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OSS in One-Fifth of Japanese Businesses
WillAffleck writes "According to a recent Infoworld article, one-fifth of all Japanese businesses now use Open Source operating systems. From the article: 'By contrast, 33 percent of U.S. companies have adopted open-source operating systems in at least some of their servers, MIC said. Among the companies polled by the MIC, 66 percent said open-source operating systems have low initial costs, while 47.8 percent said the software has low operating costs '"
Japan is behind the U.S. in OSS adoption? Or is the Japan 21 percent figure "exclusively use" and the America 33 percent figure "partially use"? This article is somewhat confusing.
"low initial costs" = free is cheaper than M$
That's arot.
Time to impose sanctions, we cant have Microsoft being run out of foreign markets, it is unfair competition.
Opps I am sorry, I had a momentary bout of insanity there
Talking to Geeks is like eating jello with a chainsaw, interesting, but painful.
This is the year 2005. Do Slashdotters really care about 20% of Japanese business using Linux? These would have have been impressive numbers in 1999.
Who cares if it's less than what the US has? Maybe if the numbers were *higher* than the US then I'd be interested. "Look, foreign companies are adopting Linux faster than American companies."
That's not the case. Move along.
BSD is really big in Japan. Good to see lots of open-source interest there.
66 percent said open-source operating systems have low initial costs
I can understand OSS having potentially high operating costs from failures and training, but how can you justify high initial costs for something that is free?
Almost 50% said the operating cost is low, while 66% said the initial cost is low. It's surprising that Microsoft's "open source has a more expensive TCO than Windows" obviously hasn't taken a firm hold... those numbers are fairly encouraging.
I store my recipes online (the way nature intended)
someone slap the editors with a cluestick please...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
In recent reports unprotected Windows boxes can have open source software* installed on them in less than 12 minutes.
* - Many viruses are open source either by design (VBS) or through reverse engineering.
...what garcia thinks!
The jerk store called...They're all out of YOU!
Must be mostly Apache or server side installs. I have yet to see any thing other than Windows/Mac OS on the desktop in the myriad of offices that I've have opportunity to visit.
66 percent said open-source operating systems have low initial costs, while 47.8 percent said the software has low operating costs
I'm curious what percentage said both initial costs and operating costs were low... I think putting companies into only one category leaves out a lot of information.
Need to read that headline. :( /me returns to C coding
Following to the recent article of Infoworld, 1 of 5 parts of all Japanese businesses now uses the open source operating system. From article: ' With contrast, 33 percent of U. S. The company their servers adopted the operating system of several opening sources at least, you called MIC. You voted between the company with MIC, while there is a low initial cost in the operating system of the opening source which is said by 66 percent, 47.8 percent say, there is a low-speed operating cost in the software
The m17n library allow you to view and type complex text languages like Indic, Arabic, Hebrew and other languages. While this is possible by using QT3.2+ & GTK2.0+pango, this restricted one to just 2 toolkits and to two heavyweight desktops(XFCE4 is the exception though). The library is also a good compromise between a toolkit dependent solution like pango/QT3.2 and Server based solutions like the doomed Indix and STSF.
The screenshots here show firefox and magicpoint, applications that use different toolkits displaying multilinugal texts. I have even seen but not used windowmaker rpms compiled with m17n support.
A very practical example would be something like Damn Small Linux, which is a pretty lightweight live CD in both disk size (~50 MB) and Memory usage (runs on 64 MB RAM). This was ideal for a school near my place that wanted to use it as a teaching resource but wanted it in their native language. I finally am settling for XFCE4 and GTK2 applications like OO.o, Firefox.
The keyboard solutions were too rudimentary, in the case of xkb for phonetic keymaps for indian languages or too buggy and complex, in the case of IIIMF. M17n was a joy to use from day one and rpms for Mandrake 10.1 & debs for Ubuntu/Debian unstable are available.
One-Fifth of Giant Robots run OSS!
Or at least that's the initial impression without doing the numbers. Reminds me of an old Dilbert:
Secretary: I can't believe it.
Boss: What?
Secretary: 40% of all sick days are on Monday and Friday.
Boss: What!?! Do they think they can really get away with that?
Secretary: No, they can do math.
The 21 percent figure includes BSDs.
Simple. Eat two hot Bangalore phaals a night for three consecutive days. Your back end will be more open and more sore than ever.
