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Linux To Take Over The Low-End PC Market?
Posted by
Zonk
on Monday December 10, @07:17AM
from the penguins-on-the-loose dept.
from the penguins-on-the-loose dept.
An anonymous reader writes "Desktop Linux has a recent commentary on the inevitable growth of Linux on the cheaper end of the desktop market. According to the article, the availability of under-$500 usable hardware, combined with a free operating system, free desktop office products, and free or cheap 'software as a service' online applications, opens a new market in which Microsoft cannot compete. 'Microsoft will fight this trend tooth and nail. It will cut prices to the point where it'll be bleeding ink on some of its product lines. And Windows XP is going to stick around much longer than Microsoft ever wanted it to. Still, it won't be enough.'"
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An anonymous reader writes "Pro-Linux reports that KDE 4, scheduled to be released in January 2008, consumes almost 40% less memory than KDE 3.5, despite the fact that version 4 of the Free and Open Source desktop system includes a composited window manager and a revamped menu and applet interface. KDE developer Will Stephenson showcased KDE 4's 3D eye-candy on a 256Mb laptop with 1Ghz CPU and run-of-the-mill integrated graphics, pointing out that mini-optimizations haven't even yet been started." Update: 12/14 22:40 GMT by Z : Or, not so much. An anonymous reader writes "The author of the original KDE 3.5 vs KDE 4.0 memory comparison has come out with a more accurate benchmark. In reality, KDE 4.0 uses 110 MB more memory than KDE 3.5.8.
Linux To Take Over The Low-End PC Market?
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Microsoft will not bleed ink (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Microsoft will not bleed ink (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Microsoft will not bleed ink (Score:5, Insightful)
Linux is a rather high-quality OS used for ultra-high-end applications in HPC. Yet millions of people will now perceive it as the low-end. Strange.
Re:Microsoft will not bleed ink (Score:4, Insightful)
That's the power, innovation, and advantage of open source -- you have the code, the right to modify and distribute it, so you can adopt it for whatever application suits your needs.
Nitpicking over analogies (Score:4, Informative)
Not really, no.
A Swiss Army Knife has different blades, tools and utensils for different purposes.
Each platform is a different purpose; a recompiled kernel (and userland) is a different blade/tool/utensil.
It is not users that need to recompile the kernel, which would be putting an edge on each and every blade -- it's the distro maintainers' job. Users just select the blade they need.
Re:Nitpicking over analogies (Score:5, Funny)
However a better analogy is to imagine the swiss army knife as a giant multi dimensional universal army knife which exists simultaneously at every size imaginable and is always both clasped and unclasped in every dimension and contains every physical tool known to man. In this scenario every distro ( in an unbroken continuum from the very first to the very last their will ever be ) would form a different polyphasic bladeset comprising a separate macro dimension representing each individual developer there ever will be. Crucially each developer is allowed both retrograde and anterograde movement but the blade will still remain both open and closed and ascend forward in the time dimension in phase with the complete amount of work encapsulated by the sum of developer dimensions. In this scenario a computer can be represented as a geometric qualiphat suspended at the binary root position of the blade space. Clearly a user need not necessarily be a user but it can be easily seen that in order for the pardigm to ring true they are for all intents and purposes encapsulated them very selves in the developer fumblrinian work cube. From there it's simple to prove that any particular blade/distro can be installed on any compatible hardware as many times as you like.
Re:Microsoft will not bleed ink (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So Programmers Should Just Work For Free? (Score:5, Funny)
Please get in touch for implementation details.
sballmer@microsoft.com
Re:So Programmers Should Just Work For Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sun Microsystems
Novell
Mozilla Foundation
Spiceworks(a personal favorite)
Re:So Programmers Should Just Work For Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
Nobody's hoping to see software engineers starve, it's just easy to get carried away hating Microsoft for all the monopolizing, anti-FOSS, and other damage it's responsible for. Can you really blame the GP for having no sympathy for Microsoft's bottom line?
Re:So Programmers Should Just Work For Free? (Score:5, Insightful)
No. I doubt you will find many of us who object to the idea of having money. It is the methods of getting it and the attitudes that MS have that people here may not be happy with. /. I am unable to speak for others, so I shall speak for myself.
