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Penguin Not Taking Flight Down Under
Bill Bennett writes "New Zealand Reseller News reports that Linux adoption down under is three times lower than North America. From the article: 'Adoption of open source software is slow in the Australasian region according to a report from analyst firm Forrester. Only 18% of the businesses in Australia and New Zealand surveyed for the report were using Linux, while 11% were considering its use. Analyst Sam Higgins says the low rate - three times lower than North America - is because open source is caught between two worlds. He says customers have been conditioned to buy software from vendors and their approved partners.'"
He says customers have been conditioned to buy software from vendors and their approved partners.
Who would have thought there'd be sheep in New Zealand?
Seriously, if they want to waste their money, I guess it's good for me. Less competition.
Linux is a subset of OSS
The article pretty much uses OSS & Linux interchangeably, which isn't the case.
Anyways, with that in mind, what exactly does the author mean by "Trojan Horse"?
[Fuck Beta]
o0t!
Over 50% of companies in North America are using Linux? Does this count companies that have someone who checks Slashdot once a day as 'using Linux?' Can anyone substantiate this rather surprising claim?
Maybe sh**ty download links from Bigpond Telestra - during the peak open source adoption phase - had something to do with it?
Try and download an ISO without local mirrors in Sydney?
"Speaking the Truth in times of universal deceit is a revolutionary act." -- George Orwell
According to wikipedia it seems that this isn't exactly a recent problem, penguins have been flightless for over 40 million years...
I have found that the adoption of Open Source software directly ties into the amount of money that a SMB is likely to make. For example in the UK, adoption is probably among the highest. However, SMB's are wortha bout 25% of their counterparts across the pond. In Austrailia the same holds true, SMB's are typically of higher value. Therefore, adoption of Open Source software is less. I know that there are exceptions to this rule, and some very wealthy companies use Open Source software, but 80% will follow this rule.
If it's anything like it is in South Africa, there will be a strong perception that "Windows is for serious professionals on the cutting edge, other OSes are for everybody else."
Notwithstanding that Ubuntu (the word, the concept and the distro) originates in South Africa.
Nevermind....
"I'm a snake if we disagree"-Jethro Tull, Bungle in the Jungle
Well, using statistics, those companies do not have to be surveyed to be represented in the overall statistics. How many people watch the Super Bowl? I have never been asked if I did, yet they know. The wonder of Standard Deviations and Representative samples!
When I was in Australia a few years ago, I found that internet penetration simply wasn't as good as Canada. Sure, the major cities were well connected, but many of the smaller ones suffered from absolute shitty service, connectios, availability, prices, or any combination thereof. Even in the cities the prices weren't all that great. Hell, dialing a local number by landline still costs per call (which really sucks for dialup especially when crappy connection=random disconnects).
Open-soure in my mind often tends to depend a lot on a decent connection to the 'net. Downloading CD ISO images, installing packages/updates from apt/etc, downloading packages or source files, reading online documentation, etc.
It could be that "down under" is simply being hindered by a case of lacking resources, mainly comparatively crappy internet service.
f you take two separate monkey clans and observe their behavior, you will find that once a certain number of one clan starts doing something specific (like washing food in a stream before consumption), that the second group, without any contact with the first group will also start doing the same thing automatically. It is called critical mass, and it explains why it takes a long time for something to initially occur, but once a certain number of monkeys start doing it that it automatically spreads to other unrelated monkey clans (of the same species).
Interesting, but obviously impossible.
Religion for nerds. Stuff that really matters
A guy I used to know developed a product in Australia, and could not sell the product or the business to anyone.
So he moved his family and business to America. Some 3 years later the product was being sold by his American company to Australians, amongst others, and his business was purchased by one of the bigger companies for $US 20 million.
Then he and his family moved back to Australia.
It seems for some stupid reason that Australian businesses want to buy products from overseas companies, America being a popular choice. It also seems that obviously they don't want "free" stuff, because there's "no such thing as a free lunch" down-under. As a culture, we are wary of gotchas, too much for our own good. I believe it to be nothing more than an over-cautious approach to new things without obviously proven major backing.
I'm interested in hearing other peoples' takes on this...
