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Linux Growth In The Workplace Slowing
BrainSurgeon writes "According to a Business Week article Linux growth numbers have slowed for the first time since SG Cowen & Co. began tracking it on their survey. The biggest reason for the slow down according is due to the hidden cost of consultants." From the article: "That doesn't mean overall Linux use is slowing. The survey only shows that a smaller number of companies not using Linux plan to try the software than in previous surveys. Most analysts expect Linux use to grow at the companies that have already rolled it out -- and do so at a healthy rate. And analysts say Linux is picking up steam outside North America, which the Cowen survey doesn't cover."
Is it slowing too? In which case, this is a sign of overall growth slowing... or is it just a Linux thing?
libertarianswag.com
Thsi has nothing to do with open versus closed. The same holds true for any technical architecture investment. Once you've made the investment in time and money, it's vcery expensive to switch, whether it's from closed to open or vice versa.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
BACK TO MICROSOFT. Take Independence Air, a low-cost Washington (D.C.) carrier that had been running the reservation system on its Web site with Linux. The company, which uses Microsoft's Windows operating systems in most other pieces of its business, needed to hire consultants who could write code for Linux, since its Windows developers couldn't.
What can 'Windows developers' do? Use a mouse?
And if this statement is to do with the code running on a web server (Apache, I presume), then even more so I feel they hired the wrong 'developers' to begin with.
Just more FUD - move along.
No, the biggest danger of lock-in is the "We can't go forward [because either or vendor is out of business or they're trying to bleed us dry now that they've got us hooked]." Free Software mostly eliminates those problems, because there's always a new vendor that can take over the management of your current technology.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
All aspects of business can suffer this fate. It is not as much a software problem then a "We've spent the money, try and get something back with/from it" problem. Everything a business does costs money so everything can suffer this, even free open source software. You've confused gratis free and libre free.
Happy Noodle Boy says "F###ing doughnut! Mock me? You fried cyclops!!"
I suspect the company quoted in the article had a lot of developers who knew what they liked and liked what they knew. The idea of learning a new OS and new APIs didn't really appeal to them, so they just said "we can't do it!" and went off to hire new people.
I dunno. The other theory sounds more likely - Linux is competing very well with older UNIX based installations but isn't attacking the low end server market as well as it could (ASP compatibility?). And desktop is still at the "we're starting to take this seriously" stage rather than "mass deployment every week" stage.
I read somewhere that this study was itself funded indirectly by Microsoft, but who knows. The survey data seems credible. That said a reduction in the number of groups who said they were planning to evaluate it dropping a bit doesn't necessarily mean growth is slowing. Maybe it just means a lot of them got around to it? ;)
Once DRM becomes mandated on all PC hardware, who in the OSS community will be able to afford to be 'certified'. Not many..
At that point only the 'big boys' will be able to play..
Microsoft has a *lot* of money in the bank, and can afford to be very patient on regaining their domination..
---- Booth was a patriot ----
in that order. You can make the numbers say anything with sufficient qualifications. Oh, and it's only in the US, not world-wide. Read the article carefully. It doesn't mean Linux adoption on a per user basis is slowing, as I read it, the growth rate of new companies using it is slowing. Hardly time to get out the black armbands..
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
If the problem is the hidden-yet-growing costs of consultants, I think we can solve this by
1. Outsource consulting to India.
2. Due to labor shortage, India re-outsources back to us
3. ????
4. Profit!
Well just because the growth is slowing doesn't mean that its not still growing. The HPs and IBMs of the world already are using Linux, but the smaller businesses aren't really leading the way with Linux. At my company ( about 500 employess ) we are just this year using Linux for some servers, and I know several other companys that are just starting to use Linux too. So even though these companys are small, as machines age more and more of them will be replaced, and more and more of them are being replaced with something other than Microsoft. Maybe it won't happen overnight, but it will happen none the less.
It can just mean that linux is normalizing. People are not able to hype it anymore to get it into a company. This can be the best thing, since where it gets in, it will stay, and that way slowly gain market share.
My wife's sketchblog Blob[p]: Gastrono-me
These statements are skewed to show that Independence Air's Linux deployment cost too much in consultant fees, and therefore Linux is "expensive" to deploy in comparison to Windows. But they really say no such thing. Independence Air's problem was not its Linux deployment, but the fact that it chose to deploy a small part of their infrastructure without in house knowledge. They already had hired a Windows skill base, and therefore the comparison in utility between their Windows skillset for the entire Windows deployment against a small Linux deployment was bound to come out poorly for Linux. One sees savings with Linux in scale, not individually. Deploy hundreds of hosts and you'll save huge. Deploy a few hosts to drive a small piece of corporate infrastructure and not only will the savings be marginal, but you may have to hire external help to support the deployment.
