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Gartner Slams Linux
Porag_Spliffing sent us a choice quote from this well researched Gartner group piece which says
"The lack of standards in the Linux community, coupled with a lack of key productivity applications and with Unix complexity, will continue to make Linux a poor choice for the mainstream business productivity user."
I wish that people (INCLUDING the editor who put this story on slashdot) would *READ* the stories first. Your link isn't to a gartner group report. It is to an IDG article about the gartner group report. I will sum up the actual information from the gartner group report: paraphrased: Linux is not really ready for your standard end-user business user yet. There is a lack of standards, and some key productivity applications are missing. But, as linux continues to improve, its appeal will broaden. Okay. Someone PLEASE SHOW ME how the above is "slamming" linux now. What IDG said was THIS: "a damning report from gartner has all but put the kiss of death on linux". Those are *IDG's* words. NOT the gartner group. Next time people should read, and think, before speaking. I'm tired of all of these knee-jerk reactions to perfectly reasonable statements about Linux. It makes us all look like morons.
I'm sick of this arguement from MS, that "It hasn't effected sales of NT" and "Linux is competing with Unix" this is a bunch of BS.
:)
When I set up a system, there are times I need Solaris, but to interact with it, I'm not going to buy NT! I'm going to use Linux, and maybe SCO and maybe BSD or a combination of them.
Linux doesn't have standards? Then why can I have my Slackware system running fine with another Redhat system, as well as a Solaris, and AIX! But problems always arrive when I hook up a NT to the equation.
Sorry, I'll come off my soap box now.
Later
Steven Rostedt
Steven Rostedt
-- Nevermind
The Gartner Group doesn't seem to be doing the slamming. IDG has interpreted this as a "kiss of death" when what Gartner seems to have addressed is the "desktop productivity" side of Linux. Is that a surprise to anybody? Linux isn't quite there yet on the desktop.
I'm glad they were careful to ask Microsoft if Linux was making a dent in NT sales. Glad to see the Linux threat we heard about in the DOJ case has already been vanquished and it's business as usual for the red-blooded innovators of Redmond.
*snork*
------------
Michael Hall
mphall@cstone.nospam.net
Michael Hall
mph.puddingbowl.org
I'm growing more and more skeptical of analysis firms as time passes. It's easy to produce a piece of research stating whatever the analyst thinks anyways, by simply taking a few points of data and extrapolating it to the absurd extreme. Gartner and their ilk have produced reports that say Linux will, in fact dominate the marketplace, and reports that claim the opposite within short intervals of one another. My own choice is to believe none of the above.
Trend analysis doesn't generally account for some important factors, like goodwill (or lack thereof) towards vendors, or technical obstacles and breakthroughs that may happen in a development effort. They tend to assume that obstacles (like NT's code bloat or Linux's lack of high-quality SMP support) are insurmountable and that the technical status quo will remain indefinitely. This means that, by analysis standards, current trends will continue indefinitely. If some of the analysis I've read over recent years had worked out as anticipated, then:
1: Apple would be in Chapter 7 bankruptcy
2: Linux would either
a: be non-existent
b: have over a 50% market share
3: Novell would be out of business
4: Microsoft Windows NT would have nearly a 100% market share on servers and desktops, and
5: so would OS/2
6: Microsoft SQL Server would have killed off Oracle
7: We'd all have fully interactive TV sets now (shouting at your TV doesn't count - most of them don't answer).
I'm not trying to paint all analysis with the same brush, but I really don't see much good stuff from these companies.
- -Josh Turiel
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
Alright everyone. I think this quote from some guy has left us with only one option: give up on linux entirely. How can we possibly go on if there is a lack of standards in the Linux community? It's practically pointless to coninue using Linux when there is a lack of productivity applications. I think everyone should just abandon this sinking ship before it destroys us all.
1. Command shell that doesn't involve a lot of learning. "move" should be the command to move a file, "copy" should be the command to copy a file, "delete" and "remove" should remove a file. Joe Blow doesn't care that when all we had was 6 letter commands, using "rm" for delete a good idea. We don't have those limits any more, we shouldn't be limited by them. (My suggestion is to call this DOS, for Dumb Old Shell, and make it work much like the MS-DOS command line.)
2. Plug and Play Everywhere! Joe Blow does not want to mount and unmount CDs himself, nor does he want to figure out the IRQ, base I/O address, etc. for his hardware. So make sure that Joe Blow doesn't have to deal with those things.
3. A good GUI/WM combination that comes default with all Linux distros. Joe Blow does not like command line interfaces and will avoid them wherever possible. So give him a GUI he can use easily and not be (too) confused by.
4. Official suppourt from hardware vendors. If Joe Blow can't buy a new peice of hardware, plug it in, turn it on, install some drivers, and start using it; Joe Blow doesn't want it.
