Ubuntu desktop apparently scares Microsoft
Ubuntu must be giving Microsoft fits on the desktop. That's the only reason I can come up with for Microsoft's LinkedIn search for a new director of open-source strategy, with a focus on the desktop:
The Windows Competitive Strategy team is looking for a strong team member to lead Microsoft's global desktop competitive strategy as it relates to open source competitors.
Given Red Hat's relative inaction on the desktop, this position likely will focus on Novell and Canonical's Ubuntu, but of these two, only Ubuntu's desktop is really catching the imagination of the market.
And, frankly, only Ubuntu is really changing the game around desktop enough for Microsoft to need to staff a position to counter the threat. Novell's Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop is good but it's somewhat staid (i.e., enterprise-like): locked-down and very much conservative.
The Microsoft job description requires the candidate to "think strategically [and to] put yourself in the mindset of our competitors." In other words, the candidate needs to think about bludgeoning Microsoft with a free price tag, a global community of determined developers, and absolutely no sacred profit cows like Windows or Office to protect.
Sounds like fun.
Follow me on Twitter at mjasay.
Matt Asay brings a decade of in-the-trenches open-source business and legal experience to The Open Road, with an emphasis on emerging open-source business strategies and opportunities. Matt is vice president of business development at Alfresco, a company that develops open-source software for content management. He is a member of the CNET Blog Network and is not an employee of CNET. Disclosure. You can follow Matt on Twitter @mjasay. 
www.osnews.com/story/20822/Shuttleworth_Windows_7_To_Be_a_Great_Product_
Paris Hilton doesn't really do anything but the paparazi love her, always mentioning how talented and wonderful she is.
There are many examples I could point to where you say one thing, but really mean another. Just because he said it doesn't mean he actually meant it.
I'm not saying that's what he was doing, but think before you leave a comment next time.
Perhaps you should try reading my comment in full before proving how foolish you are. Notice that last sentence I wrote? Now hang your head in shame.
You say: "Windows 7 is great, accept it and move along"
I hope you aren't trying to pass that off as an intellectual statement.
Maybe you are. In the land of MS shills, that sort of thing is considered intellectual.
Lets just assume for the sake of argument that the data collected by Net Applications of Internet-connected users browsing to Windows-hosted US websites is a good representation of marketshare (whatever that is defined to mean).
MS claim widely that they have around 1 billion installed base for Windows (Google it, or here: http://arstechnica.com/microsoft/news/2007/07/windows-install-base-to-break-one-billion-in-2008.ars).
Now according to the Net Application figures (windows @ 88.26%), that equates to about 9.4million Linux out of a total "pie" of around 1.1billion.
9.4 million Linux in total eh?
Now Fedora claims to have around 9.5 million based on stats from their update servers (http://www.internetnews.com/dev-news/article.php/3786726/Red+Hat+Fedora+Claims+Its+the+Leader+in+Linux.htm)
And the same article (and other sources) pegs Ubuntu at about 8 million.
Oh dear, only two distros out the blocks and even allowing for some serious overestimation on the parts of these two distros and your 0.83% figure is looking shaky.
Once you start to add in OpenSUSE, Mandriva, Xandros, Debian, PCLinuxOS, Slackware, Red Hat Enterprise, SUSE Enterprise, etc etc .....
And so on for a few hundred distros I think your figure looks pretty silly - hmm?
http://boycottnovell.com/2009/02/06/net-applications-lies/
They don't reveal their test sites, their numbers are ridiculously lower than anyone else's, they're funded by Microsoft and Apple ... and they've been busted changing their numbers after publication.
The reason MSFT isn't chasing Apple with such desperation is two-fold:
1) OSX (according to EULA) only runs on Apple machines. Linux runs on anything... including machines that MSFT gets their OS pre-installed on. Since Ubuntu and the like costs $0.00 as well, it means that OEMs and customers (esp. business customers) alike will find it attractive in these crappy economic times.
2) Even if Apple got 90% marketshare tomorrow morning, MSFT would still make money from sales of Office on OSX. On the other hand, MSFT makes $0.00 in sales to most Linux customers (except via the Microsoft Tax for OEM boxes, but that's a slightly different story, and if Linux gets a big enough real calculated marketshare, that tax disappears).
