Slashdot Mirror
Indian Companies Embracing Linux Faster Than Ever
cpatil writes "CNBC-TV 18 India has just announced that India's largest Insurance company, LIC(Life Insurance Corporation of India) sealed a deal with Red Hat to use its desktop and server software. LIC has roughly 160 Million customers, making it a non-trivial deal. Leslie D'Monte over at rediff also has a closer look at Linux deployment in India."
They are probably embracing Windows faster than ever too.
I'll probably be modded down for this...
Existence of the market will incite the software companies to contribute. You don't really expect an insurance company to work on the operating system, do you?
As an Indian, I am quite surprised that they went with an offering from Red Hat. Red Hat has long been known to support GNOME as their main desktop. However, KDE is the leader when it comes to supporting the popular Indic languages like Urdu, Tamil, Hindi, and Bengali.
I myself use the Tamil support of KDE, and have long found it superior to that of GNOME (even for recent releases). More of the core KDE applications have translations available, and most of are a higher quality than those of GNOME. That is not to say that GNOME is unable to support those languages; that is clearly not the case! The fact remains, however, that KDE is the better option at this time when it comes to displaying Indic scripts, and offering Indic translations.
Screw that, if another country is more efficient handling our crap jobs ( and let's face it, the programing jobs that are getting exported are the crap jobs ), then by all means let's let them.
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I think its about time that, even though this piece was slightly biased, mainstream media began looking seriously at the behemouth that *nix has become. Its always been in data centers, and Linux is fitting in well there. The only reason that mainstream view of desktop software is so biased is simply because these people grew up knowing only Windows or Mac, and so that is, to them, how computers are supposed to be, and perform. When someone else comes along with something new, it is always compared to the existing system to see if it measures up.
... you know, like a "Ubuntu media edition for Dell computers" ... or something like that.
Now, I'm not saying that Linux is a perfect replacement for XP or OS X, but I remember the arguments about using F3 vs. F1 for the help key, and if you have ever seen Windows 3.0 or earlier, you'd know that there were plenty of people, myself included, that said meh, I'll keep using DR DOS thank you very much. The fact that Linux is the new kid on the block is all the more reason for MS and others to fear it. It *IS* changing everything.
It is about to the point that if a card or MB won't be supported by Linux, I can leave it setting on the shelf, and so can a lot of other people. The fact that there are examples of this, and WHOLE countries (apparently) leaving Windows for Linux means that the revolution is happening, slowly, but it is happening.
This story is not so exciting for those of us who have been waiting for it, expecting it, and are now ready to hear the daily updates in application development that surpases MS's capability to keep up. F/OSS is a better way to do thing, and I think (hope) that CLAMAV and others will show the Bill schills and others exactly what can be done to stop spam, virii, and malware. You know, something along the lines of "here, download the software.. its free.. and only 14.99/year for updates. Then someone fix the F/OSS mail clients to utilize global white and black lists etc. and some of the other ideas for stopping spam for only moderate yearly costs... say... hmmm 14.99/year maybe?
Look at what Vonage and Skype are doing to the telecomms business arena. That is pretty much the same sort of apple cart upsetting that's happening with *nix right now. I'd love to see a *nix distro that is first to be ready (out of the box) to be used to download television, movies, etc.
I'd just really like to see totally heated up competition in all media markets. iPod! your days are numbered. CD player? your days are numbered. Solid state memory is able to hold as much, in smaller spaces, and is more flexible. I'm just waiting for someone to create the hardware that will supercede CD's and DVD's altogether... leapfrog this whole BR-HD-DVD argument.
Anyway, the point is that this news, isn't really news to some of us, and it should not be shocking to anyone. Bring on more news like this is what I say... we can all use good news anyday.
Support NYCountryLawyer RIAA vs People
The state-owned LIC (Life Insurance Corporation) is a big customer and a major player in India and has a major share of the market (with a few smaller players). In the last few years though, private companies have been eating into the share of LICs market.
From here
"Though the total volume of LIC's business increased in the last fiscal year (2004-2005) compared to the previous one, its market share came down from 87.04 to 78.07%. The 14 private insurers increased their market share from about 13% to about 22% in a year's time. The figures for the first two months of the fiscal year 2005-06 also speak of the growing share of the private insurers. The share of LIC for this period has further come down to 75 percent, while the private players have grabbed over 24 percent."