The upshot of this whole comment? Take lessons from Microsoft and from MacOS. They've got the (relatively) painless-to-use CLI and the universal GUI. Just because M$ and Apple are the big commercial doesn't necessarily make all their ideas evil; we should feel free to clone the parts of their interfaces that make computers easy to use.
-Ender
Loose things are easy to lose. You're getting your hair cut. They're going there to see their aunt.
It was a shock to me when I had to agree with the Gartner Group's analysis of anything. They have been so steadily wrong for so long that I had to double-check outside for any horsemen of the apocalypse. :-) Regardless of whether this month seems to be Microsoft's to launch attacks on Linux (see this article) -- it would be a logical conclusion that this is another Microsoft-paid opinion piece from the Gartner Group -- there are very good points here, and I think clarifications should be made.
Gartner's piece states that Linux is to be avoided for business-productivity applications. Let's not forget what a "business-productivity" application is. It's Word, it's Excel, it's Access, it's PowerPoint. All of these are targeted at single-user applications. (Some might try to say that Access can be used for multiuser applications; let me tell you from experience that you can only get up to about five people before it really starts bombing out. Where I used to work, an Access-based application was totally corrupted by someone leaving their computer on overnight. I don't consider that a multiuser application.)
The problem is that there is really a pretty sad offering along the lines of single-user applications in Linux-based, and indeed other open source systems. I have a Linux workstation here and love it to death, but I'm an administrator and a developer. I have StarOffice for firing off memos, of course -- but there is simply no way I could effectively get the rest of the office to use Linux, even if I had the authority to send out a mandate from on high that Microsoft was to be abolished. (Now, perhaps I could get Macs in here...) :-)
Where Linux as well as other UNIX clones and derivatives do excel is in multiuser applications. I don't care if you have figures showing that IIS performs better; I can do more and I can do it more effectively, and I can do it on an OS that was designed from the ground up to be shared among multiple users. To turn around a key point from that previous Microsoft piece (paraphrased: "Linux was not designed with a GUI in the core"), Windows NT was not designed with multiple users in mind. Its design is based on an OS that still really only can be effectively used by one person at a time. (Want proof? Go into \WINNT sometime and look at all the .INI files -- one person's settings easily override everyone's.)
Let's not also forget the key benefit of free or open source software. I can change it if I need to. I've done so on quite a few incidents, to fit my needs when the stock configurations didn't. My NT system on the other corner of my desk goes largely unused for several applications because I can't change its applications to do what I need them to.
What would it take to bring Linux to the desktop, or as Gartner puts it, the "business-productivity" market? Quite a bit. The latest round of GUI stuff is getting there but there are still so many key points to sweat out. Printing a memo off is still not a no-brainer on your typical Linux system unless it's been set up by someone with a clue. But in the meantime, Linux and other UNIX derivatives are what I and other administrators and engineers swear by for our desktops. We just can't get away from the power. :-)
So in another 2 doublings or so, say about nine months, Linux will have 10% of the NT Server market. This is a psychologically important figure. At that point lots of press stories will be printed pointing out that Linux has now started making significant inroads into M$ revenues.
The thing that keeps M$ on top now is its reputation for invulnerability. Its certainly not its reputation for quality or value. But this is a very brittle thing. Once it cracks it will crumble and collapse.
So I predict that Linux will reach 10% market share next July or so, and that this will be seen as a major event. Once you hit 10%, 80% is only three more doublings away. So Linux should achieve market dominance some time around mid-2001, and Bill Gates will no longer be the richest man on Earth. Microsoft will probably be taken over some time in 2002.
Paul.
You are lost in a twisty maze of little standards, all different.
The Gartner group is missing a key thing that I painfully rediscover any time I install a Linux or Windows system... That complexity will always result in pain (see second law of thermodynamics).
They indicate that the complexity of Linux is a liability. Well, it is, but it is just as much a liability under Windows, but without the tools and controls to address it that are available under Linux.
It used to be that Unix was (relatively) hard, and DOS was (relatively) simple. This was mainly because Unix did so much more then DOS (i.e. networking, multi user support, multi tasking support, etc).
Now DOS (windows) and Unix are much closer in terms of overall capability. And complexity.
Gartner misses two points. First... Microsoft (and most other sources of support) will only really support a very small subset of available hardware (hardware "certified" to work with windows). If you try to get vendors to help you with other products, good luck.
If I were to create an equally small subset of "supported" hardware, I could make Linux darned easy to support and configure as well.
Secondly, the average desktop user NO LONGER DOES their own support. I know, because I (and the rest of you out there like me) do it. I probably solve 200-300 windows problems a year for friends and family, and some can be darn difficult.
I find I spend about the same amount of time setting up both Linux and Windows systems. The difference is that when a Linux system gets working, it stays working. I can count on some random catastrophe on my windows box about once every three months.