Let me illustrate how 'off' their data is by looking at the figures they have for Apple's OSX (and by extension, the mac) market share . They have OSX at around 9.93% global market share. Total nonsense. Actually, it's OSX US market share that's around 10%, not OSX GLOBAL market share.
http://www.macrumors.com/2009/01/14/apples-us-market-share-growth-slows-in-4q-2008/
OSX could never have reached 10% of the global market because Apple doesn't sell enough computers globally to ever come close to getting that kind of market share. The entire US computer market only makes up 15% of the global market. And a little less than half of all global mac sales are made in the US.
Now for some math. Apple's US market share is 10% when calculated by sales figures, and all US computers, whether mac or PC, make up 15% of the total global figure. So the portion of the global market contributed by US macs is ~1.5% (10% of the 15%). The mac sales to locations outside the US contributes another 1.5% giving a total global share for the mac at ~3%.
But don't you find it strange that the figure for the OSX US market share calculated by sales figures just happens to be the same figure proposed by NetApplications for the global market share of OSX?. NetApplications is actually tracking North American market share and calling it global market share. How does this affect Linux figures? Well , Google's data analysis shows that Linux and other open source software are actually more popular outside North America than inside it. They also show that the number of people looking up data about specific popular distros is increasing strongly year on year for the last 3 years. Might sound unremarkable until you realize that more than half the human population lives in the places most actively seeking out Linux.
You are being paid Micro$oft - yes?
Nobody is scared of linux in the least. I know there has always been a perception that Linux is dominating market share, and massively increasing. Its certainly not true.
The reality is that Linux not only has severe hardware compatibility issues and wont run on the latest hardware. Furthermore, its not capable of doing everything OSX and Windows can still (whilst they are screwing around with professional products like AVID and Final Cut Pro, Linux still doesn't even have a standardised package system that works consistantly).
Microsoft might only feel threatened currently by Firefox. However, worst comes to worst, Microsoft could catch up instantly by offering webkit support in IE8, which would provide enough benefits that their market share would stablilise.
Furthermore, all the big deployments are by businesses. And businesses aren't shifting.
I also did computer science in uni. Whilst we were required to use it in our course and grew to love it, all my mates eventually switched back to windows (within 2 or 3 years). Users don't want to have to swap between OS's to do everything they want to, and we all already own windows licences. Furthermore, windows can run all the good linux apps anyway.
Furthermore, when many of us buy new hardware, it wont run as well on linux as windows initially. So in reality, linux doesn't really have any real advantages (except compiz which isn't really useful).
Yes linux may have majority of market share for web servers, but that is ONLY because its free. In the client market, Linux is getting crushed by both Windows and OSX.
Open source is a reason for coders to migrate to linux, NOT endusers
I'm an end user. My main and only OS is Linux. I had a fully functional, fully legal copy of Windows XP but it just wasn't as good or nearly as capable.
Absolute, top of the line, brand new hardware doesn't work perfectly with Linux, I'll give you that. Tell me, just how much difference is there for you between the absolute newest video card and the one that came out 2 generations (1 year prior maximum) before? With my video card, Ubuntu uses it to the fullest abilities, even taking on the higher graphics capabilities with Compiz.
Of course, top of the line hardware tends not to have 100% bug-free drivers. There's always a glitch.
There are legitimate reasons to worry about Linux for MS. Linux has many fewer security problems and has much better implementation of security measures. It's also able to provide full functionality from first installation. It has no higher learning curve than switching to Vista or Windows 7 from XP and I actually learned how to use the basics within 5 minutes. The package management takes very little time to learn, just needing the extension for the file (.exe for Windows is .deb for Ubuntu). Besides, with Synaptic package manager, there's not really any need to go around and look for software, it's right there.
If your mates had used Ubuntu now instead of Windows XP, without them feeling the urge to purchase games made specifically for Windows that don't work through WINE of Cedega, I can guarantee they wouldn't be switching back. In fact, for anyone who switches to Linux these days, without the requirement that they run a certain Windows-only program, they won't switch back. Linux is that much easier and that much less demanding on the user.
Windows locks you in, Linux busts you out.
