<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
</head>
<body bgcolor="#ffffff" text="#000000">
Why Linux will not displace Windows<br>
<br>
<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="http://education.zdnet.com/?p=908">http://education.zdnet.com/?p=908</a><br>
<br>
-----------<br>
Questo l'ho trovato su <a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="http://www.slacky.it">www.slacky.it</a>.<br>
Per certi versi e' oggettivo ed onesto, molto piu' di tanti altri
articoli.<br>
Cmq, sicuramente da leggere, tanto e' corto :)<br>
-----------<br>
<br>
<p>I firmly believe that, all else being equal, the differences between
the Windows desktop, the Macintosh desktop, and the Linux desktop are
negligible. With the proper applications, all three platforms will be
capable of providing a satisfactory experience for any user. All three
platforms have both free and commercial products available for personal
productivity, web browsing, and basic multimedia. Yet, Windows
dominates. <em>Why? After all …</em></p>
<ul>
<li><em>Apple was first to mass market a fully-functional GUI (though
invented at Xerox PARC). </em></li>
<li><em>Apple was the first to pre-install their operating system
onto their workstations.</em></li>
<li><em>Apple was first to recognize the value of personal computing
to education.</em></li>
</ul>
<p>Despite this, Apple's presence does not reach even ten percent
of the World's desktops – in Education IT or in the mass market. The
reasons are many but up-front costs certainly play a role.
Nevertheless, Apple is not the subject of this article … I want to talk
about Linux! </p>
<p>In a feature-rich desktop configuration, Linux runs on the same
hardware as Windows with comparable performance. The 'cost' of Linux
ranges anywhere from ZERO dollars (for the geeks among us) to $299 per
seat (for a one-year RHEL-WS subscription — with 12×5 technical support
and 4-hour response.) For this, the user has complete control over
their system configuration. <em>Yet, with its fixed-price, fixed
support, fixed-configuration model, Windows still dominates. Why?</em></p>
<p>I just finished reading <a href="http://education.zdnet.com/?p=902"
title="Permanent Link: Vista? No thanks, school says, converts Windows boxes to Linux">Vista?
No thanks, school says, converts Windows boxes to Linux</a> and
I was struck by a couple of things. Looking to reduce annual costs,
the Windsor, CA School District has adopted a variety of
solutions centered around workstations running SUSE Linux and Wyse
Linux thin-client terminals. (They use a few Windows and Macintosh
workstations but apparently not many.) Quoting Heather Carver, the
district's IT administrator:</p>
<blockquote>
<p><em>"One key to all this is that we're using Citrix (as
the bridge) to run Windows apps on thin-client terminals — which the
adults are most used to — on the new SUSE Linux 10.1 servers," Carver
told DesktopLinux.com. "The kids, well, they adjust to new operating
systems and applications very quickly, so a changeover to Linux is no
big deal."</em></p>
</blockquote>
<p>Her conclusions are not at all surprising but she ignores another
reason why Citrix is needed:</p>
<ul>
<li><em>most educational software is ported to Windows (and/or
Macintosh), not Linux</em></li>
<li><em>the number of Windows-based titles accompanying textbooks is
growing</em></li>
</ul>
<p>In short, the absence of high-performance commercial desktop
software hurts Linux. Of course, application availability is a
'chicken or the egg' kind of problem. Without a critical mass of
desktop Linux workstations in people's homes or on their desks at work,
there is no incentive to write (or even to port) specialized
applications for/to Linux. </p>
<p>This argument sounds fine until you realize that between OpenOffice
and a number of Web browsers for Linux, and a variety of free (or
nearly free) applications Linux truly can meet 90% of the needs of
those folks who buy Windows today instead of buying Linux. It's the
other 10% though that makes the difference. <em>(For instance,
neither Quicken or TurboTax have Linux ports and neither does iTunes –
those are not 'showstoppers' for Education IT but they certainly are
for me as a consumer.)</em></p>
<p>Last week, David Berlind posed a question about the potential threat
to Microsoft of the laptop being developed by the OLPC (One Laptop per
Child) foundation — targeting school children in the developing world.
(See <a href="http://blogs.zdnet.com/Berlind/?p=369"
title="Permanent Link to Image Gallery: Will Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child be a problem for Microsoft?">Image
Gallery: Will Negroponte’s One Laptop Per Child be a problem for
Microsoft?</a>) David's point is that this <em>'little laptop that
could'</em>
will run a ROM-based Linux configuration. The question applies equally
well to the schoolchildren of Windsor, CA who will be running Linux on
thin clients. </p>
<p>The rationale, of course, is that whatever you were exposed to in
school, you are likely going to want when you get out of school. This
is certainly the rationale that Microsoft uses when they grant steep
discounts to K-12 public schools all over America — and when they
establish enterprise license agreements with large research
universities. </p>
<p>So will the strategy work? Will these school children clamor for
Linux when they get to college? Will they buy a Linux computer when
they graduate from college? Well, it remains to be seen but, unless
Linux vendors get a clue, and soon, I think not. </p>
<p><strong><em>Why not?</em></strong> </p>
<p>Because for Linux, its greatest asset in the machine room — the
flexibility of its configuration — is it's greatest liability in the
consumer space. Consumers don't want or need to worry about
configuring their computers — nor would most of them even know how. </p>
<p>The consumer wants a computer which is functional and inexpensive
(leaving Macintosh out of the picture for many.) They have a limited
number of needs — write a document, prepare a spreadsheet, send an
e-mail, listen to music, share photos. But, they also have limited
knowledge.</p>
<p>If a consumer could walk into their favorite electronics retailer
and see a computer running desktop SUSE Linux (or any Linux
distribution, for that matter) sitting next to an equally-robust
Windows machine at the same price point, and if they could take it home
and plug it in a just use it, <em>like they can with Windows,</em>
there is no reason to believe that Linux would not be as well received
as Windows. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, this is not a choice most people have. The fault
does not lie with Microsoft. Nor with Dell or its competitors. The
fault lies squarely at the feet of Linux vendors who do not wish to
compete against Microsoft for the commodity desktop workstation
market. </p>
<p>Until they figure out that they MUST compete for the consumer
desktop to make a serious dent in Microsoft's dominance of the desktop,
they won't make a dent – and no amount of wishing will make it so.</p>
<p>It doesn't matter how great that OLPC laptop turns out to be, or how
much those K-12 kids like those Linux clients if they (or their
parents) cannot go to the box-store down the street and buy the
computer of their choice with Linux pre-installed. </p>
<br>
<div class="moz-signature">-- <br>
<font size="-1">______________________________________________________________________________________________<br>
/*non ho scelto io di venire al mondo, ma da quel momento in poi le
altre decisioni le prendo da me*/<br>
- <a href="http://sberla54.altervista.org/">http://sberla54.altervista.org</a>
- My links and contacts -<br>
- <a href="http://kernel-panic.noblogs.org"
name="http://kernel-panic.noblogs.org">http://kernel-panic.noblogs.org</a>
- My blog -<br>
- <a href="http://www.punk4free.org" name="http://www.punk4free.org">http://www.punk4free.org</a>
- My webzine -<br>
</font></div>
</body>
</html>