The other difference is that when I fix a Linux problem, I generally feel pretty satisfied, as it turns out I was doing something wrong and I now understand what it was and how to do it right. When I fix a windows problem, I am typically just pissed off, because it "magically" went away after performing some random activity (like reinstalling the same driver a third time, or reinstalling window's itself). No explanation, no permanant fix, and I have to leave wondering how long it will be before they call me back to fix it again.
Really, all this article says is that current operating systems contain a large degree of complexity (inevitable in our age of networks and bloated office applications), and that Microsoft has successfully captured the productivity market (read: Microsoft Office).
Both statements are true, and neither "spells the death of Linux".
Ironically, I think the increasing complexity that is inevitable in our computing culture will be an additional driving force to promote Unix...
Unix has been complicated since it's birth, and we have spent 30 YEARS now giving you tools to manage it. You get your unix system, and you get thousands of tools to use on it.
Windows is just now getting complicated. When you get your windows system, it comes with only one tool... a stick of dynamite. The solution to many failure modes it to blow up what you have and start over.
I think Linux needs a better infrastructure to encapsulate error detection and recovery, system configuration and administration, and a better high level encapsulation of the human interface. The foundation is in place however, and tools like gnome, kde, and linuxconf are quickly moving the right direction.
I think Windows needs a better foundation and architecture... it is designed to be flawed at it's core. The user interface is fine (due largely to the fact that they stole it from the mac), but everything under the covers is a mess, and getting worse with every release.
I think Windows is a fantastic consumer wrapping around a terrible design and architecture. It is a credit to a lot of people at microsoft that such a haphazard mess runs as well as it does.
I think Linux is a practical industrial grade wrapping around a great design and architecture. It was designed for smart people to use to do hard jobs well.
I, for one, would much rather be faced with the problem of replacing the industrial grey boilerplate around a state of the art factory with some nice pretty stucco, then have to pull the pretty paper of a great big ball of snot and have to unravel it and keep it working.
Bill Kilgallon
Mathematically impossible requirements are technically not against policy.
Yes, there is a serious problem with Gartner group (and other) reports. Unless you are in the trenches with the techies, you really don't know what you're talking about. The Gartner people are smart, but many of them are seriously uninformed. Their senior analysts, who usually do have a track record in the industry they cover, generally haven't developed software in years (the Bob Metcalfe syndrome).
jht makes an important point: even if you ARE technically proficient, it is very tempting to make predictions that fall flat. I love #1 -- who didn't read about 100 different smarty-pants analysts, including Gartner, who predicted the end of Apple? OK, in fairness to Gartner, they tried to temporize their Apple predictions with "probabilities of decreased market share" and "recommendations against" for businesses, but it amounted to same thing.
CEO's (and other executives) really do have a serious problem. They must make technical decisions for their companies, and they have nowhere to turn but to the Gartners of the world. When the CEO is called in front of the board of directors, s/he's got to 'splain him/herself. Years ago, the question from the board was always "Why not IBM? Why did you buy this other crap?" So they bought IBM, defensively. Now they buy Microsoft, defensively. The so-called "Linux hype" has broken up this cozy little defensive arrangement, and the Gartners of the world must scramble to provide their clients with new justifications to provide to their bosses.
Slashdot readers should also understand that there are lots of dirty secrets surrounding these "reports." For example, if your company PAYS for industry coverage by Gartner, generally speaking your company gets an opportunity to present ITS side of the argument in a way that it normally would not, just because of its ACCESS to the analyst(s) writing the report. Gartner will deny this to their last breath, but it's true.
Another dirty little Gartner secret is the quality of the "analysts." I happen to know a Gartner analyst personally, who has been quoted many times in the mainstream press making pronouncements about Micros~1 and others. This person's background? Liberal arts. Has absolutely no clue -- and I should know, I've had to answer a lot of this person's stupid questions over the years.
So the bottom line for Gartner is that they need to rotate out the fuddy-duddies from the 70's, whose last remembrance of Unix is v6 in college on a PDP-11/70. Then they need to ask some important questions about why the majority of competent technoids is so damn excited about Linux and the Open Source movement. Simultaneously, they need to recruit (and pay!) technical people who actually know that they're talking about. For starters, how about people who have hands-on Linux experience and who can explain why we can accomplish
- about 100x more,
- about 100x faster,
- with greater stability,
- in certain problem domains,
with Linux than with Microsoft.
As long as Gartner fails to understand WHY there is a nerd revolution, and WHY Linux is so exciting to the people like us who, increasingly, actually control the technical infrastructure of the world, they will totally miss the point. Their liberal-arts analysts can only see the world through their Microsoft laptops (which constitute, in many cases, the only computer they've ever actually used).