Spoken like someone who doesn't know what the hell they're talking about...
eDirectory on Ubuntu straight from Novell:
http://www.novell.com/communities/node/2629/installing-and-configuring-edirectory-88x-ubuntu-linux
Ubuntu Landscape (Zenworks for Ubuntu)
http://www.canonical.com/projects/landscape
Seeing how OpenSuse has dropped support for Zenworks, we can guess how good Zenworks really is...
http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS5210817105.html
They also don't need to learn how to configure the registry, set up AV and AS.
Three button clicks and those ladies have a solid, secure system.
_Using_ Linux is not the problem, installing and maintaining it _is_ so if it's going to be me doing all of that anyway, I'll stick Linux on because it raises less questions than Windows with its child-like insistence on telling you 800 different things you don't need to know that only confuse the less technical.
"Now I know all my grand parents use windows but it's taken YEARS just to get them to use email."
Your point is moot, all of the years you spent teaching them to use Windows could have been spent teaching them Linux, or even OSX for that matter. For people with the absolute most basic of needs, Linux is the BEST choice. No threats of virus or malware when they accidentally click on malicious links. Stability is never an issue and Linux really doesn't care how old your hardware is......it will always start up at the speed it did when installed...it never bogs down.
Re-installing after a terminal user error is as easy as booting a cd and away it goes, you don't even have to install Linux if you don't want.
Linux is only different, it isn't any more difficult to use....especially for people who have never used anything.
My mom's in her 50's, when I was a kid she couldn't turn on my nintendo. Now she's learned a bit more and she actually has an e-mail address. She used my brothers computer (Windows machine) and couldn't login and kept getting pop-ups of porn sites. I let her use my computer (Linux machine) while I went to fix his, clean off the malware and find out why she couldn't login. By the time I finished (5 minute fix for me, hours for him and never for her) she'd already checked her e-mail, checked her cellphone bill and finished everything she'd been trying to do for a half hour before.
She may not be a little old lady, but her skills on the computer aren't any farther along than theirs would be.
If she could figure out all by herself what icon was email and what is a browser in 5 mins she's far more advanced the an 'average' user but we can agree to disagree. I've seen the deer in headlights look 9 out of 10 times when I try that to people. Like a monkey you can train people to click an icon to use email and web on any OS in a short time. To feel at easy with the OS is another story.
How many little old ladies are at ease with Windows beyond just clicking the icon to browse the internet?
I actually see where novice users of computers have an advantage over those who have just a bit more experience when it comes to switching an OS. Either way they won't feel at ease with it, but they'll have a basic grasp on what a web browser does and they'll have a basic grasp on any other software they need. For example, my mom used my PC to watch a dvd. She put the DVD in, clicked on the icon that said DVD when it showed on my screen and she was watching her DVD. She checks her email on my computer and she surfs the web on my computer.
I'd argue that most little old ladies are at least that capable on all three OS's, it's the amateur users (more experienced than novice, but not experienced enough to have any higher level of skills) who actually have problems.
If I gave my computer to my 90 year old grandfather, he'd have no more trouble using it than he would a Windows machine. In other words, most likely he wouldn't know anything either way.
The deer in headlights look doesn't come from people being stupid, it comes from them being scared. Linux is easy to use, it's just as easy to use as Mac ever was for me. Sit those same people in front of Mac and see what happens. They're scared of something new, that's it.
My mom gave me the deer in headlights look the first time I sat her down in front of my computer. I pointed at the browser and told her to click it, the DVD was self-explanatory and everything else is just exploring.
Seems like it's working for the other side.
2) Unfortunatelly for them, their two cash cows ? Windows and Office ? face strong competition from Linux and OpenOffice, which are free.
3) As netbooks become an important part of the 100 million PCs sold this year, manufacturers will try to avoid the Microsoft tax -- unless Microsoft slash their prices.
4) But Microsoft cannot afford a small price tag, if they want to stay profitable. (See item 1)
5) More and more people will use free software, and Microsoft will be see their margins and market share shrink.
2009 will be an interesting year.
I was told that there are 100 Million Linux users worldwide, is that number fair? Anyone has any good survey on that?
Any estimation of Linux and Windows market share is EXTREMELY difficult, technically as well as the cost involved. Many (most?) linux machines currently in use were sold first with Windows pre-installed, and often it remains installed as dual (or triple) booted systems. Those systems are often run in both operating systems, not just one all the time. Statistically few computers on the internet are built from components and not sold with a copy of Windows originally installed. That 'installed base' is sometimes used as a measure of market share, and is obviously wrong.
