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Will Novell's Desktop Linux Catch On?
Laura writes "Novell says its newly released Suse Linux Enterprise Desktop 10(SLED) can replace Windows for the average office worker. But will enterprises embrace a widespread migration from Windows?" From the article: "The desktop market is a very mature market, and Microsoft has a very strong presence there, which makes it hard for customers to move off [...] However, Jeff Jaffe, executive vice president and chief technology officer at Novell, said at the SLED 10 launch Thursday he is fairly confident that if enterprises have a chance to kick the tires of the new desktop OS, mass migration from Windows is soon to follow."
Bloomington North High School is piloting about 120 linux machines in their school running NLD, Linspire and Edubuntu. 700 students are using them. The Bloomington Linux Users Group is helping them by providing support.
Dell has started offering it on their website, maybe it will catch on. People need to be able to try before they buy, so they can see how it works, then it might catch on. There is a link to do this, but most people would rather not have to install it to try it.
I don't know where you can try Linux in a retail outlet, but it would help convince people to buy it if they could, IMHO.
He who knows best knows how little he knows. - Thomas Jefferson
I have to disagree. $500 Dell desktop has windows costs built in.
BTW, I live in a country where everybody - and I mean *everybody* - uses pirated copies of windows. I yet have to meet a home user that has all licenses for windows and office software. Many "tech guys" make their living by instaling pirated copies of windows.
When I say "no, I don't work with windows", people are amazed at me. Then, when I show my Ubuntu laptop, they are truly puzzled. Then, I tell them the advantages of security, updates and such, and they are fished.
What about a huge selection of free software, unmatchable security features, beautiful customization of the desktop and themes (that Windows XP is definitively lacking), out-of-the-box support for their hardware (like when you plug in your camera and get pictures with gphoto2, without having to install the camera's CD).
PDF export in OpenOffice, tab navigation in firefox, and so on... That features I use to sell Open Source to people which has no clue.
I think that when you show them the advantages above, they are willing to try it out. With a good explanation, you can make a change. I know it doesn't work like this for everybody, but I have a good rate of success.
If Novell is lauching SLED 10 with its Xgl extension, this will be another feature to show off and attract users that are easily impressed by this kind of eye candy.
In my humble opnion they are in the right path.
find -name "*base*" -exec chown us {} \; ; ln -s
Why would they want the state of the desktop to change? It works. Linux, in a lot of the same ways, doesn't for the average user. There's definitely a larger learning curve (yes even for Ubuntu). Most people are simply not willing to have to learn new stuff when the old way works fine and is cheap enough.
Judges and senates have been bought for gold; Esteem and love were never to be sold.
Ubuntu may very well move to replace windows in the home. The big problem with replacing windows in the work place is the lack of competition for active directory. Novell is in a prime location to start replacing windows in the SMB market. If they release a Linux targeted version of E-Directory for free (preferably open source) they could start gaining market share. They should face the fact that Microsoft users are not going to migrate en-mass to E-Directory and concentrate on the Linux market and interoperability with AD and OD. Making one directory service for all computers is a pipe dream different systems have different requirements. Meeting all requirements for all systems makes for an incredibly complicated and convoluted platform. The learning curve for such a system is too great for power users. Considering power users manage most of the computer systems for small businesses; making a one size fits all directory does not make sense.
"I myself am made entirely of flaws, stitched together with good intentions."
The true cost of Windows is much more than ~$10, for both user and vendor.
For vendor, the true cost far exceeds ~$10 because of support. Hordes of people call vendor tech support lines because of problems with Windows, whether such problems are viruses, spyware, or other operating system defects.
For user, the true cost far exceeds ~$10 because one typically must factor in the cost of antivirus, perhaps antispyware too. Not to mention the time spent dealing with these programs, or time spent dealing with spyware and virus infections. Oh, and that doesn't include the cost of whatever proprietary software you'll need to get Windows to do anything truly useful.
Windows costs much more than ~$10, which is a long, long way from being "effectively free."
Penny - plain text accounting
Dell might be saying that they want only one "major" distribution is horse hockey. In many, many conversations with IBM and HP, both those vendors want the opposite. They want two major distributions that have full enterprise support. Novell/SUSE as one (see IBM investment in Novell) and Red Hat as the other. Why do they want this? Because they don't want another Microsoft. They want to encourage standards, competition, and hardware upgrades. They can't do this if everyone runs the OS of the year from Microsoft. They can do this if everyone runs either SUSE Linux, Red Hat Linux, or Microsoft. Doing that creates lots of churn for them to take advantage of when trying to sell boxes equipped with the latest bells and whistles.
As far as Umbuntu... I don't know what to tell you. Most of my customers (anywhere from 100 users in a local township to 30,000 users at a Fortune 100 company) won't install software X on OS Y on hardware Z unless it's 100% supported and certified by both vendors. Problem with Umbuntu is, as far as I know, no major software or hardware companies are doing that. That alone will put the screws to Umbuntu. At Novell/SUSE, our biggest challenge (and our biggest success) has been getting third party companies like Intel, Dell, HP, IBM, Oracle, PeopleSoft, BEA, etc. to certify our OS as a platform that they will support. Check to see if the app you want is supported here http://developer.novell.com/yessearch/Search.jsp. Without a company behind Umbuntu, getting that kind of support is going to be impossible. And, as we all know, without supported software, no one will use your distro.
That's just my opinion... I certainly could be wrong.
See... and you thought your sig was boring - TT
Novell has a long history of not being able to get out of its own way. From the bumbling days of DR-DOS after they acquired it from Digital Research, to the "Univel SuperNOS" project (brilliant idea -- they were going to fuse together Netware and Unix -- and they simply abandoned the project and let Microsoft eat their market), to their latest move of letting Ximian take over SuSE (let's be realistic here, that's how it ended up happening), there just doesn't appear to be anyone over there who knows how to actually execute a plan and drive technology into marketable products.
So what's going to happen? My guess would be that the new technology like Xgl and its associated compositing managers etc. will find their way into the pool of open source software, and then someone like Ubuntu will drive it into a slick, easy to install, easy to use desktop that people will actually want to use.
And then when Novell's revenues continue to slide, even these technologies will lose their staffing, when the next round of layoffs will cut those who are not working on products and services that directly generate revenue. Seriously, the whole Novell organization ought to be divested and sold off as pieces to other companies who can work with the products and services that still have some value.
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