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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.
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.
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.
Training, new techs who understand linux, firing all the MCSA who can't cope with the new OS. Conversion of existing programs or switching to linux compatible ones. All those cost money (well except firing the MCSA monkeys) which might explain the high initial costs.
Support costs money.
Indeed it does. Until MS nuts realize that MS products need support as well, this arguement is not valid.
This sig is definitive. Reality is frequently inaccurate.
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!
Maybe both sides should stop throwing around generalizations and anecdotal evidence and find an impartial, quantitative comparison of support costs for the two operating systems when performing similar tasks.
There is another way to look at it. I am sure there are more MCSEs out there than linux admins because of the way they are churned out. The MCSEs may know nothing, but they are probably good enough to do some basic point and click with the GUI. Keeping that in mind a linux admin who is probably far more competent is more expensive.
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
I'm sick and tired of "My os is cheaper than your os because yadda yadda yadda"
It's all about opportunity cost: What do you give up by running this OS?
The business might save $120M a year by switching to Linux from IBM, but if that translates into $1B loss of profits in three years, then Linux was not the right choice.
Likewise if a business spends $10M/year on windows systems and nets $100M/year in profits, and they could spend $12M/year on Linux (better admins, yadda^3) but generate $400M in net earnings, Linux would be the better solution, even though it would cost 2 million dollars more per year than windows.
How I sell management on linux: The business will make more money, and have a higher profit margin. Once the numbers make sense, they'll go borrow the cash to transition if they have to, but it will happen, guaranteed.
And Japanese businessmen didn't build the second largest economy in the world by forgetting the bottom line.
"Piter, too, is dead."
Actually, as I stated in the post - and as detailed in the linked news - Japan is behind the US in adoption of open source OS and software by business.
Now, perhaps they're ahead of us on the residential adoption - I couldn't say.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
It probably has something to do with Linux distros still not providing a very smooth Japanese localization.
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).
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).