It is also not rare as some people (like Net Applications and other very inaccurate surveys) suggest to have windows still installed on a linux machine; the reason is that linux has pursued the dual-booted system install structure for over a decade now because that was one of the best routes to increasing linux usage. Users wanted access to windows if they needed to run it for business applications that were either not available for linux or did not emulate in Wine well enough to use. The default installation method for many linux distros used to be dualboot when they recognized a windows installation already present.
It is very difficult to determine which of the computers connecting to a website are the same computer using a different OS. It is also difficult to determine the REAL operating system being used on a system by sorting through website connection logs (the typical way that market share is 'researched'). Every modern browser can now provide the proper User Agent response for its competing browsers, and can provide an incorrect operating system along with it. You cannot use browser User Agent to do legitimate or viable market share research without ALSO including a significant margin of error... something most people are unwilling to do.
Netbooks gave Linux a chance to build an in-road particularly in the wake of Vista. What did they do with it? Nothing. Now with Windows 7 approaching any hope of Linux leveraging netbooks to take on Windows is fading fast. That's my take, anyway.
2) Windows and Office face no imminent threats from Linux and OpenOffice. The threats are minuscule and MS will be able to out-maneuver all competition and threats in the future.
3) Netbooks are already starting to come with a stripped-down version Windows XP and soon Windows 7.
4) Microsoft already charges a small price tag for the OSes sold to OEMs (Dell, HP, etc.). The only high price tag is for the consumer buying the OS separately from a pre-manufactured computer.
Judging by your name you were drunk when you wrote that and you don't exactly have a lot of life experience to know better, but just in case I'll respond.
1)Microsoft has already laid off workers to help stop the bleeding. No matter how temporary a worker may be, his productivity is still essential to getting products out.
2)Linux paired with OOo is a formidable grouping, especially when you consider that most, if not all, installations of Windows do not come with MS Office and in fact require you to purchase it. Free products with a very high amount of compatibility with the "major" player in business use is definitely a huge competition.
3)Read the other comments and take a look at exactly how those netbooks have been set up. There's been a few articles I've read claiming how poorly set up netbooks were offered as "fully featured". When Linux is properly configured, it's more than a "match" for XP. It actually takes more to set up Linux poorly than to set it up properly.
4)Linux has a single price tag for close to every distro available. That price tag is $0. With that being the case, in order to sweeten the deal to the OEM, MS will have to pay for Windows to be installed, not just offer a "sweet deal" on it.
Bottom line, stick with drinking or provide some good arguments.
You need to qualify this to 'Which are INITIALLY free. Yea the software itself is free but there's always a cost to software reguardless of it's INITIAL cost. To a company those mean re-training users plus the same daily support they did before. There's till a huge cost to those business wise. In a personal setting IF the user knows how to set it up themselves and maintain it then it's free otherwise your new Dell preloaded with windows will cost you more to switch plus now you have to relearn a new OS. I'm not putting them down just stating there's no 'Free' software really. There's always other costs whether it's support, training, or setup fees. What would you guess it'd cost to retrain say 25,000 employees to use linux and openoffice plus the time to switch 25,000 pc's? How many years till you recoupe those costs? Is it really worth it?
Read above post. It's not $0 dollars to a Windows user but $0 INITIAL cost for the software only. How many hours of training would the 'average' person need to feel at the same comfort level as they did with windows? There's tangible and intangible costs associated with that far above $200 bucks. I have a hard to trying to get people to stop using a bad process for a new process which automated half their old job and makes the process 2-3 times faster. Simply put, people don't want to learn something over again as they are happy to do it the same way they know rather then be forced to learn something new. I'm all for linux and openoffice over windows but it's just not an easy change and the sticker to move is higher then staying with windows. If someone can provide windows based video training so they can learn linux and openoffice on their windows pc ahead of time that'd help. Give them a simulated environment and allow them to learn at their own pace to raise their comfort level. When they are ready for linix/openoffice there needs to be an easy way to switch with a low cost.
So, other than the unmentioned yet unavoidable retraining cost of upgrading to Office 2007 (and deploying it) and the fact that this retraining will only happen once (while MS upgrades are artificially forced semi-regularly) and that the retraining + deployment costs of Office 2007 are on top of the purchase cost you haven't really brought up anything which would increase the cost but there are still factors which could decrease the cost.