In a place like
I don't like the fact that software is sent out before it is ready, just because some manager types want it to be released now.
If I buy clothes, I assume things are made and they didn't just ship me the cloth and expect me to sew it together myself.
When they release a new product, they will tell us all how fantastic it is.
A couple of years later, when it is about ready for use, they drop it and bring out the next item. They then tell us how this fixes the many shortcomings of its precescessor. I am told how bad it was. I know that in a couple of years, I will be told how rubbish this one is too.
Microsoft bears at least some, and perhaps much, of the blame for the mess we are all in with patents and copyrights.
So they think that GPL is socialism and thus theft? I think that Closed source is protectionist racketeering and thus theft.
When they were small and growing, they relied on the fact that lots of people "borrowed" their software. This enabled them to grow. It was profiting from theft.
Now they are in a position of market dominance, they object to what they once relied on. Stealing is wrong, so when people ask me for a dodgy copy of Office, I point them to a free alternative. I object to their hypocrisy, not the fact that they object to people stealing.
If I buy something, I expect to be able to use what I buy. I expect to be able to sell what I buy, when I no longer want it. I do this with books and cars, so why are MS different?
As I started, I don't object to making money. I just object to some methods of extortion and hypocrisy. I work for money and would love to have more. I will not hit people over the head to get it. My basic objection is that they are no longer a software company. They are a protection racket.
carrot vs no carrot (Score:4, Interesting)
But there is something riding against commercial vs. free software, and it's a double edged sword: feature creep.
In the commercial world, software has to keep adding features in order to sell the next version and keep the profits rolling in. This might help an otherwise under-featured bit of software gain widely sought-after functionality. However, we all know there comes a time when a software package is "just right," yet continues to add features and functionality that are unwanted and only complicate usability (e.g., winamp, nero, etc.)
With free software, there is no incentive to add unnecessary features. This is why I believe that in the long run, free software will dominate the marketplace, because it can afford to not give users features they don't need. But it can be difficult for a sophisticated package to take on critical functionality without a carrot.
Look at the state of video editing on Linux. Yes I have used Kino and Cinelerra, but anyone who has used them knows how tricky and unstable these tools are compared to, say, iMovie.
Free will win in the end, unless commercial software finds a way to bust the bloat.
Microsft Remove Vista's Kill Switch (Score:4, Interesting)
http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/12/04/1331246&from=rss [slashdot.org]
Is it any coincidence that Microsoft has done this? Piracy does help them to a certain extent, it pushes their products into markets where people cannot afford them, or just flat out don't want to pay for it, which still ultimatley counts towards their market share.
A little off topic (Score:2, Interesting)
Piracy & Linux on the desktop (Score:3, Interesting)
But recently with activation & continuous authentication, Microsoft has tried to prevent this.
Has Microsoft finally given up its an extra tier of pricing beyond retail and volume? "You'd never give us a cent for Windows? Well, at least pirate it
News that matters? (Score:3, Insightful)
Since when did this consititute 'news'?
Perceived delay (Score:5, Interesting)
The main problem, IMHO, is not even Joe Newbie who re-formats his GNU PC. It is the mentality of PC vendors itself who do not even configure their GNU/Linuxes correctly on their hardware.
The other day I saw a notebook at a shop with a misconfigured video driver, logged in X11 with a purplish tint and horizontal garbage lines everywhere. Another example: a local LinuxMagazine review a couple of years ago found out that in a Hwlet Packard low end desktop system pre-configured with GNU/Linux (indeed!), OpenOficce would take a full 3 minutes to start!! Because they had configured a 128MB system with a 1GB Swap.
Nicest device at present (Score:3, Interesting)
High resolution touch screen (800*480), hardware keyboard, gps and customisable - ~$450
This looks dreamy (and its on my xmas list)
Annoyed (Score:4, Insightful)
Great, we need a vista killer (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not going to say $100 isn't reasonable for the OS that runs your PC. It's a fair price. But the version game is unacceptable. So hopefully some of the linux based PCs will drive down prices of MS's OS down to reasonable and sane levels.
