Bryce Harrington writes:
>
> As well, I think all too often these discussions of "how to get people
> to switch to Linux" tends to focus on the basic home user case. I guess
> this is because often we're thinking about getting friends and family
> converted.
>
> Like I mentioned before, I don't really think these simple home users
> are that valuable of a target (although I certainly have saved a lot of
> administrative time getting Mom off of spyware-ridden Windows onto
> Linux!) I imagine that some day, someone will find a great business
> niche creating a "Grandma Linux" type thing with an extremely simplified
> interface, and either automated or remote system admin (so I can handle
> management of Grandma's machine from my computer).
For quite a while now the major Linux vendors are moving away from this
market: the focus definitely lies on the enterprise market as that's
where future growth in revenue lies. The end consumer market was only
interesting as long as it involved mosty semi professional early adaptors.
The end consumer mass market with its low margins (which are inversely
proportional to the customers' expectations) and high support burdeon
don't seem to be interesting as a source of revenue to most linux vendors.
>
> But looking at how this class of user picked up computers originally, in
> many cases the decision was justified because they wanted a system at
> home "like I have to use at work". In other words, they want to either
> develop or maintain an equivalent skillset as at work. Thus, I think
> that the major way to get home users to use Linux, starts by getting
> companies to convert to Linux. This is why I think DTL and its focus on
> enterprise desktop deployments and related issues has such an important
> role.
Right. Part of MS success story is that they are available on both
markets. The user has the same experience both at work and at home.
For MS the revenue story may look slightly different:
- For most home users Windows comes preinstalled. Thus the support
burdeon is on the system vendor (which often times does its best
to scare off pesky customers).
- The system doesn't come with a bzillion applications and utlities
preinstalled which all can cause problems and thus increase the
support burdeon.
- There are plenty of (non technical) user level support forums
available for Windows where people can turn to from the friendly
neighorhood guru to magazines and internet channels.
Major Linux vendors have done the step away from providing a commercial
version of the OS with support channels to providing free versions
with establishing a peer support community around it.
>
> So I think that some of the fundamental things we need to get right
> today are to solve all the various large scale desktop issues that
> plague major companies today. If we can make it significantly easier to
> maintain vast numbers of enterprise desktop systems than other OS's,
> resulting in significant savings to enterprise deployers, then things
> should start falling into place. And I think many of these desktop
> deployment issues are things that the Linux architecture is extremely
> well suited for - distributed patch management, secured/locked down
> interfaces, tight user access control, provisioning applications,
> remote management, etc. etc. I would also bet that many of these issues
> are already solved by people on this list right now, and if we could
> just get their solutions out in the open, polished up, and promoted,
> it'd really help push things along.
>
A lot of us are either working with such enterprise customers or are
working for companies that have consultants working for such customers.
Why don't we all go and ask them what the top inhibitors are to
migrate to an open source desktop?
So far we have focused heavily on the aches and pains of ISVs. Certainly
this is an importand issue. However from conversations that I have with
people out in the field I hear about issues that have not really been
mentioned here.
Cheers,
Egbert.
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