.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:22 pm
I have been using Ubuntu (Gnome) and Kubuntu (KDE) for more than 2 years now. At home I don’t see a reason to pay for Vista and then on top other 200 or more for office and other utilities. Ubuntu, OpenOffice, FireFox, and a bunch of additional free programs can compete in functionality and flexibility with the MSFT counter parts, not to mention price (nothing like FREE!) and reliability as some one mentioned before.
Support? At least as end user or a small organization I have access to questions, report bugs, and many other free sources (I can also pay of course), but what support you get at that level (end user or small office) with MSFT? you will have to pay and wait for ever to get issues resolved. Sometime the answer will be: “No plans to change that feature” and the reason may be the next release will have a complete “face lift”, new name, and off course you will have to pay for it again… and keep your fingers crossed so the issue is solved.
Have you seen any action when you let Windows or any of the programs send the report to Microsoft? With Ubuntu I have.
Easy to test and deploy? Can you test vista or ony windows versionn directly from the CD without even touching your hard drive? And if you like it, just install it selecting a partition from your disk and leaving other environments unaffected? That is not Windows and definetelly not Vista, you will need a high end machine to even think on installing it.
So where is the catch? Market share, dominance, and monopoly of MSFT in several areas, and even making certain websites fail unless you are accessing them from a .Net platform or an IE browser.
I’ll keep my fingers crossed to see more organizations as one of our Canadian school boards, switch to Linux based desktops like Ubuntu.
April 8th, 2008 at 8:32 am
I use Suse on all of our servers,desktops and laptops,after the Microsoft fiasco of my first 20yrs.+I couldn’t believe that caring for this much hardware could be that much easier by just switching OSes,as long as I run this shop we will never again use Microsoft anything.