So yeah this is a big deal (where the hell did you come up with "non-trivial"? - use of non-trivial because this is Indian stuff?) and this is offtopic, but rediff.com is a sucky site. Try control-clicking any of their links on their home-page (and say hello to popup central which beat Firefox).
it's all about efficiency. I wouldn't characterize a job as "crap" or "notcrap". Germans create a lot of the world's best MRI machines, Japanese people create high quality ink and photocopying machines. Indians happen to create application software efficiently. These are not "crap" jobs, these are jobs that can be done elsewhere more efficiently. Do we see Indians creating skyscrapers, or becoming the world's best lawyers? No, that is something that Americans have the highest efficiency.
relax, don't get emotional, try to figure out what your value add is and work towards those jobs.
Based on the price, vendors classify servers as small (anywhere from Rs 40000 up to Rs 500,000), medium (from Rs 500,000 to Rs 1 crore) and large (over Rs 1 crore). They are identified as Intel (or X86 processor-based), Unix (or non-X86 processor-based) and Blade servers. Linux and Solaris are flavours of Unix. Windows and Intel form the loosely-termed "Wintel" brand.
Since when did running Unix decide your processor type for you? Last I checked, BSD ran on X86 without much issue. Last I checked, Linux wasn't a flavour of Unix.
This is what happens when English majors get hired on to do tech writing. It becomes tech guessing.
But what is better for Hindi and Urdu -- Vi or Emacs?
Sigh... but I guess a bit of flame war is a good change of pace in this dull story about Linux deployment in a traditional Windows markets.
Karma: Excellent (My Karma? I wish...:-( )
I have found Ubuntu to work best. I initially tried GNOME because that was the default desktop. It worked well, but my coworkers suggested I install and try KDE for a better experience. They were right. I did find the Tamil translations of KDE to be of a higher quality, and more widespread.
One problem I recall involved Galeon. It has decent support for Tamil, but for some of the configuration dialogs there was a mix of English and Tamil translations, and sometimes the Tamil translation would be missing outright! Now, I am thankful that I also understand English quite well, so I was able to switch over and finish the configuration that way.
Other core GNOME applications (like the Users & Groups utility, for instance) do not even have Tamil translations. It is unsuitable for purely Tamil-speaking users to deal with such translations!
I have not had any similar problems with KDE. The translations are always complete, and I think they are very well done. My many thanks to all who have provided such excellent work!
Linux has gotten to the point where Microsoft's FUD can no longer hurt it. There are enough companies that have adopted Linux now that nothing that Microsoft says can cause clueful companies to ignore a Linux solution. Sure Microsoft will make or keep some sales due to FUD, but that no longer hurts Linux but perhaps the companies themselves.
The next battle may be with patents, but with IBM so involved with Linux, I seriously doubt Microsoft would go head to head with Linux for fear of stepping on IBM's toes. I actually wish there would be a big patent battle. If there was it would probably fizzle out with the result being some cross-patenting agreement, but there is a miniscule chance that companies and the government would realize the mess of patents if we had an apocalyptic patents battle.
I did some research/interviews in India and I can assure you that Linux has a long way to go until it can get wide adoption for Desktop Computers (lets ignore servers for now).
- Almost everybody in India has a pirated version of Windows XP (which came with their computer, so its pretty much "free" for them)
- Very few people I interviewed actually do Windows Update (probably because of the whole XP-Key validation)
- Unless he/she is a software engineer, they would have never heard of Linux
- When asked about spyware, they didn't seem to care. Most Indians didn't seem to care about the performance factor. They also didn't seem to care about identity theft as much either (the culture is such that most people pay just about everything in cash since most vendors charge a "service charge" for using credit cards or even a check)
- Bill Gates is more of a hero in India than a devil (his charitable contributions are well known)
- Tying in Gujarati in Linux (KDE) takes time and pratice to learn (I assume the same with other Indian languages)
- Some "cablenet" ISPs in India require you to run Windows software in order to connect to the Internet. There is no support for Linux at this time.
Those are just a few problems that I can think of on top of my head. There are plenty more issues in Linux Desktop adoption in India.
The Stateless Linux project is an OS-wide initiative to ensure that Fedora computers can be set up as replaceable appliances, with no important local state.
For example, a system administrator can set up a network of hundreds of desktop client machines as clones of a master system, and be sure that all of them are kept synchronised whenever he or she updates the master system. We provide several technologies for doing this.
This is an obvious improvement over the situation now when a legion of MCSE services the networked MS Windows fat (in fact boated or obese) clients. By adopting this technology a large corporation can avoid the even greater bloat that will be enforced by the Vista upgrade.
It seems to me that there are three major approaches to the forthcoming corporate migrations to the Linux desktop by those corporations forward looking enough to want to avoid the cost and dislocations of the upcoming upgrades to Vista and who at the same time want to make cost savings and improve IT efficiency.