Re:Great, we need a vista killer (Score:5, Insightful)
This still works as profit source in the short run, but it annoys the customer base, undermines loyalty, encourages seeking alternatives. And once alternatives are found, you lose in the long run. You squeeze $50 for Home Premium from an user today, and lose the whole sale and the customer entirely tomorrow.
Except the analysis hardly ever takes into account reasons why people switch to other OS, and even if it does, it comes to entirely wrong conclusions (they are cheaper, they have better marketing) while your own faults - trying to squeeze last penny off the customer - are hardly ever taken into account as the 'real evil'. People hate being cheated and perceive this as cheating. And it doesn't matter you don't and your marketing people will explain to your CEO that it really isn't cheating. For people, it is, and people will hate you for that. And will jump the ship at the first opportunity... or steal from the thieves, not a crime to many.
This may not be good for Linux. (Score:2, Interesting)
When most people buy a Low End System they are not happy with it...
Packard Bell, Compaq, eMachines... They buy them because they though they are a good deal, or just because they don't have the money for a good System. They are not happy with it. Then throw a OS that people can't buy new software in the stores or the latest or even older games on it. Hardware problems causing the OS to Crash... While saving Windows for the high end systems which have better working hardware and more secure drivers Windows will run rock solid on those.
No it is not Linux's fault but putting linux on the Low end to try to get into the Desktop Market is a poor way to go. Linux already has a knitch in the servers, and if people work half as hard in the imbedded market Linux can get a good foothold there too. Right now there are 2 strong competitors in the Desktop Market Windows and Macs. And for Desktop use Linux isn't close they are still about 6 years behind. (Which is an improvement 5 years ago they were 10 years behind)
Re:This may not be good for Linux. (Score:5, Insightful)
If I upgrade her to A old thrown away G3 mac and she can do everything she did before, she will STILL be happy.
That is what the $200.00 walmart PC is for... Aunt Gertie, Grandma Fluffles, and creepy uncle Fred. I have supported far more happy low power pc owners than I have seen happy high power pc owners.
Funny part, most "high power" pc owners think sony Vaio = high end. sad reality is that it's low end just trendy.
Low end pc's are for the bulk of the computer users. They do not play games, they don't run bit torrent and watch movies on their computer. They check email, write and print out letters, do online banking and play solitaire.
For them, these computers are typically 300-400% faster than the 10 year old monster they are using now.
"Linux for the Desktop": a wrong way of thought (Score:4, Insightful)
What is also good for linux in this market, is that Windows seems to not be able to easily adjust to different form factors. They try to put windows XP on the EEE, but everything will be unreadable on the small screen! You can make icons and fonts bigger, but does that help? Making an interface for mobile devices requires a 'paradigm shift' (to put it in managerspeak), the Xandros developers for the EEE got that right with their simple menu. Nokia got that right. But even Windows CE doesn't get it, still thinking to much in the good-ol' "Desktop" idea.
Why not, Redmond wants you to buy $$$$ hardware (Score:2)
I'd like this to be true, but ... (Score:3, Interesting)
The arguement... (Score:3, Interesting)
Customers will balk when they realize that they use the computer for just internet and simple word processing and maybe some multimedia.
The problem is, in the real world Linux isn't even on the radar of most individuals. If they did hear about it, it's probably something from a few years ago and not about one of the modern distributions.
The solution: Whoever sells these cheap machines has to advertise. It should be simple enough. A short TV add showing wireless internet and desktop productivity apps for a $200 machine like the OLPC would sell them like hotcakes. Especially when you say that the price includes full versions of all the software. (You can even have two people discuss during the ad about how they hate trial versions that came with their last computer, and comparing it to amarok, k3b, openoffice.org, and digikam. Especially mention seamless integration with mp3 players and digital cameras.)
Tragedy of the Commons (Score:5, Interesting)
I think Linux cannot succeed on price alone. It has to be enough better that people will invest the time needed to change their habits - which today drive them straight to Windows.
Prediction... (Score:4, Interesting)
These devices aren't going to directly hit MS's products - what they could do is cost them mindshare and threaten the future of their monopoly.
