Linux will have 20% desktop market share by 2008?

unmadindu writes "Siemens Business Systems, after conducting an extensive survey on non technical workers ("secretaries and managers, not IT people") is predicting that the Linux desktop will capture 20% of the market for desktop computers in large enterprises within the next 5 years. Senior program manager Duncan McNutt, who has overseen Siemens's testing of Linux desktops with users and administrators in enterprise settings, believes that the Ximian desktop and application suite, running on either SuSE or Red Hat, requires two days of training, which is the same as what most enterprises budget for a Windows/MS Office version upgrade. Interestingly, they used Ximian Desktop, instead of KDE, because Gnome, particularly Ximian's version, was "different enough" to set user expectations that the experience would be less like Windows. "

Comments

Not linux anymore

[r6144]

According to the GNU website, "Linux" means just the kernel, so if the kernel got replaced the system is not GNU/Linux any more. It may be called GNU/Hurd, or "The GNU system" (which is also more or less usable now).

No it won't, because...

[Slashdot Junky]

No it won't, because regardless of what Linux is capable of now or down the road, this will not happen unless something significant happens to Microsoft's marketing machine. Linux will get no where in the desktop space without a UNIFIED and powerful marketing powerhouse.

People have to be convinced that moving to Linux is the right thing to do. People have been forever in the belief that Windows is the right thing, because Microsoft has convinced them of this.

-Slashdot Junky