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Harvard Concludes Linux Will Remain Second Best

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the i-said-number-two dept.

watzinaneihm writes "A Harvard Study which uses formal economic modelling to determine "Will OSS ever displace traditional software from its market leadership position?" came to a (not so?) surprising result. Linux is likely to remain second best as long as Microsoft has a first mover advantage."

4 of 460 comments (clear)

  1. Of course... by ackthpt · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Intel always thought they'd be #1, eh?

    I think Vista is where Microsoft will fork strongly. There are several smaller forks out there, people who refused to leave NT or 2000 or 98 SE, their PC's do what they want and they see no reason to buy new hardware everytime Intel or Microsoft say "Yow! New! Must have!"

    --

    A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
  2. Re:OSX by countach · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I'm going the opposite direction to most people. I started off with Linux because it was far superior to other options back in the nineties. When Win XP came out I slowly reduced my use of Linux because XP was "good enough", it didn't crash, it runs games and iTunes and some other progs I need. I use cywin to make it somewhat Unix-like. Now I've had enough of Windows, it's fallen behind where it should be, but Linux is still too unfriendly for the rest of the family. It's still hard to set up hardware, and the gui, while similar to Windows on the surface, still has an underlying clunkyness still. So I'm moving to OSX shortly. I still like Linux and hope one day it will lose the clunkyness, but life is too short to be spending hours hacking around problems and I'm too old for that crap now.

  3. Re:problem right now is that linux is unknown. by daniil · · Score: 4, Interesting

    When we (and by we, I mean the linux community) hit a larger portion of user base, say 10% of desktop market (if that will ever happen) linux is going to be well known

    You (and by you, I mean the linux community) have been beating this drum for a dozen years now. Somehow, I don't believe it will ever happen. If it will, it won't be the same Linux.

    --
    Man is a slave because freedom is difficult, whereas slavery is easy.
  4. That is what the study was referring to. by khasim · · Score: 4, Interesting
    What usually sowers the deal with Linux is the fact that the company usually has some software that is for windows only and moving off it is out of the question.

    Exactly.

    It isn't that Linux is not "better" than Windows TODAY.

    It is that Windows was "good enough" YESTERDAY.

    And yesterday, the companies deployed Windows and locked up their data / training / money in apps that are not supported on Linux ... yet.

    All the companies I see now have their data AND business logic locked up in Access database apps that have evolved over the years to the point where they are un-maintainable. But still "necessary" to the daily operation of that company.

    Where the Harvard study went wrong is that new companies are constantly forming and old ones dying. The base of companies are not static. It is dynamic. The new companies will NOT be bound by the headstart that Microsoft has in existing companies.