Products like the eeePC occupy a precarious niche just below cheap "regular" laptops - put a bigger screen and a CD drive on them and there'll be a cheaper Dell laptop - so while they may be successful for their manufacturers they're not going to make a big dent in PC sales. People will buy them as "extra" machines for kids or as spare "take anywhere" machines (don't buy a £2000 ultra-portable - buy a £1000 desktop or large screen laptop plus an eeePC for when you don't need the power or don't want to risk carrying your main machine). But if they find that, out-of-the-box, they can connect to web and EMAIL and open most of their documents with these things called "Firefox", "Thunderbird" and "Open Office" then they might have their eyes opened to other possibilities.
Remember, MS's real monopoly is Office, not Windows. How many lUsers have you met who, when asked what version of windows they are running, respond with their Office version? However, I was in a school (in England) recently and saw a big (homemade) poster on the wall saying "Haven't got MS Office at home? Have you tried the free alternative from www.OpenOffice.org?" - so there is hope for the world.
If I were MS right now I'd be busily developing something like "Vista Lite Edition" that could be sold on a memory stick alongside eeePCs and the like for about $25, probably including a stripped down office. ISTR they did do something similar in some countries but it was perceived as "Windows - crippled edition". It might be an easier sell if it was linked to built-to-a-price "appropriate technology" hardware.
Cannot or will not? (Score:3, Insightful)
If Microsoft made Windows 2000 Pro available for $20 per copy in 2008, then shuttered it; and Windows XP Pro/64 Pro for $40 in 2008, then 2009, then shuttered it, imagine how easy it would be for many 'cloned' copies to get right. Now imagine how easy it would be for Microsoft to compete against Linux in the low-end market. Microsoft would be able to say -- which Linux cannot -- "Our OS works with Microsoft Office natively, including Exchange". The real cash cow is untouched, i.e. Office, and Microsoft finally gets into the "sell the blades, not the razor" business once and for all.
-BA
Microsoft is like the MAFIAA (Score:2)
I hate Microsoft, not because of their products (although they could do better) but because of the way they treat their CUSTOMERS (we're not consumers) and partners and the way they treat the market ever since they gained major market share. They have to change though, they had it for the last 12 years, they can be happy. If Microsoft doesn't pull an Apple they will go the way of SCO or if they're lucky IBM.
et tu ? (Score:1)
Linux fanboy hypocrisy (Score:2, Interesting)
You guys always talk of Linux taking over, but at the same time demand that govt. tie Microsoft down in monopoly regulations. If Linux is going to take over, then Windows is not a monopoly, by definition. Which is it slashdot? Is Windows doomed and therefore not a monopoly or is it the other way around?
Re:Linux fanboy hypocrisy (Score:4, Interesting)
That said, the growing success of Linux (and the Mac OS)will ensure that one day--who knows how soon--Microsoft will use the Linux saturation levels as an argument against sanctions it faced (faces) as a monopoly. That's when the OS war will finally reach the point of full engagement.
Linux as "poor man's operating system"? (Score:3, Interesting)
Eee (Score:4, Interesting)
Big surprise. (Score:3, Funny)
So, a web site dedicated to Linux says that Linux is going to take over a market segment. Big surprise. Expecting anything different would be like expecting Microsoft to say Linux is the best option for a market segment.
This is not news. It is not even opinion. It is propaganda.
Linux to take over the low-end market? (Score:1)
The great strength of Linux and OSS projects is that the developers are the users. But the coders rarely use low-end hardware, which causes software to have errors or performance problems even though it works for the coders. There's an example of this, as it relates to file systems, here [sabi.co.uk], and I think the "there's no memory leak/fragmentation!" stuff in Firefox can be partly blamed on this effect too -- if you have gigs of memory, you won't see it.
Microsoft's got a lot of room to cut costs (Score:2)
XP will be around longer? (Score:2)
IT'S STILL A WIN FOR MICROSOFT (Score:3, Insightful)
This low-end desktop market is owned by Microsoft. They allow it to exist to give the illusion of competition. If they want that segment, they'll take it simply by throwing some money at it and eliminate the competitor. Meanwhile, the low-end provider scrapes by. Novell certainly isn't going to beat Microsoft. Mark Shuttleworth doesn't have the resources to do it either.
