IDC Proclaims Linux Is Now Mainstream

robyannetta writes "Eweek has an interesting article quoting IDC analyst Al Gillen saying "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream." He made that observation because IDC's research predicts that Linux's overall revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008."

Comments

Re:Won't be

[danheskett]

Except that grandma will have an equally or almost equally hard time figuring out a Windows box for an indefinite period of time, or even to a lesser degree a Mac box.

The grandma test largely fails since not all grandmas are equal (my grandma and grandpa taught me how to program FORTRAN when I was 8!) and since not all Linux boxes are equal (compare Lyrcoris to Debian).

Strict

[paranode]

Linux won't be mainstream until I can set up a Linux box for my grandmother and leave it knowing she'll be fine with it for an indefinite period of time.

If that's your definition of mainstream then I don't think even Windows is ready.

Re:Won't be

[eln]

Wow, this is the first first post that I actually agree should have been moderated Redundant.

Everyone always talks about how Linux needs a unified, simple interface, which is really just code for saying it needs a Windows-like (or Mac-like, depending on the speaker) interface. While I agree that most things in Linux need interface work, I don't think all interfaces need to look exactly the same to be effective. In fact, trying to shoehorn an application into an interface that doesn't really fit it can cause actually reduce ease of use.

It's simple to code interfaces in Windows, because everyone just uses the same widgets to make their interfaces. The result is a homogenous, bland experience, where everything looks exactly the same. In this environment, nothing is super simple to use, but everything is at least equally difficult to figure out.

As for things like printing, Windows is easy to use if you are using one of a couple of popular scenarios, but once you break out of those, it can be nearly impossible to get things to work right. Some of this is because the interface for setting up non-traditional printer setups is obtuse, but most of it is because the help documentation on the topic is absolutely worthless. Microsoft Help is the most astounding collection of utterly worthless "troubleshooting tips" I have ever seen. I have never once had a problem that that thing came anywhere near helping me solve.

Interface work needs to be done. We do not need a single unified simple interface, we need several continually evolving interfaces, which will over time result in every application having the easiest and most intuitive interface for whatever it does.

odd timing

[jaxon6]

I just finished an email with a co-worker from three jobs ago, when I was a consultant doing systems and network stuff for small-medium companies in Mass., RI and Conn. Back then I was all-linux, but I worked on IBMs AS/400s and NT/2k, and rarely got any Unix work on the job. I eventually left because my boss wasn't pushing linux hard enough for my liking.
Anyways, I just finished an email in which my co-worker proclaimed this year to be the year of linux. Coming from him, I am forced to take a step back from my daily linux work-life and look at it from his perspective.
To those who don't find MS to be an abomination of all that is good and holy, and simply use what technology is best for the times, this year is the equivalent 96(or 97) for NT. This was a year or so before I got into the business(high school and all), but from what I make of the timeline, NT was _IT_ back then. It was a server, it was somewhat stable(compared to Windows), it was user-friendly(compared to Unix/AS400), it was fully 32-bit. It ran on Alphas for christ's sake.
What high hopes it held.
Now, though, I am worried about what comes next. It took 8 years for what I knew to be the next big thing to become the next big thing. Am I now so deep into linux that I won't be able to see what's set to surpass it until it's here? I'm worried I will turn into those 'NT guys' from 96 or so who saw linux as a handicapped os and summarily dismissed it. Of course, it didn't even support 2-gigabyte files back then, so maybe they had a point.
Time will have to tell. I saw one computing mini-revolution coming years ahead of the mainstream; I hope to be able to see the next also.