It probably has something to do with Linux distros still not providing a very smooth Japanese localization.
you fucking dumbass. OS X is built on BSD and what do you think the linux developers are? Daycare workers?
+5 moronic
Open Source Software is more than Operating Systems. What about companies (in the US and Japan) using MySql, Apache, Ethereal, etc...) Linux, BSD et al.. are great for companies to adopt, but the reality is the greatest infiltration of OSS will come from applications which can run on Windows.
One ring to bind them - should probably have more fiber and less rings in their diet.
The original article is INCREDIBLY MISLEADING! In fact, it makes me wonder if Paul Kallender knew what he was writing about./ eng/WP2005/eng_pressinfo3.pdf
Here is the bottom of it. 21.0 % of Japanese business currently use OSS for server, 7.6 % of Japanese business is planning to introduce OSS for server, 14.6 % of Japanese business is considering to introduce OSS for server. In the same white paper, they have the figures for USA and South Korea. According to the white paper, the figure in the US is 33.0 % currently use OSS server, 5.7 % is planning to use, and 20.6 % is considering to use. In South Korea, 21.0 % is currently using, 4.7 % is planning to use, and 12.9 % is considering.
If you don't believe me, you can read it yourself at (it's on the fourth page on this PDF): http://www.johotsusintokei.soumu.go.jp/whitepaper
In short, OSS use in Japan in server market is less than that of the US! Is this supposed to be a news? I don't think so!
I thought something was wrong when I saw the headline, as I never saw any OSS machines around when I used to work in Japan. In fact, everywhere I saw, I only saw Windows machines (not even Mac back in 2002).
Yesterday, our department (~1300 people) couldn't send or receive any emails, set up meetings or check their calendars for five hours due to problems with the MS Exchange server.
For starters, linux, Postgresql , and ODBC or .Net Data Provider for a database with M$ connectivity. Openldap, Samba, freeradius for your authentication / vpn needs.
...because Plutonians are teh suck
If I ever want to pee on a piece of shit designed by idiots who prioritize form over function, I'll get an Apple. By the way, paying $40 to see Quickcrap in full screen is a great idea! I'll be over here on Debian getting REAL work done instead of staring at bouncing and smoking icons and crapping myself about brushed metal and drop shadows.
one man's "foreign" is another man's "domestic"
For all the bad moderation on the parent comment at least this one has actual numbers to back up the original post.
So much for reading down in the tree huh mods?
I thought something was wrong when I saw the headline, as I never saw any OSS machines around when I used to work in Japan. In fact, everywhere I saw, I only saw Windows machines (not even Mac back in 2002).
As we all know, all Linux machines have giant neon signs on them, so they can be clearly identified, and servers are always conveniently located in the middle of reception areas, just to satisfy the needs of the curious OS geeks.
Not.
So, you don't like the article. So, as I stated in my summary, Japan has only 21 percent Open Source OS usage by business and the US has 33 percent Open Source OS usage.
It's all there in the summary. And in the linked story.
If you haven't seen Macs in Japan, when I have many friends who've seen them in businesses, then perhaps your sample size may be distorted by either area or randomness?
Statistics can be used for many things. But in the end they're just statistics.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
I've heard it from a reliable commentator that the Sharp Zaurus is the most popular PDA in Japan...
My own guess is probably due to the fact it comes with built-in Japanese-English dictionary/translation software (I don't speak Jp so I can't tell you anything about it, I blatted over my Japanese ROM with the Cacko distribution within hours of receiving it).The interesting thing is that the latest Zaurus, the SL-C3100, the successor to the C3000 (which was the first ever PDA with a built-in hard drive), is marked as FCC approved. Hopefully Sharp will bring the Zaurus back to the North American market sooner than later, to make up for pulling the much missed 6000L model (which they initially rebutted but later turned out to be effectively true when they disappeared from retail sellers like amazon).
No, I didn't RTFA, but I do work in Japan, as an engineer. I would say that perhaps 1/5 of all Japanese companies have at least one server running a flavor of Linux/BSD. But they certainly don't use it on the desktop (entirely M$) and not 1/5 of all servers are running Linux/BSD.
So that is certainly a misleading title, to say the least.
http://itpro.nikkeibp.co.jp/
They also have a site dedicated completely to OSS.
In other news, there was a thirty-minute report on OSS on the news after Bill Gates' Japan trip earlier this week (in which one of the newscasters said something to the effect of "Poor Gates, he must be worried").
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Right.