Two ways Linux can win market share from Windows

Share This October 15th, 2009 Antowan

Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols, the Cyber Cynic  at Computerworld.com made a blog post recently where he pointed out “Five ways the Linux desktop shoots itself in the foot“. It got some heavy reaction and even though I am not going to directly comment on what he said, it got me thinking.

The five reasons Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols mentioned comes under the following headings:

1. Lack of Linux vendor support
2. Lack of Linux advertising and marketing
3. Too much bad techie attitude
4. Too much infighting
5. Not enough developer co-operation

I leave it to you to go read his post and judge his five points yourself. I have to say I agree with most of what he says but that is only part of the picture in my opinion. I believe there are two ways and two ways only, through which Linux can become a dominant desktop computer operating system and both of them were pointed out to me by my good friend known as BlueBrain on the forum.

Ways I believe Linux can become the dominant operating system on desktop computers:

1. Kids need to get used to it in school. As long as teachers accept free software from Microsoft and shun Linux in school, there is NO way Linux will become mainstream.
2. Games! There needs to be a range of good quality easy to install mainstream commercial games that can work on Linux. There are a few, but too few and far between.

I really and honestly believe it is that simple. Teachers in schools are not confident enough to use Linux and there is no active drive to get teachers to cross the line in favor of Linux in the learning environment. It can be very beneficial to learners and teachers to make the jump, but somehow Microsoft’s free offering to schools are the dominant force in schools around the globe. Microsoft is not shy to splash on schools. They give schools nearly every software package that Microsoft has ever created for free. Schools basically pay for postage and packaging. That is it!

The only barrier is getting Linux into schools to get kids using it and then giving them games, to get them to keep on using it…

Entry Filed under: Gaming, General, General IT, Software, World Wide Web