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How Open Source is Faring in Retail
SilentBob4 writes to tell us MadPenguin is running the first of two articles taking a look at the 'world of retail as Tux is experiencing it'. From the article: "Of the stores we visited, only Linspire Linux was sold pre-installed on computers in-store. Those FOSS boxes were often among the store's best volume sellers, primarily because they were the cheapest, according to store staff. The staff believed, based on conversations with frequent customers, that most customers were buying the boxes to install Windows on them. But that is not surprising to us, because, as we discuss in section two, brick-and-mortar "computer" stores are still part of the Microsoft distribution chain. The fact that there were some open source products at all in these stores is actually surprising, as Microsoft guards its distribution chain jealously, and punishes those business partners who stray into carrying FOSS products."
Hi Slash Veteran, You are right. Linux is not doing well in retail right now. That is the point of my article. There is growth, but it is slow. Please read the article more closely. The point of the article is that big box retail is a sustaining channel for Microsoft. Linux and FOSS are growing in what Harvard Biz Prof Clayton Christensen calls "disruptive channels."
For example, when Sony first came out with transistor radios, which were disruptive of RCA's big desktop radios, none of RCA's channel partners would carry Sony's transistor radio "toys for teenagers", which were considered by RCA's best customers, adults who wanted high sound quality, to be crap. Instead, Macy's picked up the transistors, and Sony grew its distribution chain from there. RCA is now a shadow of its former self, because it couldn't figure out how to get transistors into its "best products". Microsoft can't figure out how to monetize the production of open source code, and THAT is the key nature of the challenge that Microsoft is facing. THAT is the point of my story. The distribution channels are changing. This story just documents one key little step in the the change, as Microsoft's distribution channels slowly take on the disruptive products from open source challengers.