If the monkey clans don't have any contact, how is it explained that the second group seems to be copying the first group ? Is it behaviour that would just be expected to evolve independantly by each group just due to monkey psychology ?
Or more likely that there is contact (visual of the stream at least), it's just that the researchers didn't see it....
But what happens if you the standard deviations don't float your boat? What happens if you only like non-standard deviations?
Good, inexpensive web hosting
I am not a manual I am a human being! - The distress call of the TechSupport Badger
New Zealand has a very large number of very small companies. It's much more common for companies to "outsource" things like email, webhosting etc. and, generally speaking, not bother with servers at all. Of course 90% of the people that provide these services do it on Linux boxes but, of course, they don't show up in the stats.
Dave
I write a blog now, you should be afraid.
They have pills for that now.
A phenomenon that has been debunked. Check the following articles in the Skeptical Inquirer: "The Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon" and "Watson and the Hundredth Monkey Phenomenon," by Ron Amundson, SI, Summer 1985, pp. 348-356; and SI, Spring 1987, pp. 303-304.
I work for a largish reseller/supplier/hosting and support services IT
company in Australia.
The slow roll out of Linux in Australia I believe is directly
attributable to two things:
1) IT staff are not trained to support this "new" beast in the market,
and if not trained can not offer support.
2) the sales guys all think it's a load of "hippie love" and can't
understand how there can be any money made from it. Those that do
understand are very few and far between, but don't care anyway because
the proprietary software sellers are offering larger bonus's for
selling their gear.
"Consider how lucky you are that life has been good to you so far. Alternatively, if life hasn't been good to you so far
I am seriously not surprised, everything is slow down here in Australia. The only environment I have seen OSS used widely is in university (UNSW).
I tried to convert my current workgroup from using Photoshop to GIMP, because seriously, we DON'T NEED Photoshop to adjust colour levels and crop images, but I was told that, no, we WILL use Photoshop because all softwares used at work require proper licenses. At which point I simply gave up trying to explain. Same with converting from IE to Firefox, although I have been more successful there, thanks to the unpatched IE flaws and nifty features in Firefox. The boss is still using Avant browser though, not believing me when I told him that the Avant browser is only as secure as IE.
Other trends down under:
Computers using AMD processors are still rare in major IT retailers, see www.ht.com.au and www.csw.com.au. Not so long ago, a colleague was looking at getting a PC and he was convinced that a 3 GHz Celeron must be better than an A64 3000+, since the latter only runs at 1.8/2.0 GHz!
Gadgets that have been out for months or even years overseas sometimes never even make it to Australia. I remember when I had to get a Shuttle XPC from overseas when the nForce2 version came out, because most shops have never even heard of Shuttle or SFF then. Of course, now they are pretty popular... but I am still crossing my fingers and hoping that Nokia 770 will make it down here soon.
Lastly, I think most Australian still don't realise that no WMD were found in Iraq, while the rest don't even realise we participated in the war...
Australia is small in comparison to the US and Europe - stating the obvious I know... But very relevant.
I work in IT for a Medium sized company - by Medium I mean 500 staff. I have 4 citrix servers, 1 file and print server and 1 database server and 1 exchange server. WIndows 2000 AD. I have an ISA server on the edge and a couple of PC's with server OS installed on it doing various little "things" inside the network.
We just got VMWARE ESX to try and get rid of the PC's.
The 3 main applications we use are Windows based... There is no alternative for 1 of them... we would have to write our own. We have no Linux skills internally - we would have to hire in or skillup. We have no money to spend on a large scale development project to give us the software we need to change over. We can't afford the duplicate hardware to allow the parallel running required to make the change over a smooth as possible.
Granted all this can be staggered BUT... I recently asked the owners of the company to give me $200 000 to put in a complete DR solution and they said no - without even considering it. Imagine asking for a million dollars to change the whole network over.... and they ask WHY? - and I say: Linux is a better philosophy for running a computer network, and we'll save money - HOW much? I don't know, but we will. HOW long will it take to see the savings? Years and years.