Now, you've utterly failed to bring up things which would make it genuinely difficult to change such as 3rd party software (custom built or otherwise) which would be difficult to replace and relies specifically on Office 2007 or an large collection of custom macros which are essential to the smooth running of a workplace. Shame, since they really can be show-stoppers.
I guess, though, that they're not important to any small businesses which don't have as complex an infrastructure as to require anything quite so custom.
Ubuntu is specially scary for MS because of it's increasing popularity. One of Linux's major weaknesses is the fragmentation of the market. It's a pain for both hardware manufacturers and software developers. You need to test too many different versions. If Ubuntu becomes the dominant distribution that you can test against, there'll be more and more commercial and hardware for Linux. That's really scary for MS. It's time for some FUD.
But the real-world data suggests otherwise. Users continually reject Linux and always with very good reasons. Even those who see the surface and think it's livable end up returning them and trading for a Windows PC. Why? Because there's no depth to the Linux experience, even in Ubuntu. There are endless half-finished projects with 0.x version numbers that solve a little piece of a scenario that the developer cared about.
So, what you're saying is that rather than put an arbitrary number on a piece of software and say it's "finished", Linux devs actually put the number that's being worked on and let it be tested. I've looked at those numbers you're talking about. I'm currently using aMSN 0.97.2 and a few other programs which haven't reached a full "release" yet.
The difference is night and day. My Linux apps run faster and normally run more smoothly than the Windows apps I had when running XP. Any problems I might have with a Linux app can be reported to the community as well as directly to the developers and will normally be fixed by the next release and often there's a workaround within a day.
Also, I'm currently using OOo 3.0 (notice the real number there), Flock 2.0 (real number), Firefox 3.0 (real number), Miro 1.2.6 (real number) as well as a number of other programs, all with real numbers.
The reasons there are more "betas" in Linux than with Windows is fairly obvious. Nobody buys betas. Those "real" numbers for the apps in Windows are forced, put there so that people will actually pay for them.
If you'd like to suggest that a good way to get people to try Linux is by lying to them and just slapping a 1.0 on every app that's put out for testing purposes or any other purpose then say so. Otherwise, we'll continue to be honest about it.
At this point I really don't see how MS can keep up the pace vs the OS machine that the Ubuntu-Canonical-Linux mechanism has evolved into. If you take in to account all the Linux devs that work on these releases - from the kernel devs to the Gnome desktop programmers guys, people at Google and IBM and Novell and Red Hat and Debian and Sun whose code contributions also make it into Ubuntu and vice versa. And people like me who simply test alphas and betas for the fun of it in virtual machines - I honestly think the number of active contributors to the Ubuntu desktop may soon outnumber MS's paid employees. I mean, only days ago HP - who had never shipped any Ubuntu support of any kind - released a beautiful netbook desktop OS of their own that's a re-skinned Ubuntu. The writing is on the wall.
And MS thinks they can hire one dude to spearhead the counter to that kind of developer force. Linux has become a multi-headed hydra that really can't be killed - and that has never had and really doesn't need a profit machine - and I'm not sure any one company can really hold that off in the long term.
MS has already been forced to keep XP around far beyond it's planned phase out, purely due to the netbook attack posed by Linux. MS has got to be earning next to nothing on netbook XP since those little laptops only cost $300. Even if Win7 works well and is a hit on netbooks, they will earn very little on it because they won't be able to charge $200 for it. And most netbooks are probably not going to be running Office which is the real cash cow.
The bulk of the netbook sales with linux pre-installs have been Asus and Acer... two OEM's who are NOT shipping Ubuntu. Canonical's current partner's Dell and Toshiba are not dominate players.
You give Canonical too much credit. They are not leaders in the linux OEM netbook space... not even close.
Why aren't you talking about Xandros? The fact that Asus is using Xandros probably makes it the most significant linux distribution in the netbook space over the past year.
-jef
Actually, before your comment, I'd never heard the name Xandros. I've heard OpenSuse, Fedora, Debian, Ubuntu, DSL, PuppyLinux, etc, but never Xandros.
I've gone pretty far in looking up as much info as I could as well as looking up open source forums about Linux.