1. There is the Novell approach which is to replace the Windows fat client by a better more cost effective Linux fat client, i.e. SUSE Linux Enterprise Desktop.
2. There is the IBM approach which uses a Java Rich Client Platform (the Eclipse RCP) that is OS agnostic and which allows a smooth transition from Windows to Linux. This involves the Websphere based Workplace technology, the OOo based IBM productivity editors and new Hannover Notes client which runs natively on Linux.
3. Finally there is the RH stateless Linux approach outlined above.
Nice to decide that *someone else's job* is crappy and they *they* shouldn't mind losing it ... so long as it's not your job, right?
(I agree with you on the efficiency point though.)
So if I come home from work hungry like hell and embrace the whole fridge, does it make me embracing vegetarian diet faster than ever since I also ate tomatoes (beside the pork and chicken)?
As you can see, I'm kinda hungry.. but that's not the point.
LIC India was one of the largest users of Unix (SUN Solaris) systems prior to this announcement. They had trained Unix sysadmins and tape backup systems in 1998. Long before such an official announcement was made many of the client machines connecting to the servers were being switched to Linux even at regional offices. This time Redhat is migrating the servers too to Linux. So that in a sense is the corporate world beginning to embrace Linux.
Adding to this, Reliance Infocomm Ltd., one of the largest CDMA service providers does provide a rather clumsy, yet workable tool for dialing-up internet using their phones. They try to address a small but existent Linux Desktop market. There are OEM PCs that ship with TurboLinux desktops in India from many manufacturers.
However, the largets ATM chains, SBI - State Bank of India (now on a week long strike) and several other institutions continue to use flavors of legacy old systems including Microsoft Win32 platforms. Home users are most uncomfortable switching to Linux despite the arrival of Ubuntu/Kubuntu and other easily configurable alternatives. There is still much to be done. The transition is slow but definitely happening in the market, and that's the good news.
As for outsourcing blah, that's irrelevant to the article. Service firms adopt platforms that can put them in business with their clientele. That's business sense and they keep doing it.
No Greater Friend, No Greater Enemy! (Lucius Cornelius Sulla)
The problem with your statistics is that they're measuring very different things. Recall that GNOME and KDE are structured quite differently. KDE is a far tighter distribution system than GNOME.
Those statistics are for the very core of GNOME: GTK+, GLib, GDK, the GNOME desktop and taskbar, Metacity, and applications like gnome-terminal. It does not take into account GAIM, for instance, which is a separate project.
The stats for KDE, on the other hand, not only include the comparable base libraries and applications to that of GNOME, but also much software that for GNOME is completely separate. The data for KDE includes that for the Kopete instant messenging system, while the GNOME data does not include that for the equivalent in GAIM. The KDE data includes Konqueror, while the GNOME data does not include Galeon, Epiphany, Firefox, etc.
The amount translated for GNOME should be far more, just because the portion of software being measured is far less than that being measured by the KDE data. The numbers for GNOME start to decrease significantly once you start making the packages equal (by bringing in GAIM, Galeon, Nautilus, etc.)
It's a pointless argument. Many of the american 'hits' are actually designed and created in India. For example, Portalplayer which powers the iPod, or the Slingbox... many of these small american companies are simply headquartered in the silicon valley for business purposes, while their entire design and development teams are in Bangalore/Hyderabad. As long as the major customers are in the US, that's how things will be. It's pointless to try to distinguish them as Indian or American companies. They are both.
"When the only tool you own is a hammer, every problem begins to resemble a nail." - Abraham Maslow (1908-1970)
It was the sort of moment thing you'd expect to read in Penthouse Forum. "I never believed this could happen to me, but I was at a club and I ran into Paris Hilton...." Normally, I wouldn't even be in a club; my Saturdays are invariably spent grabbing a slice of pizza in between WoW ninja looting sessions. Tonight, however, I'd finally gotten tired of my friends from work saying things like "we never see you" and "people are scared that you're studying chemistry and writing a manifesto." So, after letting my guild know that I wouldn't make the raid tonight, I'd let them drag me out to some dance place. Since I'm not nearly coordinated enough to dance, I spent most of the evening sitting around drinking. Three wine coolers finally took their toll, and I staggered off to the bathroom.
Feeling much relieved, I walked out the bathroom door, wondering if I could convince one of my coworkers to drive me back to my apartment. If we hurried, I might be able to make the raid after all. Absorbed in pleasant thoughts of ganking some n00bs, I walked right into someone's path. The impact sent me sprawling. Unsteadily, I rose to my feet, already mumbling an apology. I turned, and the words stuck in my throat; I knew that face! Those pouting lips and vacant blue eyes were a prominent feature in my JPEG collection. She was saying something, but my mind couldn't focus on the words. Before I could stop myself, I blurted out, "Oh my God, you're Paris Hilton!"