So. Don't deploy Linux for small tasks if you're already heavily invested in an alternate technology. Duh. But to claim poor savings across the board as a result of this anecdote is simply stupid. With in house Linux (or UNIX) personnel and a large deployment - of course you'll save big. Which is why the UNIX houses have dumped commercial UNIX desktops for Linux. And why so many have dumped all their small UNIX servers for Linux (and BSD) on Intel. Because it's cheap. Very cheap (and cost effective). --M
The point is: Many companies say they're not switching or thinking about switching, and many of these same companies have no idea that they use this stuff. The people being asked are not necessarily the ones who know. And as I've shown, not only at my employer's company, but also at some other places I've moonlighted for as a poor-man's IT consultant of sorts, many functions can be switched over to Linux to gain higher robustness. The servers running this stuff can be in a closet somewhere. I install everything, back it up, turn it on, and then they forget that it exists, because it Just Works (tm).
So I'm not too sure that these survey results are meaningful.
Only 7% of outfits with no Linux servers plan to add some over the next year.
Can we safely assume that we are approaching the limit of diminishing returns, all those who are amicable to convert, have already done so.
Also, this doesnt mean Linux is slowing/stopping. Companies with some servers would definitely go forward with more, thus growing the overall Linux implementations.
It's really quite simple: the first derivative of linux use (growth) is positive, but the second derivative (acceleration) is negative. Let's just all hope that the third derivative is positive.
This time we are looking at a more indirectly sponsored study by Microsoft. You might want to look up who is behind SG Cowen & Co. LLC and you'll see they are largly owned by Société Générale, a large French bank that is one of the major investors of Microsoft.
Sorry, but as everyone knows Linux is gaining market share very rapidly. Nice try...
And now, we see that it has come to pass mere hours after that appeared on Slashdot!
I guess the Second Coming is happening tomorrow.
Java servlets? Java is Java is Java. Perl is, well, Perl.
What does that leave? Well, ASP. asp2php and other conversion tools help, but that would need new skills. MySQL and PostgreSQL are different from Access and SQL Server, but the GUI managers out there are plenty good.
There's the business of configuring Apache, but there are GUI tools for that, too. In fact, between the excellent stand-along GUI tools you can get off Freshmeat, that come with Fedora, or are provided with Webmin, I can't think of much you can't do with Linux in a purely graphical context.
This means that when people complain that Linux isn't "friendly enough", what they really mean is that they're determined not to like it, that when they complain they can't use it, what they really mean is that they don't want to.
There's nothing wrong with choosing not to like something, but it is better to be honest about the fact that it often IS a choice and not something intrinsic about the target.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
Try getting a job with a company that wants someone with a Unix programming background and tell them you have experience programming for Windows or VMS or some other non-Unix OS. Do you think they might be asking for that experience for a reason?
Try the reverse. Try landing a job doing Windows programming when you've only had Unix/Linux experience. Again, do you think they might be asking for that experience for a reason?
They say their survey shows reduce interest in Linux
... statistically zero.
in North American Companies
that have not deployed Linux.
But they don't state their error margin.
http://www.resolutions.co.nz/sample_sizes.htm
So, given those numbers, unless shown otherwise, the difference between the two surveys is
But that doesn't get the big headlines, so they play up the difference between the two surveys because people don't know enough about surveys and statistics to know that there might not be as big a difference as is claimed.
As you noted, the REAL question is: What is the adoption rate doing? And we won't know that until a year from now. Even a 1% gain a year means that, eventually, every company except Microsoft and Sun will be running Linux.
And even then, we'd need to know the error margin to know whether there is a statistically valid increase or decrease.
Wow! What is with this story submission? The title on /. would suggest that the Linux growth is slowing. The only thing the article stated was that the rate of new companies testing Linux solutions was slowing.
The last line of the article sums it up nicely:
The prior paragraph also states that Linux server sales were up 35.2% for first quarter 2005, and that was the 11th consecutive quarter of double digit growth.
the_crowbarHave you read the Moderator Guidelines
When you ask from a company about what systems they are using, they will give (if they will give such information) out an number which consists of systems are actively maintained server or desktop systems or other systems which cause expenses.
If the system doesn't cost anything extra, it doesn't exist in those numbers. Hence, all test and development environments don't show up in these numbers. In many cases the company doesn't even want to give out any information on what platform they are developing their products on - or then the people in the management see them only as "pc" expenses, and draw an conclusion that it must be also an windows box.
