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Desktop Linux Share Overtaking Macintosh
prostoalex writes "Business Week magazine is optimistic about desktop Linux's future, telling a story of Capital Cardiology Associates, whose 160 employees migrated to Linux desktops. Furthermore, Business Week expects IDC to announce desktop Linux installations to reach 3.2%, for the first time overtaking Macintosh market share. By 2007, IDC forecasts, Linux will be installed on 6% of the desktops. It's also worth mentioning that desktop Linux market share for 2002 was 2.8% and that year it was behind Apple's operating system."
I installed Suse on my x86 notebook and it just works. I dual boot XP and Suse on my desktop (which I put together myself -- a trivial task before you blow it out of proportion) and they both just work. And my experience isn't exceptional. I didn't have to "tweak" anything after installing the operating systems, but I can if I want to. Honestly, you Mac users (yes if you own a Mac and are reading this I'm talking to you) are worse than videogame console fanboys. And Christ you sound like broken records. "it just works" like everybody except mac users are stuck with barely functional computers with random circuitry stuck together with some chewing gum and if you look at it the wrong way it will explode. Well, I'll put the stability of any of my systems up against any Mac on any day. And I didn't even have to tweak some obscure setting or type dir and shake my head in frustration like the mock pc user on the mac infomercials of yore. It just works. Mac owners seem to want to believe they have some kind of luxury high end computer for artists because they have super rad cases and are faster in photoshop benchmarks every other year. They don't. They have regular computers just like everybody else. I volunteer in the lab at school and I have to work with OSX almost as much as Windows, and it's pretty good, but I wouldn't say it's better than XP hands down. I guess the way everyone went on about it I was expecting it to reach out of the screen and jerk me off and make me shoot my load or something. It's pretty much average as far as modern user interfaces go (and in my own personal opinion I still haven't seen one that tops Beos) and the best parts came from unix and not apple. Just because you decided to rabidly advocate a computer company doesn't mean all the other ones are inferior. Sure, there are some pc manufacturers who are crappy, but there are also those that put out a rock solid system with preconfigured software and a smooth end user experience that are every bit as good as any mac. Now go ahead and flame on, Mac users. Convince me and yourself that you have some super elite state of the art machine that no pc has a prayer of touching and you have the rolls royce of computing and we have the ford taurus. You need to justify giving apple extra dollars somehow.
I almost totally agree. Any Apple related story on slashdot is going to be swarming with Mac users who will mod you down as flamebait in spite of the fact that almost everything you said is spot on. So I wish I had some mod points to toss your way. I especially liked the bit about luxury cars or whatever. It's pretty much exactly the same thing Mac users say over and over. You call them on it and they say it anyways. Yet that guy gets moderated insightful. He says the same exact stuff Mac users say on here all the time, and somehow there's a bit of insight to be found in that. My mind won't let me believe that there are actually people who think that Mac owners congratulating themselves for "computing in style" is insightful. Wow.
And you've been sucking way too much cock.
Seriously, your breathe stank like jock itch.
your dad sounds like an asshat.
Agreed, but let's see, what other architectures, with a commercial desktop OS, are doing even a half-way decent job (read better than Linux) of challenging Microsoft? Ummmm... errmmmm... that's right, none, not even Apple. Try making a comparision that actually works. Apple barely holds a fraction of the market on desktop, and even then it's only due to past users who refuse to change. Their recent decision with OS X has led to a improvement on the server side, but between Microsoft and core Unix, they don't have a chance in that market.
Marketshare is a zero-sum game, but manufacturing isn't. Market share is a percentage of all computers. Mac could gain hundreds of new users every day without ever losing a user and still lose market share because its rate of growth isn't as steep as the rest of the market's is.
However, all it means is Mac is using a new kernel, which ultimately means nothing. Mac didn't need a new kernel, it was fine by itself, the changes (as far as a desktop users are concerned) are mostly pointless.
These two sentences prove that you know very little about operating systems. There's a lot more to OS X than "a new kernel."
Instead of calling me a troll and coming up with a weak reply like that. Come on, all you did was attack my reply because I laid down a definitive statement about Apple being reliant on past users, which you seemed to take as an implication that no one buys a Mac that hasn't already had one.
Youre English isn't very good, either: that first "sentence" is a fragment (I'm not cracking the whip on this to be a bastard, but to make the point that your arguments are poorly thought out and that the lack of thought is apparent in the presentation as well. Clear thought and clear writing go together.) To your last point, you wrote:
Apple barely holds a fraction of the market on desktop, and even then it's only due to past users who refuse to change.
See that word "only"? I suggest that you look it up in a dictionary. It means a lot more than "Apple being reliant on past users." It's not an implication, it's an inaccurate assertion of fact. It means they are exclusively selling to past users; and while Apple's market share isn't growing, I'm guessing that its user base (in absolute numbers) is.
As to your second sentence as a whole, I "attacked" your posting because it was a manifest absurdity. You're overstating a very simple point: Apple's market share as a percentage is declining while Linux's is increasing. This is a surprise, because a lot of us expected Linux's market share to be cannibalized by Mac once OS X came out. I don't know if Windows' market share is still increasing, but if it is, it is despite the fact that the most important applications (Word Processing, email, internet) are platform-agnostic and some of the cutting-edge new applications (video editing above all) are more Mac-oriented.
The real reason is software compability. Most people have access to Windows software. That's why VirtualPC is such a popular product among Mac users. (Which leads me to ask: if you have a computer with OS X, VirtualPC and Windows XP, and a Linux partition, whose marketshare does that count toward?) Half of that software is "pirated" anyway (including copies of Windows).
What this means for Mac is that it is becoming a niche player. A solid niche, of course, and the only niche player in its industry that has hooks in the consumer market, but it's clear that unless something very drastic happens, Apple's niche status will be permanent. Even the iPod strategy doesn't appear to be strengthening Apple's market share. But as long as its user base continues to grow (even if its total market share doesn't), Apple can survive in that niche for a long, long time - especially with its peculiar place as a market innovator.
Part of me is worried that the main reason Linux is gaining market share on the desktop is because it's free as in beer. If that's true, then those who make a living writing software are likely to be in for some real problems in the future. But as long as something not Windows increases its marketshare at the expense of Windows, it helps all non-Windows operating systems.
Besides, you're statement also seems to imply a lack of understanding, because completely changing the kernel in an OS is about as big a change as you can get. Any other change in an OS is a small matter by comparision.
So first you're saying that OS X isn't such a big deal, all they changed was the kernel; and now you're saying that I'm an idiot because I don't understand that "changing the kernel .. is as big a change as you can get." No, changing the WHOLE OPERATING SYSTEM, from the kernel all the way up to the GUI, is as big a change as you can get. And no, Apple's PC market is not declining, their SHARE OF THE PC MARKET is declining. Big difference:
DC analyst Roger Kay told The Mac Observer that although Apple's market share was down fractionally, this small decline has been a trend over the past three years.
"This gentle decline has pretty much been the pattern for Apple over the years," Kay said. "Apple's changing emphasis to computing entertainment is part of that reason, in my opinion."
Kay also believes that Apple's slow decline in market share has more to do with the rest of the PC industry growing faster. "It isn't that Apple isn't growing. It's just that they are not growing as fast."
Kay also believes that although Apple products are more expensive that traditional Windows-based PCs, trends in the WinTel world have played a role in Apple adjusting pricing to be more competitive. "eMachines and HP fought it out for the best prices at Christmas time. Apple benefited from that a little by making their pricing and added ease-of-use a factor."