Hardware Vendors Will Follow Money To Open Source

Stony Stevenson writes "Dirk Hohndel, Intel's chief technologist for open source, believes the installed base of Linux-based desktops could potentially double this year, based just on Eee PC sales. Speaking at open source conference Linux.conf.au in Melbourne, Hohndel said commercial pressure will be the incentive for traditionally Windows-centric hardware vendors to begin offering open source drivers and Linux-based systems to their customers. 'Open source has made the most inroads in the server market, where Linux-based servers represent roughly a quarter of the total market. But in other segments, such as mobile phones and desktops where open source hasn't had as much of an impact, vendors were less interested, Hohndel said. Linux penetration of the desktop environment is currently at around 0.8 percent, but Hohndel said consumer behavior is changing this.'"

Comments

Re:Cool! A new year!

[Compholio]

Also, not trolling here, I really hope Linux does explode and gain market share...it's just I've heard this year after year after year. But I suppose that one year it's actually going to happen.

Personally, I think we're getting really close to a tipping point. The past couple months have been the first time I've had people notice I'm not running Windows on my laptop and look interested rather than disgusted. I then try to remain as calm as possible (getting too excited puts people off) and explain that they can get Ubuntu for free, and even buy computers with it pre-loaded, and all the benefits of using a system built around free software.

Re:Integration is key

[morgan_greywolf]

Yeah, this might sound wacky to some, but it's actually right on the money. Integration is a key selling point for the desktop leaders, Microsoft's Windows and Apple's OS X. If I walk into CompUSA, Best Buy, or buy something off of NewEgg or whatever, it's pretty much a given that it's going to work with Windows. In addition, if I walk into an Apple store, it's pretty much a given that anything I walk out with will work with the latest version of OS X.

On Linux, we get a bad rap for poor hardware support. It's not really the case. We have good or, in many cases, excellent hardware support for a wide swath of popular hardware. But you have to do the necessary research to know what to buy and what not to buy when it comes to buying hardware for your Linux machine. In the Windows world, you stick with the big names -- they're guaranteed to work. In the Linux world, one scanner model from a vendor might be supported by SANE and another from the same vendor might not be.

A bright, enterprising individual would do well to come up with an online and -- even better -- a brick and mortar store that specializes in selling hardware that works well on Linux. Sure, it's been tried before and failed -- but that was then and this now and Linux has gotten much better support for hardware in recent years.