Where it counts, Linux distros are simply a negotiating tool for enterprises/agencies to get a lower price/bigger bribe out of Microsoft. That lower price is STILL HIGHER than the price in a vaguely competitive market.
Vista? Oh yeah, you'll be able to pirate it just like XP because every software company knows that's the best way to introduce future customers.
Not likely, unfortunately (Score:2)
I taught my friend how to use Ubutnu on this old thinkpad that I helped him get. It took me 2 hours to answer his questions, but that's because I was right there and could just show him flat out and he had never owned a computer in his life, so he never got used to a Mac or Windows. I know for a fact that he's to afraid to actually post on forums because he's never used them before in his life.
The whole premise is wrong. (Score:2)
Obviously (Score:2)
1. The market is finite.
2. MS has expanded to the max extent.
3. Linux is growing.
The inevitable conclusion is that if anything else than MS grows, MS must shrink. If this continues long enough, there will come a tipping point. The thing is, the bigger Linux is in the marketplace, the easier will it be to persuade new users to join (up to a point, of course; if Linux ends up being 99% or so, there won't be many new users to recruit).
It doesn't really matter that many or most OSS project are sponsored by companies; even if they all suddenly lost their sponsors, there would still be a number of people who would continue, simply because they can and they like to do it. Think of Stallman or Linus - nobody paid them in the beginning, but GNU Linux is now the de facto standard for UNIX. Linux will keep growing as long as it is free and fun to program. Windows, on the other hand, is not free and is long ago ceased to be any fun programming for it.
Mac could beat MS if they wanted to... (Score:1)
Wishful Thinking, (again) (Score:2)
Also, there's just not any killer apps that mandate Linux. Sure, Wine can run a lot of Windows apps, but then that begs the question "Why run windows on a Linux machine, when you can just get a Windows machine?". The fact that PCs are cheap and that Linux is "free" doesn't really give Linux as big an advantage as many think. Price isn't as important as exposure. Go to any mall and ask any 50 random people about Linux and I guarantee that you will get 40 - 50 blank stares. Then, in that same mall, try and find someplace selling PCs with Linux pre-installed. This is not an indication that Linux is about to take over any market.
Microsoft Won't Sit Back and Let This Happen (Score:2)
Microsoft needs Windows on all PCs because it keeps licensing issues simple for them. Very few people steal a Windows license because it is already on their PC. Besides, what happens in the consumer market will affect the corporate market. If Linux can establish a hold on the consumer end, it'll start creeping into the corporate market. Microsoft will use every penny in its coffers to prevent that from happening.
I'm not anti or pro Microsoft. I just know that Microsoft will do everything to protect its Windows market. It's not just the operating system. It's also the Windows office market. Linux PCs don't run Microsoft Office, therefore home users might not be comfortable with Microsoft Office at work, and they'll insist on OpenOffice or whatever application most of these Linux PCs will come with.
Microsoft isn't going down without a fight.
Hardware/OS costs are in the noise (Score:2)
While I don't disagree with most of the conclusions in the article, the financial reasoning is wrong. The purchase cost of a computer is the smallest part of the lifetime costs. If you take his theoretical 100 PC environment, you can expect to need a full-time support position (industry averages are between 100 and 200 systems per support tech). If you pay him/her peanuts ($15/hour) then your cost just went up by $30k/year for the (let's say) four year life expectancy of the equipment. That makes the numbers $177k vs $234k; the percentage savings just dropped through the floor.
It gets worse if you look at the real cost of support people. Windows support techincians are easy to find. Linux support technicians are not (I say this as someone who has tried to hire dozens of support staff at levels from Mac-Hand-Holder-3rd-Class to Unix-Minor-Deity). If you factor in the cost differences of the two skill sets, the savings gets even slimmer.
Finally, the analysis ignores the reality that people like to use the software with which they are familiar. I've run experiments with family and while I (mostly) like OpenOffice, it makes some people crazy because it is different. Non-geek users don't want to learn new software, they want to get their target task completed then go do something else. If you add the additional training/hand-holding to the mix you can pretty much kiss the rest of the theoretical cost savings goodbye.
