The war is over and Linux won

w1z4rd

w1z4rd

Karmic Sangoma
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A new IBM-sponsored study on Linux sent me by Joe McKendrick, our SOA expert, goes a long way toward explaining the big Oracle and Microsoft moves regarding Linux.

The war is over and Linux won. (The original Linux penguin was created by Larry Ewing. This particular bird lives at the LWN Penguin Gallery.)

The truth of the assertion is in a chart near the back of the report. It shows that 83% of companies expect to support new workloads on Linux next year, against 23% for Windows. The move is slower for larger enterprises, but the direction is clear.

At least in the server world, Linux has won.
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http://blogs.zdnet.com/open-source/?p=837

Its also making amazing inroads into the desktop area, so expect that market to be conquered soon as well.
 
As long as anyone switching steers clear of SuSE
 
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I think it will still take several years for linux to really become the dominant desktop OS, who knows maybe it will never get there at all.

It has been improving at a devilish pace though. And distros like Ubuntu is really making it a viable option for users who only want to do the basic stuff.

Also since consoles is probably the way the games will go, linux does not have to worry that much about games anymore imo.

The next few years will be very exciting. I'd love to see linux slowly take down the giant, but it always has an ace up its sleave.
 
Support for Games. Once that is sorted, Linux can attack Windows for the desktop
 
You can use Wine/WineX or Cedega for games. However, I'm not sure if WineX and Cedega are free.
 
It's not that Linux must have support for games... It already has. Game makers must support Linux, that's the bottom line.

Most of the AAA game engines these days support Linux and have for a while. Unreal, Torque, Quake etc.

It took Linux years to eat into the server market, so I don't expect it to take over the desktop shortly. But it will happen, eventually. It's the better software model.
 
Vista will make it tough for Linux as a Desktop imo. It is clearly the Average Joe type of OS. It is pretty and it does the job. The more folks become advanced computer users, the more concurrent users there might be in the medium term. In the long term however I also see Linux coming out king...
 
For the corporate environment linux as a desktop is ideal and where M$ofts nose will be bloodied the most but for the home environment it still needs to be refined.
 
bwana v.21 said:
For the corporate environment linux as a desktop is ideal and where M$ofts nose will be bloodied the most
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I dont think this one is that clear cut. Remember CIOs, CFOs & CEOs think in terms of TCO, not sticker price & technology. As the bulk of the TCO model is made up of HR related cost e.g. support, admin, training & recruitment, the expenses of moving to a new unfamiliar computing environment, especially when skills are short, will weigh quite heavily on their descisions.

Sometimes familiarity & comfort are cheaper than cheap itself ... especially when the primary focus is on your line of business and not IT.
 
Roman4604 said:
I dont think this one is that clear cut. Remember CIOs, CFOs & CEOs think in terms of TCO, not sticker price & technology. As the bulk of the TCO model is made up of HR related cost e.g. support, admin, training & recruitment, the expenses of moving to a new unfamiliar computing environment, especially when skills are short, will weigh quite heavily on their descisions.

Sometimes familiarity & comfort are cheaper than cheap itself ... especially when the primary focus is on your line of business and not IT.
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Skills are short? Where? Last I heard there was a glut in the IT market.

As more and more familiar software gets ported to linux the environment becomes more and more familiar. All it takes is a familiar looking theme and the worker bees are generally blissfully unconcerned about the switch.

The bottom line is there is a fortune to be saved by switching and even the relic ceo's you mention like the bottom line a switch to linux can offer. :)
 
bwana v.21 said:
Skills are short? Where? Last I heard there was a glut in the IT market.
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Not from my experience ... in this country specifically. The amount of candidates in the sector does not equate to the skills avaliable.
bwana v.21 said:
The bottom line is there is a fortune to be saved by switching
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My point is, that has to be emperically proved to them, in their environment.
 
Roman4604 said:
Not from my experience ... in this country specifically. The amount of candidates in the sector does not equate to the skills avaliable.
My point is, that has to be emperically proved to them, in their environment.
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No offence but SA is pretty irrelevant when we're looking at things globally.

The reason there is an IT shortage here, if there really is, would be political more than anything else. I doubt you could swing a penguin in say London and not hit an IT specialist and he'd probably be South African at that! :D
 
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