Either Xandros is extremely new and hasn't made nearly the splash that Ubuntu has or it's just not that good, especially when compared to the others I've named. If neither, then it could really use a lot more PR from people who don't just mention the name and stop with that.
Which Linux circles exactly? As I said, I've been making the rounds through forums all over the net and haven't seen or read anything about it.
And yes, I've been outside the Ubuntu forums.
I bought an Asus Eee 900A at Best Buy. It comes with 1 GB of RAM, and a 4 GB SSD, and Xandros Linux.
Here's the catch: it is set up to use UnionFS, which keeps a read-only partition with the original content of the file system and a read-write partition where changes are kept. That has the advantage of letting you get back to the original state easily--just wipe the read-write partition--but has the disadvantage of using a lot of SSD space. Any updated package appears twice, and at least for a while, three times: the original on the read-only partition, the update in the read-write partition, and at least while the upgrade happens, the file that you download that holds the update. You can't afford to do that with a tiny 4GB SSD.
Once it grabbed twelve software updates and started installing them, the SSD filled and the Eee was unusable until I wiped Xandros and installed Ubuntu Eee, now called Easy Peasy. After a number of upgrades and installing another app that wasn't originally there, I have 400 MB free on the SSD. Plenty for what I do, especially with a 4GB SD card added in--though I'll move to a larger SSD and 2GB soon.
Now, imagine someone who thinks he's found himself an inexpensive, very portable computer... or found one for a son/daughter/grandchild. He buys it, and it immediately renders itself unusable. He's going to be highly irate, and what do you think he'll blame? Linux. He'll stomp back to Best Buy, get his money back, and get upsold to a larger, more expensive netbook or laptop, probably running Windows, and be assured that by golly, he can get some REAL work done on this baby!
If you were setting out to give Linux a bad impression among the general public, and I have to suspect that Best Buy or Asus or both in fact might have done just that on purpose. Then they could protest that they'd tried selling Linux on netbooks, and people didn't like it!
Thanks for the full explanation. Maybe you should put in to get paid by CNET, your opinion was actually well researched and nicely written.
In other words, better than a few of the writers I've come across on here.
Xandros use to be Corel Linux once upon a time (I still have a copy of the distro CD).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corel_Linux
I hope that clears that up gentlemen.
Still haven't heard the name, but thanks for the info, I'll take a look at the wiki.
Or perhaps it's just not talked about in any of the forums a newb like myself would see. Like I said, I've been hitting Google pretty hard as well as reading everything I can find. I still hold it true that before it gets used on netbooks, a lot more PR is in order.
I looked up Xandros on wikipedia right after I read the link provided by CyberCam, it seems Xandros is way out of its target market if it's being used on netbooks. With Crossover Office, I'd think it's set more for Enterprise level desktops as a way of switching from Windows to Linux more easily. Netbooks with Linux preinstalled don't exactly have anywhere to switch from, meaning Ubuntu is a much better choice.
I can't say anything about Fedora as I haven't used it, but I do know that Ubuntu is extremely easy to learn on and sets up very well on machines with the specs netbooks tend to have.
Second point: although Microsoft may look and seem block-headed (and in some endeavors they really are, like Windows Mobile), when it comes to desktop and productivity software, they will unleash the full force of their thinking before embarking on any strategy. It's part of the reason we don't hear anything about TCO of Windows being lower than Linux from them nowadays or any such rubbish.
What is more likely is that there will be two key things this Microsoft open source director will be responsible for:
1) Determining and selling Windows' strengths where it makes sense. Note: this does NOT mean they are going to be pushing Windows down the throats of folks when it doesn't make any sense. They could, but I'm pretty sure they won't given the very heavy-handed TCO marketing campaign before. They will be much more cautious about marketing where Windows' strengths are apparent.
2) Figuring out ways to bridge the divide. This means that the open source director has to bridge the divide between Windows proprietary technologies/open APIs to open source technologies/open standards as well as the cultural divide within Microsoft from build-it-here-and-crush-competitor-monolith to play-nicely-with-others-and-everyone-wins. As I understand, the latter attitude is building a lot of momentum within Microsoft, momentum which they better embrace because it will save the company.
The Linux can`t be written to , so it is 100% safe for web browsing.
