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Linux, Inc.
An anonymous reader sends in a link to Businessweek talking about the business of Linux, and the increasing threat to Microsoft's operating system monopoly.
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You know something must be up if BillG himself is shuffling off to South America to persuade the government to lose interest in open software...
I've been really thinking about the whole Linux gaining footing thing, and as much as everyone around here just LOVES XWindows and loves to say it's as usable as OS X or Windows, let's face it, in the eyes of most users it simply isn't.
Apple has taken FreeBSD/Darwin and built their own desktop environment around it. OS X is very usable according to most people. And even though there are many camps of people who will argue that Windows is more usable than OS X or vice versa, the one point most people will agree on is that OS X and Windows are both more usable than XWindows and the various window managers. I perosnally hate both KDE and Gnome, and thus use a mostly text BSD box, but I know I'm in the minority there, as well.
Here's what I've been thinking.
What's stopping someone from writing an entire environment like OS X from the ground up, around and on top of Linux, and creating an OS X like environment that is as complete and modern as either OS X or Windows?
I know everybody shudders at the thought of obsoleting their beloved X, but even some OS X users install and use X when they still feel they need it, but I think I'm just being realistic when I think hanging onto X is just overall the wrong strategy for putting Linux on the desktop. (Counter arguments exist, and will likely be in the many replies, and I don't entirely disagree with them, but...)
I really think this is an effort worth pursuing. A new desktop environment built to be the primary way that Linux is used. A Linux based graphical environment designed from the ground up to be a Desktop GUI, following in the footsteps of OSX/Aqua.
To make things easier (here's where many will disagree with me) one could work on such a program primarily focusing on modern hardware and esspecially modern video cards. Let's face it, ATI and NVidia run the show now days anyway.
These are just my thoughts, and I hope people will constructively discuss this possibility instead of throwing around a bunch of "No way, not possible, why bother, go to hell Apple/Microsoft lover" comments.
I like BSD, and I like OS X. I would like to see something similar done with Linux.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
I just had a knee-jerk thought. How is Linux a threat to anyone? Linux is freely available to almost anyone ... individuals or businesses.
:-)
The "playing field" is even because of this universal availability. Those that don't take advantage of this MAY find themselves at a disadvantage to those that do.
Linux isn't a threat because YOU choose NOT to use it in your business model. The real threat is a poor plan that doesn't use the tools and technologies FREELY available today.
Did that make any sense?
Unfortunately, they tend to do this on the golf course with their other CEO, CIO, CFO, and CTO buddies, instead of asking the people who have to actually support the applications and systems. They want all the stuff that looks flashy, etc. The techies, unfortunately, then have to figure out ways to make the stuff work.
Many years ago, I went to a company where they wanted to have several applications talk to each other. Two of them ran on Solaris, two of them ran on Windows. One used Oracle as the back-end, another used DBASE. How did they come up with the combination of COTS stuff? They asked the users to pick which software package they wanted for which particular function. The problem is, nobody ever really evaluated what could be done with each of them. It turned out that one of the Windows apps couldn't be made to talk with anything else because of the memory control module. The database stuff it used wanted to do its own memory allocation, and it interfered with the TCP/IP sockets library's ability to do its necessary memory allocation. I didn't last long there, because I basically made my opinions known and they didn't want to hear that they made some really bad decisions.
When going for my RHCE, the instructor was telling us that RedHat basically came into existence because for Linux to be a viable business solution, companies wanted to be able to point fingers at someone to say, "You... FIX THIS!" They didn't want to file bug reports and wait for someone to get around to it. They wanted someone to be there at their beck-and-call, providing the necessary support. This kind of thinking is what actually helped Linux become a viable business solution.
OCO is Loco
1998: First Joe user goes online and most of the servers he hits are running Linux. He doesn't care.
~2000: Then Joe user goes out and buys a Tivo (or Tivo like) product. It runs Linux, again he doesn't care because it offers the apps he wants.
~2001: Then Joe user buys a new cell phone and it runs Linux. He doesn't care because it is cheap and gives him the functionality he needs.
1999-2004: Now over that time device drivers start to appear more frequently for Linux because of all the servers and appliances that need them....
2002-2004: Major players (Oracle, BEA, Novell, IBM, HP, Sun, heck all but Microsoft start to support their software on Linux servers.... Even Crystal reports now runs on Linux.
2004: Point of sale devices start to standardize on Linux....
2000-2005: Standard desktop applications start to become common on Linux. Apps like DVD burning, MP3 playing, Office, P2P, Web Browsing and some games become part of a standard Linux install.
2005-2006: Linux desktop market share grows to surpass that of new Apple Macintosh sales. This forces companies like Macromedia (Dreamweaver) to start seriously looking at offering a Linux version of their products.
2007-2008: New devices will start to ship Linux drivers and software with their products. These drivers and software will be more common than drivers and software offered for the Macintosh. Companies like Macromedia and Filemaker will reluctantly start to offer Linux versions of their software, but they will be downloadable only. They will go to great concerns to "protect" their software from being copied.
2010: The Linux desktop market share in the U.S. will be around 15 to 20%. Microsoft Longhorn will be released. At a 20% desktop marketshare OEM's will now start to offer Linux on every model of computer and have the quantity of scale needed to lower the cost of a new computer pre-loaded with Linux.
2011: Joe user will go to purchase a new machine. Machines will now cost almost nothing, and software cost will be the lions share of the total cost. The machine with Windows will cost more than the machine with Linux. Joe user will ask if both will do the job, and they will. Both will run his legacy apps. Joe user doesn't care, and buys the cheaper box. Microsoft will be forced to SIGNIFICANTLY lower their price of Windows and Office thus killing their profits.
2015-2016: Linux market share now soars to 50% and video game makers now target Linux first. Microsoft will start to lay people off.
2017: Duke Nukem Forever for Linux is released ahead of the Windows version by a year.
My point is this.... "IF" Linux gets a 10-15% marketshare of the desktops, the game is over for Windows. At that point they have a large enough marketshare that it will be very hard for any software vendor to ignor them. That is what scares Microsoft to death. A free competitor that is "good enough" cannot get that large for them to survive.
My second point is that this isn't going to happen overnight. Heck it isn't going to happen in the next 5 years. But look at how far Linux has come in just the last 5 years. It use to be that Joe user couldn't even use a nicely configured Linux box, now he can. He can probably even install SuSe or RedHat. If you installed Linux back in 1996, then you realize how far they have come. Think about that. In less than 10 years Linux has come from impossible for a noob to use - to an almost complete replacement to Windows. Now factor in that a lot more people are working on Linux than Windows and you begin to see what Microsoft is worried about. Yes they have 60+Billion in the bank. Now you know why they are doing that. They will need that money.
Their ONLY hope is to go after patents, and perhaps the "living room". If they loose this battle then they are in for a long and hard road ahead and they will need a HUGE amount of money to "get them by" until their next great idea comes along. I also expect them to dum
The more I learn about science, the more my faith in God increases.