The *required* cost of using Linux in the workplace is, of course, $0. Just hire people who've been using it for years and you don't have this big scary learning curve. They, like any other long-term OS user, knows how to manage the version stream and keep focused at the same time. Except with Linux, there's no other costs. It's free.
The way it actually gets to cost something is driven by a market. The question isn't how much free Linux costs. The question is how much Windoze-imitation Linux costs. Companies who are accustomed to shelling out big bucks for Windoze will shell out just a bit less for anything else that does the job and call it a win.
So of course, for many things, Linux does the job.
And then there's RedHat to charge just a bit less.
That's all it takes to bring Linux TCO up to Windows range. I've seen it happen, with my very own eyes. I've even seen a company pay *more* for Linux than Windoze.. *and be happy with it* because Linux is higher performance for many server applications.
"Unbelievable!" I thought. But it's the market and the expectations that set it up.
No matter that you can d/l and install Fedora to do just the same job in less the time than it takes to call a RH consultant to get even a quote. You just shout "Risk! Risk! Risk!" enough and you get your IT department a fat budget and get to wear a Linux T-Shirt.
It's like saying A bird in hand is better than two in the bush. "Sure we could all become Linux experts, but maybe we'd fail!"
Businesses understand and practice outsourcing intelligence all the time. That's their bird in hand.
That's really not true, you know. If Sun stopped supporting Star/OpenOffice, or the guys at MySQL gave up and went home, I'd give you great odds that it would pretty much kill future development of the corresponding product as well, open source or not. You might get the occasional bug fix or minor patch, but that's probably it.
The harsh reality is that just because you've got the source code to something doesn't mean you can instantly be an expert in how it's been designed and all the little things that were learned along the way, nor competent to continue development as if you were the original dev team. This has nothing to do with being open source; classical closed source businesses have been facing this dilemma as a matter of HR management for as long as there's been software development. Moreover, even a relatively weak dev team doing this stuff professionally usually generates better documentation than most F/OSS projects seem to, and there's usually more continuity even if some of the original development staff leave.
Open source projects that are widely distributed in more than one version by somewhat independent groups -- in other words, Linux -- are a good bet for future-proofing. Open source projects that are widely distributed in only one version with only a few core developers -- in other words, pretty much everything else, including the other big names -- are not good bets. In fact, if future-proofing is your biggest concern, the most robust option is to get it written in-house, with an emphasis on good documentation and testing procedures, and with solid management overseeing the work. Failing that, you might well be better off going with something provided by a megacorp that employs vast numbers of developers and has vast financial reserves.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I've heard this argument a lot, and yet... At the hourly cost of employing most guys at the office where I work (mostly developers, and a few tech support/sales guys), the amount my employer pays for a Windows licence is worth a little over an hour. Office is a couple more, and Visual Studio a couple more. Since there's a very good chance that someone in the office will know how to do just about anything with those key products, ongoing support costs are close to nil.
In other words, even if we were all instantly and permanently as productive with Linux and a Linux-based office suite and development tool, and they also required no ongoing support costs because we could pretty much do it all ourselves, the most switching to Linux would save my employer is the cost of a day of my time. It would take that day just to set the new system up.
Now, there are many UNIX fans at the office where I work, and we all know at least the basics since we develop for several UNIX-ish platforms, including Linux. Even so, I don't for an instant believe we'd be as productive using the Linux-based tools (which we're free to do if we want, but almost no-one does, even the Linux fans).
In summary: this is an office full of technically competent people with no particular love of Microsoft and a certain fondness for Linux, and yet I can't make a genuine case for switching on cost saving grounds. Unless I'm missing some major financial consideration, that pretty much kills the argument for other offices without either the technical expertise or the Linux fans dead. So where are the big savings I keep being told about coming from?
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
Selected excerpts:"A" report "suggests" it's about to slow. Windows growth is zero, but Linux growth in 500 corporation buyers, limited to those who a) plan on buying new servers, and b) plan on having Linux installed, may slow to 7% growth.
Have all the companies that began adopting stopped or reversed adoption entirely?But not these guys, apparently.
So this guy says. If anything, it shows where those marketing Linux-based solutions aren't reaching out to customers with other needs. Linux does a fine job as a low- to mid-range file and print server, document-server and company intranet web-app server. That's about as easy a drop-in replacement that you can get. However, thinking is required.
Who are these companies, and what do they do? How did they implement it? Where is the report with cited sources to back up this statement?