If you were talking about the commenting back and forth between myself, jspaleta and pentest, I was commenting that I hadn't heard of the one they were talking about.
It's never been about who's winning. We're all in it for the same purpose, to get the best possible OS built.
If you want Unix on your desktop, get Unix. If you want to pay for a Mac because you like it, get a Mac. If you want the freedom to do anything you damn well please, install Linux.
Actually, why not do both? Linux runs on Macs too.
1) those who bought preinstalled windows computers.
2) those who need to run apps and games that are not available in Linux or dont run in Linux.
3) .net and vb developers
4) no working hardware driver for linux
1 and 4 is going to Linux nowadays as more computers are offered with Linux like those notebooks from Asus and Acer.
2)those who need to run apps and games that are not available in Linux or don't run in Linux yet.
Either the developers of those apps will realize they're ignoring a market completely or the Linux community will find a way to run them otherwise.
6) Affraid to leave their comfort zone. It took YEARS to learn windows well enough to be comfortable with it. They don't want to start over and invest YEARS to get back to where they are now.
7) They use windows at work so why learn and use two different systems?
If companies upgrade to Linux you'll see home PC's become Linux. That's because the company will invest the time and money to train the person and they'll be forced to use Linux at work so naturally they want the same OS at home. Most people posting on this forum are 'above' average as far as using an OS goes.
Oh come on now. I'm an ordinary home computer user, and it didn't take "years" to get comfortable with windows and learn what I needed to learn, even to troubleshooting and doing my own repairs. I resent being called an idiot, even if you did say it in a round about way!
"Years" is a totally exaggerated term. And I'm one of those a grandmas y'all like to talk about. *sarcasm* In fact in the next six months or so, I plan on building my own computer, and I'm seriously looking at Ubuntu, or Redhat as a dual boot option. And just using Windows for stuff that I can't find equivalents for that will run on Linux. I do however use Office 2003 because most people I send documents to don't have OO. If OO was more widely used by more people I'd be just as happy to use it. It's a very nice little program. and i've been very satisfied with its performance. In fact I actively support OO by posting about it and other free apps on my blogs. And if you don't think personal blogs that aren't huge names in blogging get the word around, you're missing a great news spreading tool.
And if you want to talk about learning new systems, then you obviously haven't looked at Windows 7 very closely. Because there's a lot different about it. And that folks is why Vista didn't fly. It was annoying and they switched everything around. The time that it takes to relearn where everything is in Vista and the differences from XP, is just about the length of time it would take to get accustomed to Ubuntu, or RedHat. And that's the opinion of real folks I know that use desktops at home, the stuff we talk about when we chat or meet at the local coffee shop and on our blogs. Currently I don't know anyone that's planned to rush out and buy Window's 7. I didn't care for Vista, and from what I've seen Windows 7 doesn't float my boat either. I don't care how sexy some people think it is.
I think folks are kind of tired of having to buy the latest and greatest just to keep their apps running properly. It's highway robbery. And the only way MS can stay in business is to keep offering "new" OSs and dropping support for the systems people are already using. I re3sent being used as a cash cow they think they can milk by offering a new OS every time I turn around. I quit buying music, after spending a fortune, when they went through four changes of media. New and Improved is not always better.
This may seem counter-intuitive but if you sit someone down in front of an interface which is familiar but where things have been moved they'll spend a lot of time following false assumptions before exploring to find the right way to do things. Sit someone down in front of an obviously different interface and they don't waste time making any assumptions at all but get straight into exploring.
This does, of course, raise the possibility that retraining someone on just using Linux might be less costly than retraining them on Vista.
Whoops.
As for 'years' that's extremely accurate. Some people break the mold but most are skill scared to death of their system. Scared they will break it or do something wrong because they don't know how to do it. I've seen people have panic attacks when asked to install an app because they've never done that before after 'years' of using the OS. My great aunt is one who has better computers and stuff then me but that's hardly 'average'. Everyone needs to take 3 steps back and understand the target audience a bit. It really has nothing to do with the OS it's more of a change and learning thing.
1) You didn't even bring 3rd party integration into the equation (if it can't be replaced, who cares about the retraining cost?).
2) I've seen CompSci students struggle to adjust to the 'ribbon' interface of Office 2007 and the rearrangement of Vista.
