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."

Comments

Mac vs PC

[beakburke]

Honestly, I think Macs are better home computers, and im not sure Linux will ever truly cater to the nontechincal home user. The people just want to use their computer and aren't the tinkering poweruser type. The Macs at home will cooperate well with the Linux desktops at work. At work linux can be set up to do the work tasks and left alone, using a (thinner)client/server model. They might also shine as technical workstations, but then again so do G5 powermacs. Basically, in my opinion, home type users are better off with OSX macs because they are using them as PCs=(personal computers) whereas linux is a much better server/client choice, which seems more appropriate in a work environment. Whether the "workstation" class business machines are OSX or linux would probably depend on whether the business was small with little tech dept. (OSX) or big/corporate (linux).

Re:It's the games issue

[agent dero]

It's a troll but i'll bite, need to kill time.

If you think all a mac is, IS the digital hub, you're horribly wrong. I work on everything on my iBook, java dev, mail, writing papers, researching, AND the digital media stuff.

A mac is a computer, just like a wintel box is a computer.

And if you want games, buy a freakin Xbox; more people buy a computer to USE it, instead of to play games

Re:if only apple was x86

[Ceyan]

I don't claim to be an English major, nor do I claim to really organize my sentences, but at least I manage it better than the average person online. We all have our off days too. If you're going to critique proper grammer/spelling anywhere online, you'll never get anything done.

In reference to my use of "only", welcome to reality. We all use definitive words when the proper term would be a relative word. You do it, I do it, everyone does it. As a fellow human being I expected people to understand what I meant, because obviously Apple doesn't live solely on it's present user base.

True, I was re-stating the point, but that's because it was my original argument, only I approached it differently at the start and managed to go right when I should have veered left. My original point was that Apple has been on a steady decline in it's PC market. The source of that decline includes, among other things, the lack of compability with cheap hardware (aka x86 architecture).

Finally, name one improvement in OS X, outside of hueristics, that means something to the average desktop user? My statement of "new kernel" simply collected all of those changes into one statement because nothing of it applied to the average desktop user. 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.