Things were kind of a blur after that. We ended up at my apartment, my arm around her waist as I fumbled with the lock. Inside, she set her purse down by the door and looked around. I cringed a bit, seeing my apartment as if through a stranger's eyes. There was a pyramid stack of empty mountain dew cans by my desk, a half-painted army of space marine miniatures covering the couch, and empty pizza boxes serving as a mute testimonial to my ineptitude at cooking. She didn't seem to notice; instead, she saw the cables leading from my desk to the plasma TV and said "wow, is that hooked up to the computer?" Her hands slid up and down the front of my X-box 360 t-shirt as she moaned "I love geeks... they're so hot." I couldn't believe my luck; a six-year-long dry spell was about to come to an end!
I found myself bragging about my setup, rattling off the system specs as she pressed herself against me. She seemed a bit surprised that I hadn't put it together myself, and was strangely silent as I told her about the great financing Dell had given me. The puzzled look turned into a frown when I mentioned the Pentium 4 processor; I found myself becoming defensive, explaining that it was a really innovative architecture while AMD was just a Pentium III retread. It was when I got to the OS that all hell broke loose. She stepped away, a look of total disbelief on her face, and shrieked "XP Media Center? You fucking nerd wannabe!" Grabbing her purse, she stormed out the door. In a rage, I followed her into the hallway, screaming "I downloaded your video!" at her retreating back. "At least Rick Solomon could set up Ubuntu," she snarled over her shoulder as she slammed the building door.
Alone in my apartment, I slumped over my keyboard, weeping bitter tears. Deleting her pictures brought me no consolation; someone had to suffer for the humiliation I had endured. Opening my trusty IE window, I headed off to MSN search to find the people who had brought this shame upon me. I clicked on a likely-looking link, Slashdot.org. Immediately, I knew I was in the right place; they proudly proclaimed themselves as an open-source advocacy site and one of the article headlines made the absurd claim that Windows systems had a higher TCO. They had obviously been ignoring the "Get The Facts" campaign. The comment threads were a target-rich environment: Linux zealots, Apple snobs, Clippy haters, and Firefox fanboys, all waiting to feel my wrath. My lips drew back in a primal snarl as I began crafting my first A.C. post.
From Hell's heart, Tux, I stab at thee!
Companies in India use FLOSS a lot. From my contacts, and experience with FLOSS in India in the past 1 1/2 years, this is the list that I have prepared:
http://shakthimaan.com/misc/database.html
David Axmark, the co-founder of the mysql project was here in India, recently, and recently gave a talk at IIT-M (http://www.chennailug.org/). He said that Indian companies are major consumers of free/open source software, but, don't produce/contribute back to the community.
Recently, there was the Debain Defconf meeting in Hyderabad, and about 1000 "developers" from India had participated, only 2 of them were Debian contributors.
Companies seldom market about FLOSS in India, where the "majority" of the masses read their news from newspapers, get updated from radio broadcasts and television broadcasts.
LIC offers insurance services in India, as government owned company. It has monopoly since ages, since private companies were not allowed to provide services in India.
One of the most important fact is LIC services are ineficient, very expensive and theft oriented. People in India are afraid of claiming anything, because no claims are settled by LIC.
LIC has loads of money to share.
If you cared to click the link you could have seen that for each language, you have both developer-libs and desktop percentages. For example:
...
Hindi: dev 99.84%, desktop 93.39%
Tamil: dev 73.38%, desktop 65.81%
Now clicking on 'desktop' for Tamil you have the details for each app. Indeed, GAIM is not in there because it's not an official GNOME app, but you do have Epiphany and Nautilus (the GNOME equivalents to Konqueror), or Ekiga (previously Gnome-Meeting), or Totem (movie player),
Of course the KDE stats don't take into account *all* apps written for KDE either...
When push comes to shove, like everybody else I worry about my wallet. This time it's not only about my wallet but also yours and everybody else's here, so think this through and try to keep your kneejerk reflex to a minimum: There are a zillion business opportunities where people could earn a minimum of $80 and more an hour if companies did not have the option of outsourcing to India etc or pulling in cheap, foreign workforces. The reason they have those H1B-visa's is of course to keep prices for IT from skyrocketing. I sell IT services, and I suppose you do too. Anything that keeps prices down is not welcome and if that means Ranjid from some village in India is helping to keep prices down then he's not welcome either. Nothing personal, Ranjid.
Cheaply, yes. Efficiently, no.
Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."