I have trouble believing you've upgraded 20 users.
It's also an interesting thing to note (just spotted this) that you seem to think that years == man-years. Given that MS and Apple had roughly a decades headstart and a ton more money, why is it so surprising that it's taken so long for Linux to start catching up? Anyone'd think an O/S was something you could just knock up in an afternoon.
That's a given so no point to discuse or debate as such it was omitted. That's why most business will not leave the windows platform.
Excuse me but that's a load of BS. I have a Vista box that's newer than the one I'm using right now. It's still got a freakin' two and half year in home warranty on it, and ya know where it is? It's sitting in the living room for my daughter's use, since her old box bit the dust. I'm using a 4 YO XP machine. I sicked the Vista machine on her, but she mostly uses it just for email, MySpace, and IM. I absolutely forbid downloads. And I handle all the updates and other stuff that needs doing for maintenance.
I started using Windows when 98 was the only OS, back around 1998, and I had no problems going from 98, to XP Pro, to XP. I wouldn't have had ME if you gave it to me. I wanted a back up box, and at the time I bought the one I did buy, this XP box was having some hiccups, and I didn't want to lose email and everything else so I bought another machine while I was working on this one, and the Vista box a much more expensive machine, even though I bought only the box itself without all the peripherals. The store I bought the new box from only had Vista boxes *disgust* trying to force people to buy and use Vista I reckon. At the time I hadn't discovered Tiger Direct, or Newegg yet.
Contrary to your opinion, I found that Vista is a whole new ball game. Sure you have the same desktop icons, but that's where the similarities end, and the desktop icons have been similar no matter what Windows system has been current. Windows Live Mail sucks like a hoover. I don't use Outlook either. I prefer Outlook Express, and yeah, I know it's not as secure. But knock on wood, I've never had a problem with email infections. I haven't used Office 2007, my Office 2003, and OO, work just fine for my needs. I refuse to spend any more money on MS products than I have to.
The whole set up as far as the start up menu and other stuff in Vista is moved around and changed. And if your "normal user took years" to get used to Windows XP they're gonna freak out trying to navigate through Windows Vista in any meaningful way, and they're gonna freak more when the first DEP message pops up if they're too lazy to read the help files, or check the knowledge base for information. I know to do all that and Vista still frustrated me to the point I felt like pulling my hair out. Everything took twice as long, because I had to remember where to look for things. And contrary to what MS says, it's a PITA to navigate through all the changes they've made, no matter the familiar icons. I don't want to have a battle with an OS every time I boot up. Now tell me as a user how much Vista is so similar to XP. I've used both, and they're absolutely not the same, not even close.
Even with the fancy stuff turned off, which I did, like AERO, and some of the other bloatware, which I have on the other box, It has the Premium version of Vista. The user menus and other stuff are still different. Which is what I would expect since Vista was supposed to have been built from scratch, from what I understand.
Pffft. So you like Vista. Then keep it, but don't try propagandizing to anybody about how similar it is to XP, because I know better! If that was the case then it would have gone over much better than it did, with businesses and home users.
I can tell you now, I'd rather learn to navigate through a different OS than MS's idea of "improvements".
And a whole lot of the people I talk to daily feel the same way. Even the young whippersnappers.
And as far as the "psychological" goes. Anything "New" is intimidating to most people. So it doesn't matter what OS you change to, it's gonna have the same effect. Just like test anxiety doesn't depend on what type of test it is. Test anxiety happens with every test. The learning curve in my opinion is about the same with anything "new".
And as far as older folks go, well I can remember when there weren't any computers for consumers to buy, and when there weren't any cell phones, or even cable TV. When everyone had one phone and it was in the kitchen hanging on the wall and it had a rotary dial. When party lines were still in existence. And a time before VCR's, and DVD players, IPODs, and all that jazz.
I still hate cell phones even though I have one. I don't like the ball and chain feeling I get when I carry the stupid thing around with me. So yeah, a lot of older folks don't feel the need to spend money on electronics. Since I've only been fooling around with my own computer for five years or so, even though I've owned a computer of some description since 1998, I guess I'm just a late blooming geek granny, LOL.
Nice Troll
I am doing it anyway, but would be nice to get paid to do it.
- by jmagunduni February 8, 2009 9:36 PM PST
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