Desktop Linux: Why it may have lost its chance
It's time we faced it: The Year of the Linux Desktop, long foretold, isn't coming.
Year after year, breathless pundits announce that the open source OS is on the verge of a tipping point, a critical mass that will see businesses abandoning Windows in droves. And year after year, nothing happens. Is it too late for desktop Linux to matter?
[ See why desktop Linux makes a better successor to Windows XP for most business users than Windows Vista or 7 -- if only businesses would give it a chance. ]
The issue isn't whether Linux is "ready for prime time." Modern desktop-centric Linux distributions -- including Mandriva, Novell Suse, Ubuntu, and Xandros -- have made impressive strides in aesthetics, usability, management, and hardware support. Major hardware manufacturers ship systems with Linux pre-installed, and Dell reports that customer satisfaction rates are just as high for the Linux models of its Inspiron Mini 9 netbooks as for the Windows models. Today's Linux really is reliable, polished, and full-featured enough for mainstream desktop use.
Even Microsoft admits it. After years of denial, the software giant's latest SEC filings acknowledge mounting competitive pressure from Linux, and not just in the datacenter. Addressing Microsoft investors in February, CEO Steve Ballmer went as far as to suggest that the open source OS could be a greater threat to Windows than Mac OS X. That same month, Microsoft began actively recruiting a director of open source desktop strategy, a position whose responsibilities will include "influencing multimillion dollar marketing campaigns."
Enterprises aren't buying the Linux promise, nor are vendors
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It depends on the consultants
Wether companies use linux or not depends on the consultants i suppose. You only need one person to install all of your Hard & Software (unless you're a really big company) so if that person has discovered that you can do more for less with Linux , AND in less time than it takes up to boot just one windows7-machine, i guess all is not lost :-)More for Less?
Slightly miss leading here. Yes you can do some of the same things with Linux and Open Source applications, however I have yet to find any thing that can compete fully with Commercial Apps. This includes Gimp, Open Office, mySQL, or any form of Mozilla Suite. I have always granted that for graphic design Mac OS X is better then Microsoft. However I have pointed out frequently that the Apps included or that are available for Linux Distros lack a lot of fuctionality for enterprise.The things that Linux has going for it are server side. This includes Apache, Send Mail, DNS and DHCP. Samba still needs work but is a nice for network share. Finally in order for a bunch of server side apps to work properly you have to either tinker or shut of SELinux which lessens the security of the server.
Linux has come a long ways but it still has a ways to go.