Somebody up the back is now mentioning the savings on license costs... Sure - if you were building a network for a brand new company this would be considerable - for an already establised MS shop, these costs are annoying yet manageable.
I am very impressed with Linux (the VMWARE ESX version anyway). I have played with Linux before and I knew there were things about it that were better than MS - but it's not until it's in production on enterprise level hardware that you really appreciate it's simplicity and robustness. And it doesn't crash - ever.
It's simple really - there are probably 200 companies in Australia that have 3000 staff or more (not counting government departments), of those 200 companies maybe half of them are doing something with Linux because they can AFFORD to - they have the budget and the staff.
All the rest of us struggle on with what we've got - and if what you've got works - and your $100 million a year in turn over company keeps making money - how do you justify the change?
Its quite easy. Read the article and read especially the fact that people want to buy. So first step is stopping to offer downloads for free and offer Linux in a box.
Next step is to look at whom you are targeting. The people in New Zealand have hardly ever seen a penguin in their life. So replace that Tux with a friendly looking Kiwi bird and you'll get much more attention from the people there.
I guess those 2 small steps will double the impact of Linux in New Zealand.
I think this quip goes back to at least Casablanca (1942). Almost as old as the original convict "joke".
United States of America: 24797 registered users, 86.73 users/Mpop
Australia: 2338 registered users, 120.90 users/Mpop
New Zealand: 687 registered users, 177.06 users/Mpop
A lot more Linux users per capita Down Under than Out West.
The Linux Counter has more.
My rule of thumb is that perhaps 1 out of 200 Linux users register with the counter - but there doesn't seem to be a reason for Australians to register in larger droves than the Americans.
Guess they just don't tell their bosses about it....
Get Counted!
You're not an evangelist, your a pragmatist. Welcome to the club. :)
Re: Linux/OSS uptake in AU, some of the fault lies in the education system that has it's head stuck in Microsoft butt (TM). As a TAFE teacher I find it annoying on a daily basis how closed minded higher level IT management is. It has been a real struggle encorporating linux/BSD into the curriculum for networking over the years I have been there. I believe in teaching a generic version of computer networking that can be applied to whatever OS you happen to be using. Unfortunately, this is not a view shared by everyone involved in teaching computer studies at the TAFE. I hear pro-Microsoft raves from teachers with an MSCE, or MCP and I cringe. I don't want no Microsoft, I want even exposure to a broad range of the OS software that is out there. I wish TAFE did too.
For all we know, 100% of all companies in Australia and New Zealand are using Linux and/or a *BSD for their web server, mail server, ftp server, print server(s), DNS/DHCP server, etc. The only ones of those you can test are the ones with a public interface, and I'll bet you anything you like that these market researchers don't have a copy of nmap handy, even to test those.
It is very hard to determine actual uptake of Linux, until it reaches a critical threshold of acceptability in a region, because it is so easy for it to stay under the radar.
For smaller companies, the bosses may well know about Linux installs but not want to admit to them, fearing looking bad or being perceived as cheap. Again, that's not going to change until Linux is deened acceptable enough. No sane boss is ever going to say something that puts their end-of-year bonus at risk.
Finally, on the results aspect, it also depends on how the question was asked. It is easy for studies to ask questions in a way that forces the response. If you answer a particular way three times in a row, you're likely to answer the same way on the fourth question without thinking about it. Studies are extremely difficult to do well. This is especially significant when someone with a vested interest in a result pays for the study, as it is (by the nature of the beast) extremely easy to ensure the results match what the sponsor wants to see.
(I don't believe a single study on the dangers of smoking, sponsored by a tobacco company, ever established even the remotest possibility of there being a connection between product and result. I've even seen surveys showing sugar isn't a factor in tooth decay... sponsored by sugar companies.)
The bit about trojan horses is indicative that there's something more to this than meets the eye. The implication is that people have been "gifting" companies with Open Source, only to slam them with high service charges, perhaps for maintenance or administration. (eg: a company might provide Linux servers and not pass on the license fee, but charge double for all technical support calls.) Either that OR the reader is supposed to believe that is the case.
