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Novell Expects Vista to Spur Linux Adoption
It doesn't come easy writes "According to the Register, Novell expects the cost of upgrading to Vista will encourage many companies to turn to Linux instead. From the article: 'Jack Messman, chief executive of networking software vendor Novell says that 2006 will see widespread adoption of Linux on the corporate desktop. According to Messman the catalyst will be the release of Microsoft Windows Vista and the high costs associated with upgrading. Obviously, if they're right Novell hopes that turn will be toward SUSE Linux.'" We touched on this issue late last month, as well.
With the lack of licensing problems a company can just make thousands of copies of a hard drive to be put in the company's desktops and say goodbye to a 3 week wait to get a crashed computer back up. (Assuming they use a standard computing platform throughout the company.)
Marky Mark Killed Jason Bourne!
Its not like Linux has a billion versions for each distro of Linux, they have versions that make sense, and fit the needs of the end user. What if Red Hat had: Red Hat Home Users, Red Hat Professional Home Users, Red Hat For Porn Users, yada yada... People wont know what the hell they are getting!! But besides all that, Im happy to say that the Linux community has made some major breakthroughs lately with such vast compatibility ports to many commercial products used today for those who are "stuck" on Windows Desktops.
Just me
"Jack Messman, chief executive of networking software vendor Novell says that 2006 will see widespread adoption of Linux on the corporate desktop."
Just like 2005, 2004, 2003, 2002, 2001...
The real problem is (still) lack of applications and games. My home PC can't switch until Dreamweaver and Photoshop run on Linux. My office PC can't switch until Quickbooks and VersaCheck run on Linux. Honestly, I've seen more Windows->Mac and Linux->Mac migrations than anything else these past few years... and little to no evidence that shows that Linux is gaining popularity on desktop PCs, other than these "wishful thinking" articles from Linux company CEOs.
Something else to think about: The upgrade cost to Vista, for most companies, is effectively $0 because it comes with new PCs. Contrast this with yearly application updates for Photoshop, Quickbooks, anti-virus, anti-spyware, et al. which can run thousands of dollars. Microsoft isn't the only cost center on a typical PC; in fact, I'd say they're one of the smallest costs involved with a typical office PC.
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The problem with this view is that with big deployments, the Microsoft "price per seat" is always negotiable, especially when you bring a possible Linux migration into the equation. In fact we have seen this: XYZ government or company makes noise about moving to Linux, and Microsoft simply negotiates a lower price. When migration cost is the key issue, Microsoft has the upper hand. However, when other issues such as "open standards" are the issues, Microsoft can't compete. The problem is not selling lower TOC, it'' selling the benefits of "open standards". It's too bad that many Linux "evangelists" frame Linux migration arguments in the context of ideology, because governments and companies are rarely interested in these things, they have budgets to meet and people to serve.
"Who are in control, they are not in control of anything - they don't even control themselves!" - Glen Beck
In reading the posts I'm seeing extremes of the continuum: those who say yes, this is finally the straw that bows the camel's back; and those who say, yeah, like they said last year, and the year before, blah, blah, blah.
I think reality is somewhere in between. Yes, Microsoft continues to hold sway in their dominance and yes, every time they make a new release (less and less often, by the way) the silence of people rushing to linux is deafening.
But there is ample evidence of chinks in Microsoft's armor and a soft underbelly starts to show. Consider the high profile of large customers lately deciding to at least pressure Microsoft by making public their decision or pseudo-decision to go with open source alternatives (consider MA, and some foreign countries).
Historically no company can dominate forever, and eventually I think critical mass will be achieved and linux will gain the foothold and purchase it probably deserves. At least I hope so. I used to be gungho in my knowing linux would waltz over Microsoft but I know better now. It's more complicated, and Microsoft is a juggernaut and will be difficult to knock from the top of the hill.
Be patient, be faithful, Linux has legs and is learning to walk.
Most people will just go out and buy a whole new computer with the operating system pre-installed though.
I use linux daily and enjoy it, but is it really ready for your standard mom-and-pop windows users anyways?
Touched By His Noodley Appendage.
Hell's bells - trusted monitor - are you serious? I can't believe what people would put up with.
Oh well, what the hell...
However, what is so special about this upgrade to Vista compared to when the whole upgrade-o-rama for XP and 2000 respectivly? Since a good portion of Vista features are being backported to XP, this is even less of an incentive to upgrade.
I'm the guy with the unpopular opinion
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Do yourself a favour, and download GNUstep and learn Objective-C. Use a language with real introspection built in, and not some horrible hacked-on incompatible version added by a toolkit. As an added bonus, you get source-compatibility with OS X, so your apps will look and feel like native Mac apps if you put a couple of hours into porting them. There's also been a lot of progress made with the Windows port of GNUstep recently, so you retain Windows compatibility.
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