Linux will have 20% of desktop market share by....omigod, now?!?

Remember the last Golden Age of Fanboy Optimism?

14 August 2003:

"One of the world's largest IT companies is declaring that the Linux desktop
will capture 20% of the market for desktop computers in large enterprises
within 5 years. Siemens Business Systems, the $6 billion global IT
consulting and outsourcing company, has conducted extensive testing with
real-world, non-technical workers and is declaring that Linux has matured as
a desktop and will quickly vault to the #2 most-installed OS in the world.
Senior program manager Duncan McNutt, who has overseen Siemens's testing of
Linux desktops with users and administrators in enterprise settings,
believes that Linux will grow quickly as a desktop OS because it can deliver
equal productivity at significantly lower costs than Windows in very large
enterprise environments -- installations of 4,000 to 40,000 desktops."

http://www.linux.com/articles/30873

Ok, so this never quite worked out -- Linux remains short on share in the
enterprise market by 19.39% (give or take). But at least people were
thinking big back then. Now, it's all about a race to the bottom of the wEee
hardware pile, where the advocate community hopes against hope that
Microsoft can't be bothered going. That's pretty sad.

 

Nah, the article came from linux.com. Thankfully, they're honest enough to
not have burned all their archives -- otherwise we'd never be able to put
the wEee fantasies of your mates into perspective.

 

What are you going to do after June, when Microsoft stops selling XP, then?

 

Judging by the choices that businesses have made over the last 5 years, I
really do think that the question of Linux's cost-effectivenes on the
desktop has been asked and answered to the satisfaction of almost everyone.
Technically, yes, there's no reason why it couldn't be otherwise -- but
maybe it's high time open-source developers stopped playing the victim card
vis-a-vis Microsft and started flat-out developing better products that gave
buyers a compelling reason to make different choices.

Linux has the richest IT company in the world -- IBM -- squarely behind it.
Not to mention the most potent viral marketing apparatus the business world
has ever seen. It's failure on the desktop has nothing to do with being
out-gunned and everything to do with being out-developed. Now, either
there's an inherent problem with the free software business model that
inhibits serious innovation, or the people responsible for leading the
various projects just aren't trying hard enough. I don't know. But stop
blaming cutomers for turning to the proprietary vendors time and again to
deliver what they need.

These markets are all potentially lucrative. But no one has yet put together
the winning hardware/software combination, which is why so many customers
are continually experimenting with what's on offer. That's another opening
for Linux developers that will be squandered if the whole strategy becomes
one of trying to low-ball Microsoft rather than out-develop them.

 

Not to mention the number of mature vertical market applications that
won't run under anything except Windows.

 

*cough* Dimdows Genuine Disadvantage server "outage" *cough* ...

 

I've always been fairly ambivalent re OS and when asked to put together a
cheap PC for someone's Grandparents I thought Linux. Right price and ideal
for simple email and browsing needs.
And despite input from Linux detractors like D'Olivero I decided to give it
a go.

All I can say its a long time since I've sworn so much. As you can perhaps
guess given the target I was aiming for a dial up connection was the
selected connection method.
I had enough forethought to realise a winmodem was out and spent some time
to find a real one.
Next I started with a Ubantu 7.04 and it all went well until I went to set
up the modem. Worked out how setup the modem but couldn't get it to work and
checks on google didn't seem to help.
Next tried Fedora 8 its later so must be better. I don't know what I did the
first couple of times but I needed to unmount a tty OK?, no Back or Cancel
just ever repeating OK?
Third time lucky, why I don't know but I blame myself though not sure why.
With a bit of google got modem installed and working. Of course its bleeding
obvious that s0 is com port 1 and you have to have a minimum initialization
string of ATZ everybody knows that.
Next was how to cause it to dial up. Didn't take too long, a thing called
Modem Lights, great we're away now. Installed and away we go, not!. "pppon
not found"
Back to google but can't find or get working items referred to.
In the end unfortunately lifes too short and XP was in fact cheaper maybe
not $ wise but timewise. XP up and running, AVG installed in under an hour,
done and dusted.

Unfortunately at the end of the day I can sorta see why it sits at under 1%
uptake even if it is superior under the hood.

 

I've used Vista 64bit edition from day one. By far the best, most stable
and safest OS I have ever used.

-ws

 

That's adorable. I have an aunt who does quilts -- she sells some and
donates others to the Sallies.

No, apparently it's a whole ideological church kind of thing.

http://itmanagement.earthweb.com/osrc/article.php/3733286

Did you know that you could get a good telling off from the GNU/Linux police
for installing propietary video drivers on your machine? Even if those
drivers were considered by one and all to be technically superior?

 

It's a Windows program, I'm afraid.

http://www.quiltbus.com/electric-quilt.htm

Well, good. So then there's one person we know about in that category.

 

Too bad you're in the vast minority.

Open source is a con. I don't want to see code as much as I don't what to
see my car engine. It just works, retard!

-ws

 

The problem is most people find it worse to use and worse to configure and
become less productive using it. It's a con basically. That's why it's gone
no where in the desktop market after all these years (or is it decades
now?)

-ws

 

<http://wlug.org.nz/SealedBonnetFallacy>

 

No, it's Windows that suffers from rot and gets worse and worse over time.
Linux doesn't.

Ah, you haven't been keeping up with the latest developments, then. Heard of
the Asus Eee? It's expected to sell 3-5 million units this year alone, most
of them with Linux, not Windows, preinstalled. And competitors are
scrambling to launch their own products into this space
<http://www.reghardware.co.uk/2008/04/09/dell_readies_eee_rival/>
<http://eupeople.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=487>
<http://eeepc.itrunsonlinux.com/the-news/1-latest-news/54-jisus-a-new-eee-pc-clone>.

 

It's already achieved a majority share in the growing budget ultralight
market. Where Microsoft is struggling to avoid sliding completely into
irrelevance.

 

Got any 64bit apps to run on it??

 

How do you handle sites using Adobe Flash?

 

Really?! So Linux's flat-line growth trend over the past 5 years tells you
nothing?

Bottom-feeding has never been good for any business. What makes you think
this is such a great strategy for Linux?

 

Not necessarily, no. But doggedly refusing to take a consiistently dismal
past performance record into consideration is just silly. What are you
holding out for? A miracle?

Flatline in desktops absolutely -- well, some there are some estimates that
suggest desktop Linux use actually peaked in 1998. As for server space,
linux replaceents for unix are just about exhausted. Now where's your growth
going to come from? RedHat's value has been dropping for 2 years. Novell has
to partner with Microsoft to remain competitive. But, fine, let's just
ignore all of that -- everything's just fine in LinuxLand.

Linux is a free download with no restrictions whatsoever and STILL no one
wants to use it.

As we know from the fight over OOXML, IBM and Microsoft are very competitive
in that arena.

Wishful thinking, I'm afraid. The market has spoken.

You seem to hang all your hopes now for gaining desktop market share on
pitching Linux to people who cannot afford Windows or OsX. That's what I
mean by bottom-feeding. How is that a winning strategy?

 

No, all those cheap Linux pcs that Walmart couldn't sell are the low end.
It's a losing strategy.

Are you trying to credit Linux now with every **hardware** innovation? No
attempt to market a "Linux-powered" device has ever succeeded. Consumers
just aren't interested. If it's buried in the firmware, or otherwise
inconspiciuous -- fine -- but it's certainly not a selling point.

Only if the products actually sell. Linux on the Eee has not. And neither
have any of the other cheap linux devices you and larry keep promoting.