The "trojan horse" is really just a play on Microsoft's "Total Cost of Ownership" attack on Linux, where Redmond accused the Penguin of being more expensive when all costs were factored in over time. I can't see Microsoft themselves going after a market that they'd barely notice even if it did switch overnight, but I'd be willing to bet that those sponsoring and/or running this study have read Microsoft's claims and phrased questions accordingly.
Sadly, I know of no country where manipulating market research constitutes conspiring to defraud. If anything, most countries seem to encourage deceptive use of market research to the point where it is simply not possible to trust any results that are produced, even though it is hazardous (in that you're not listening to the user's requirements) to not have such information. However, because it is statistical, such studies can always produce results anywhere in the distribution function, including the extreme tail end. The sample size is generally very small and the confidence limits are usually not stated, so there is nothing anyone can do to really fight the claims. All that can be done is to find a group with greater influence and get them to falsify - err, produce - a counter-claim.
Either that, or conduct a real, in-depth, self-vali
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)
The publically available summary of the research doesn't give much information on whom was surveyed. Perhaps the survey group was primarily composed of small businesses, which make up the largest number of enterprises here. Those businesses would likely not be using servers, which is where you'd expect to find more Linux users (cf. the desktop).
The survey aside, there are lots of companies using Linux in New Zealand (including yours truly). In a week's time we are hosting one of the three biggest Linux conferences right here in Dunedin. And even companies like Microsoft are making the most of Linux down here.
The end is perhaps not quite nigh.
--
One of those rare antipodean companies using Linux
Australia has the unfortunate tendency to blindly accept these imports - software being a significant and costly example. The so-called "Free Trade Agreement" codifies and enforces this disastrous situation (thankyou Mr Howard), right down to "fixing" our patent system and making our continent safe for US multinationals. The inevitable, if unmentionable, corollary is that local interests (such as the independent developer you mentioned) are completely compromised, as everyone knew they would be (hence the widespread protests).
Yet there are many talented Australians doing great work in Open Source. Thanks perhaps to its proximity to high-tech government and defense users, Canberra has produced many of the best known names in Linux and other free software projects - including Andrew Tridgell, Nick Piggin, and many others - and remains a hotbed of hardcore kernel hackers. In Victoria there are active Open Source representative groups and many intelligent supporters. However none of this has influenced public policy as much as one might hope.
Yes, much more activism and lobbying is going to be required to eject Microjunk from the default purchasing roster, and from the IT mindset. But I am not sure things are so much better in the US - perhaps the mindless M$-centric view has simply been all-too-successfully exported. Just one more indignity ensuing from a decade of Conservative rule. The destruction wrought by the Howard Government was a major factor in my belief that the country was hopelessly regressing, and my decision to leave Australia for a more progressive and much less US-centric society. If they ever get rid of that government, and restore egalitarian policies, maybe I'll go back.
you had me at #!
Australian management is very slow to respond to anything new. Unless it has proven fiscal success in America and/or Europe (preferably both!), they are just not interested.
Critical mass has a lot to do with this. Australian business simply can not afford to take economic risks for a marginal success. Seeing what works and what doesn't in larger population bases gives at least a basic idea about what should happen here.
Interest in technology or design/engineering concepts that are yet to be proven only seems to arrive because of a managerial import from America or Europe (CEO/CTO).
Lastly, on the point of OSS; I can't think of a single medium (or larger) business that I have been involved with that didn't use some sort of OSS. Chances are that most of the IT Managers in this survey are not aware of the open source nature of all of their applications or they surveyed many small business owners.
That being said, *nix on the desktop (even corporate desktop) is almost a joke in this country. Even if a business makes a economic decision to move to *nix, the reality of the situation here will quickly move them back into reality.
Microsoft is practically ubiquitous in homes around the country; even Apple is very rare. This has a direct effect on the expense on transitioning your workforce to a new operating system, chances are nobody you employ (other than your IT staff) have any experience with *nix.
A smaller, but longer term problem comes to human resources. People become more expensive to hire (you need to train them) and thus more costly to loose. This leads to a secondary effect of keeping people who are woeful to your business, simply because they know the system. It is a sorry state.
It will change, probably 5-10 years after the US/Euro, but then we will be behind somewhere else ...