Ouch! This seriously undercuts the credibility of MS-certification, since this crew doesn't seem to know how to read. Of course there will be greater costs during the switch, but will that remain at 70% above the current costs forever? Also, this is an anti-argument for Microsoft, because this same company is obviously going to have a hard time dealing with the API changes coming in Longhorn. If anything, this message is: "It will cost a lot more to move away from a Microsoft solution if you buy into it, and your applications won't be portable to other platforms. Microsoft can't grow with your business, and you'll be stuck with them!"
This guy works for MS marketing strategy. Did we really need to quote him? Also, his statments contradict the concessions made by the author of the article. Who is right?
It hasn't? Linux has been the platform on which to build a "super"-computers with commodity hardware. It's also a popular platform for serving massive loads in heavily-used websites. It can do more. The author also fails to point out that Microsoft, despite its major marketing effort to get Windows into the "data center", is encountering resistance. Let me put this forth: If operating systems such as Solaris and AIX are in the "data center", and Linux is replacing UNIX, where is Linux going?
Fred
"A fool and his freedom are soon parted"
-RMS
I'm tempted to say 'point and click' my arse, but might it might give you the wrong idea :)
Yes on the surface in some areas Linux might look a bit like a GUI spatchcock, but its heart is golden, engendered by thirty years of evolution and stress testing, windoze has nowhere near the pedigree.
We live in a black box society where people think all that is necessary, is to have the correct label for everything and to know which button to press. There has the inherent danger in this process, of dumbing everyone down.
Truth to tell, it is not about UNIX Linux or Micro$oft, it is about open source versus closed source, this has nothing to do with GUI/CLI.
Read the man (Richard Stallman)
It's called an elephant's trunk whereas it is in fact, an elephant's nose, a nose by any other name would smell as sweet
I'm looking at this right now at work. I've been a long-term Debian and occasional FreeBSD user, so I'm new to a lot of the considerations involved. If anyone can point out any misunderstandings or inaccuracies it would help readers and perhaps allow me to make more informed decisions as well.
We have a large number of desktops (numbered in four digits) across a large number of sites (numbered in three digits). When you get to this point, the idea of a free OS isn't quite the issue. Sure, it's nice that you can pop in the RHEL (Red Hat Enterprise Linux) or Fedora CDs and get a functional desktop. Automated hardware detection is good when anything other than a preconfigured, flawlessly automated installation simply isn't an option. This is something that Fedora has covered, as do many other free distributions.
However, where Fedora falls short is remote management -- obviously you can update a single machine easily, but imagine having several thousand identical systems to update in a secure and timely manner.
Add the fact that when there's nobody at an installation site capable of fixing problems should they arise you need a way to test new packages and updates prior to deployment. What is needed is a way to set up groups of machines in such a way that you can push software out to them easily in a controlled manner. Set up a testing lab, for instance, and test new software in the labs before risking a breakage in remote settings. Then, when you've tested, push updates out easily, and offer rollback support if something unexpected happens.
This is the state of what Red Hat Network allows you to do (at least with their highest level of support), all via a web-based tool. You can even delegate administrative access to subsets of machines to given administrators. They promise a stable distribution, even to the extent that APIs and ABIs of provided software will not change. This is something not promised under Fedora.
RHEL clones exist, but they do not allow access to the administrative features that the Red Hat Network provides. Nor are they supported by vendors -- if your SAN is supported under RHEL and doesn't work under RHEL, you can complain to the vendor until they fix it. If your SAN is supported under RHEL and doesn't work under CentOS, there's little you can do.
Windows allows system management like this through a product called Systems Management Server. Unsupported Linux distributions don't offer the features, and they don't offer this level of guaranteed API/ABI stability and vendor support.
Yes, you can do without support. However, when you're dealing with application vendors who expect to have a known set of installed software, it's much easier when everyone is on the same page. (This is a pain when it comes to JREs required by Windows apps -- everyone wants a different version, and if you don't have enough pull with the vendor to get them to support what you've got rolled out, you're stuck rolling out yet another JRE).
Cheap software means nothing if you can't tailor your environment to your needs, including deployment, testing, and administration on a wide scale. That's why companies pay for Red Hat support and subscriptions -- because of the management tools and guaranteed support you don't get with Fedora or CentOS.
I'm ignoring Novell here entirely, by the way, but they do offer similar features. They just can't seem to make up their minds whether to push open products or ones based on NetWare. Their interoperability is wicked, but they also like to push their consulting services so it's hard to find direct information much of the time.
Finally, Red Hat's desktop stance is quite unclear. Novell is pushing the hell out of Windows migrations, but they are short on details such as pricing and return on investment (except pushing products such as ZENworks, which is similar in function to the RHN stuff I've described). You can't get any information on Windows-to-Red Hat migrations either -- all of the Red Hat case studies are UNIX-to-
Somebody get that guy an ambulance!