This is why Windows still dominates the desktop. When you look at the total cost model, there isn't a lot of savings to be had while there are plenty of potential headaches.
To my mind the biggest risk MSFT has taken in the last decade is the set of changes to the UI in Office 2007. Since 1994, there has been essentially no learning curve to an Office upgrade and now there is one. Suddenly, the non-MSFT office suite is the one with better legacy skill support.
And the first thing that happens... (Score:2)
Is it finally here?! (Score:1)
How many years have we been talking .... (Score:1)
How has that worked out so far?
If I had a dollar.... (Score:1)
It's called GNU Linux, unless you're talking about (Score:1)
"Take over" is such an extreme word, but ..... (Score:2)
If you can convince a consumer to pay more for a higher-end system, then he/she is still buying a piece of hardware with a price-point more like what we're used to seeing. But the trend is, consumers who don't need that much power, or that many "bells and whistles" (or who simply can't afford them) are buying budget-priced boxes with warranties, vs. buying other people's used/discarded PCs.
The high-end purchases are starting to go towards Apple, since they offer a complete hardware+software bundled solution with "elegance" and "style" (and they can all boot into Windows XP or Vista anyway, if one is so inclined).
The low-end is steadily creeping towards Linux, leaving Microsoft selling primarily to the "middle of the road" PCs. (By this, I mean name-brand boxes like HP/Compaq, Gateway or Dell, but offerings of theirs in that $400-600 price-point, just under where new Apple Macs generally start out at.) That and the "media center PC" niche, which Microsoft currently has a stronghold on - because no other OS fully supports DVR functionality and the like, integrated into it.
HSD (Score:2)
True - but the Articel Misses the Point (Score:2)
There is a grain of truth in this... but only a little. Worse, the author then goes on to discuss the cost of IT in an office setting and basically runs off with this data in the exact opposite direction of where he should be taking it. He's missing the point.
When you are talking about ultra- cheap PCs this author is talking about - as currently marketed - you are talking about the lowest-end consumer machines. Up until Vista, the consumer who wanted to run Microsoft products but didn't want to pay for them simply pirated those products, making them "free". That's reality. It continues to be reality.
The problem is that Microsoft sees their largest future growth sector in the consumers who are using their products for free - and want to force them to pay for it. They have been able to ratchet up this strategy because there was no viable competition....until Ubuntu.
All things being equal, if Microsoft sees that consumers will be moving away from their products in order to become familiar with another product line, MS will pause. The threat is not in losing a sale to a consumer who didn't want to buy your product (and isn't buying somebody else's, either). The threat is allowing a large number of people to become very familiar with a competing product line - to the point where they are comfortable with it and will tell management in the business they work at that they are able to use it without any issues.
And THAT is a BIG problem for Microsoft, long term. That chips away at the superior good/inferior good reputation that has made them market leaders.
The solution to that problem is simply to scale back the anti-piracy measures in the Windows-flavor-of-the-day so that people can continue to choose the superior product at a cost of $0.00. That strategy made Bill Gates the richest man in the world. They are well able to run with the ball in that direction again.
The BIG issue is that software bloat in terms of resource requirements makes running Windows on these very cheap PCs difficult for MS. The Window-flavor-of-the-day - even if pirated - won't run on a eeePC. That's a serious problem for MS.
I predict MS will simply design a less resource intensive home and sub-compact OS that can run on these systems. And it will make the DRM/Piracy protection on it relatively easy to circumvent - and thereby preserves its medium term market share.
If it does not do this - the long terms risks are significant.
In any event - the one thing we have seen over the course of time as a result of MS' monopoly is that hardware prices trend down and software OS prices trend up. That decline in hardware price has now reached a dangerous crossover point. When the hardware comes down in price so far that the software cost of the OS doubles the price of the machine - you reach a crossover point where that whole software cost becomes impossible to justify.
And that trend keeps getting worse for MS. IT does not, under ANY REASONABLE SCENARIO **EVER** get better for MS in the future. It just keeps getting worse and worse...and still worse.
Will MS come crashing down? No. It will simply do the one thing to adapt that it has never really done over the course of its corporate history: it will be forced to lower its prices on its core product lines in order to maintain its market position.
