I would tend to disagree with some parts of Dave's opinion.
While it is true that Red Hat is the dominant distributor worldwide(I run Fc2),many other distributors arent sleeping.
Mandrake is doing very well,many of my peers in colleges and in corporates have now begin to evaluate Mandrake as well as Suse before taking a call on what to purchase.
Suse has a lot going for it.The support from Novell is one of the best things to happen to os/fs in a long time.Novell is also hiring aggresively(not in terms of number of ppl but in quality of ppl) for its Bangalore(India based) center primarily for its open source initiative.
The best way to increase market shares as we all know is to sign up long term deals with major OEM's like HP,Compaq and Dell.While some of the distributions have achived success in this,a lot still needs to be done.
In developing countries like India and China that have huge markets but major major piracy problems,getting users to use Linux instead of a pirated windows is going to be the key.Most home users understand that piracy is bad but continue using it because the OS is just too expensive.
How linux distributors approach these ppl is going to be crucial in deciding future growth rates
One percent is not much in no. terms for IE.It does mean a lot for other browsers like Opera and Mozilla.Mozilla iirc has recorded a rise of 26% as compared to last years user base.Opera too has recorded a jump in the last few months although I dont know the exact figures.
More than anything this only shows how bad a monopoly can be.M$'s monopoly in the browser market is unquestionable.Inspite of IE not being even close to either opera or mozilla in terms of performance or security,IE still commands the market.M$ is using its monopoly to dump a useless option onto the home users.An option that even the FBI has warned against using!
yes but only if Dell agrees to ship AMD chips too.
I fail to understand why a major like Dell continues to remain the last holdout when companies like HP and Compaq have started shipping AMD powered systems.
Having used AMD for a long long time now..I can atleast say that it does not lack in any manner...give the customer the choice and let him decide rather than some corporate honcho somewhere deciding that NO AMD
well in India too the situation is roughly the same.The local movie industry called Bollywood is crying hoarse about how piracy is affecting their revenues and the sad part is that only 10% of the country has computer access.
Morover the speed of the internet is still in the low 28-56 kbps range...broadband is just catching on.
And yet the movie guys say they are losing money due to illegal downloads!
Bollywood makes the most films in the world even more than hollywood but most of them sink without a trace...
its for the entire industry to think what is wrong with itself!
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I would tend to disagree with some parts of Dave's opinion.
While it is true that Red Hat is the dominant distributor worldwide(I run Fc2),many other distributors arent sleeping.
Mandrake is doing very well,many of my peers in colleges and in corporates have now begin to evaluate Mandrake as well as Suse before taking a call on what to purchase.
Suse has a lot going for it.The support from Novell is one of the best things to happen to os/fs in a long time.Novell is also hiring aggresively(not in terms of number of ppl but in quality of ppl) for its Bangalore(India based) center primarily for its open source initiative.
The best way to increase market shares as we all know is to sign up long term deals with major OEM's like HP,Compaq and Dell.While some of the distributions have achived success in this,a lot still needs to be done.
In developing countries like India and China that have huge markets but major major piracy problems,getting users to use Linux instead of a pirated windows is going to be the key.Most home users understand that piracy is bad but continue using it because the OS is just too expensive. How linux distributors approach these ppl is going to be crucial in deciding future growth rates
One percent is not much in no. terms for IE.It does mean a lot for other browsers like Opera and Mozilla.Mozilla iirc has recorded a rise of 26% as compared to last years user base.Opera too has recorded a jump in the last few months although I dont know the exact figures. More than anything this only shows how bad a monopoly can be.M$'s monopoly in the browser market is unquestionable.Inspite of IE not being even close to either opera or mozilla in terms of performance or security ,IE still commands the market.M$ is using its monopoly to dump a useless option onto the home users.An option that even the FBI has warned against using!
yes but only if Dell agrees to ship AMD chips too. I fail to understand why a major like Dell continues to remain the last holdout when companies like HP and Compaq have started shipping AMD powered systems. Having used AMD for a long long time now..I can atleast say that it does not lack in any manner...give the customer the choice and let him decide rather than some corporate honcho somewhere deciding that NO AMD
well in India too the situation is roughly the same.The local movie industry called Bollywood is crying hoarse about how piracy is affecting their revenues and the sad part is that only 10% of the country has computer access. Morover the speed of the internet is still in the low 28-56 kbps range...broadband is just catching on. And yet the movie guys say they are losing money due to illegal downloads! Bollywood makes the most films in the world even more than hollywood but most of them sink without a trace... its for the entire industry to think what is wrong with itself! my home