Hence, Microsoft will be less profitable in the future. In the result, Microsoft's best days are , indeed, behind it.
How many years has this been said? (Score:1)
Re:After burners are outlawed. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, but they probably aren't the low end, now, are they? I think a lot of people are fed up with virus software updates and other fine Windows features. The high end of the market is moving to Mac, and the low end -- at least the more knowledgeable among them -- are moving to Linux. I live near Howard County, Maryland, which has an award-winning public library system. The free internet access is spectacular there; walk in, sit down, start using, no waiting, no library card required. Guess what operating system and applications it uses? And no one complains about it not being Windows.
Re:Apples and oranges (Score:3, Interesting)
Apples and apples (Score:5, Insightful)
Set of computers that can run all required email and office apps (the latest versions) along with a server to support the mail etc, all based on Linux
Vs
Set of computers that can run all required email and office apps (the latest versions) along with a server to support the mail etc, all based on Vista
The only difference is that the base specs required for one is much higher than the other, which is the whole point of the article.
Okay, so it might not be as viable in a huge company where everyone (especially admins) already have Windows training, but for a ~100 person or less SME (Small/Medium Enterprise) then the huge savings on costs would be a boon.
SMEs aren't interested in Linux (Score:5, Insightful)
Their costs towards their IT infrastructure simply aren't large enough to worry about license costs. Microsoft already have this market. SMEs simply buy PCs with windows already installed, and use SBS on the back end. Their savings from Linux are in the thousands, not hundreds of thousands or millions. It isn't worth their while to switch. Especially given the fact they can't afford to hire competent admins and so are stuck with whomever is locally available.
Large companies on the other hand, are a completely different kettle of fish. They can save millions by making use of Linux, and that's exactly what they do. The CTO or CIO's may or may not be aware of it but pretty much every large company out there has Linux just about everywhere from file servers to RDBMS servers to web application servers. They can afford to hire competent admins who can run Linux as well as their other Unix systems and who understand the mathematics of I.T. systems.
The market for Linux is not SMEs. I've been there and tried to sell it. The real market for Linux is on the big end. Multinationals, governments etc. They can save vast sums.
Re:Linux will be seen as "cheap" (Score:2)
Developing modern, mainstream games is a hugely expensive process - akin to making a movie.
What, exactly, is going to persuade a major game developer to develop a title for a highly marginal platform (Linux) when it already has to cover Windows PCs and the console market?
Re:Apples and oranges (Score:3, Informative)
The question is do they provide satisfactory functionality?
Because actually, 100 sub-$200 PC systems running Win98SE would probably work faster and be cheaper in means of TCO, and quite likely provide all the functionality needed as well (with exception of stability and security).
If I need email, office, file sharing and some, get the work done in acceptable comfort, you ask yourself what you need. You may get Vista and $1000 PCs, you can get XP and $500 PCs, or Linux and $300 PCs and the user experience and efficiency of work will be the same. You can get $150 PCs and Win98 too, but the risk of data loss and intrusion is prohibitory, otherwise it would have the work done as well. This way Linux can compete just fine and seems to be the best choice.
OTOH if you need a development environment of 4GB RAM quad-core 4GHZ CPU computers for all the 100 desktops, the price difference between OSes and their efficiency overhead becomes much lower. Linux doesn't fare just as well here, especially if you need to run WINE to have some essential apps working. If you need a high-end hardware not because it's required to run the OS, but because your application requires it, choice of the OS should be guided by other factors than just price of purchase or TCO. Although not disqualified here (by far), Linux doesn't have the upper hand of "vastly cheaper setup to get the same things done" here.
Re:SJVN hit a nerve - take a look at the modding (Score:2, Offtopic)
This happens all the time with msft hot-button issues discussed on slashdot. Pro-msft posts are modded way up, anti-msft posts are modded way down. And yeah, the msft shills flood the place.
Re:Linux is shit (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Linux is shit (Score:1, Offtopic)
Re:poppycock. (Score:1)
The troll is laughing at you (Score:2)
Remember, kids: Don't feed the trolls!
Re:Linux is shit (Score:2)
Re:LINUX / security (Score:1)