I totally agree, altho' a lot of those countries like China are starting to develop their IT infrastructure and therefore can be a lot more open to new ideas and so forth, my concerns are more with the existing Windows userbase which is so hard to break into.
jeremyb. > From: "Ryurick M. Hristev" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Date: 2002/05/02 Thu PM 01:57:13 GMT+12:00 > To: Canterbury Linux LUG <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: Re: Why Linux isn't on the desktop yet > > On Thu, 2 May 2002, Jeremy Bertenshaw wrote: > > Maybe, maybe not. > > But apparently everybody is ignoring some other arguments which I personally > find compelling: > > 1. The strategic and economic game: > > Practically all of the IT technology is controlled by US, > hardware and software. You name it, is US: IBM, Microsoft, HP, Sun, etc. > (manufacturing doesn't count, printers are the only exception but there is > only Japan) > > As the IT penetrates the "second" and even "third" world countries > I find very hard to believe that these countries will want to relinquish > their IT infrastructure control (government and military above all) over > to US. > > Can you imagine China, Russia and the Arab world basing their strategy > on US controlled IT technology ? I can't. > > Can you imagine India and Latin America being able to pay the US prices > for IT technology ? I can't. (yes, prices are country based but still > too high). > > 2. The user game: > > The argument here is that users will not want that or they want something > which is not available under Linux. > > First AFAIK in the average enterprise it is _not_ the user who decide > but the _employer_ trough various authorities: CIO, etc. (Universities > may be notable exceptions at least in some areas). > > Second, again AFAIK, most users interact with just one or two apps. > An complex office suite is required only for the front office and few > others like that. You don't need it for a POS or many other places. > > And finally if a user would use Linux at work for 8 hours why would > he/she want to use anything else at home ? > > 3. The "Linux is not ready for the desktop" game: > > I've seen many articles with this subject over the last 3-6 months. > > This is a very interesting development not for what they say > (that's obvious) but most importantly for what they don't say but imply. > > You would not have seen such articles in the past, it was damn obvious > to anybody that Linux was not ready for Joe Average. > > But now you see them, a dime a dozed ;-) > > Which it turn means that is no longer obvious. One now have to do some > serious study and write an article to argue the points! > > It means in fact that Linux is, if not ready, at least very close! > > Which in turn means in fact that Linux is _already_ good for the desktop > for at least some situations! > > The development is interesting from another point of view as well: > it follows very closely (so far) the same path as the "Linux is not ready > as server" argument. > > For those who have followed the arguments 3-4 years ago the similarities > are striking: after ~1 year of argumentation suddenly it ceased and Linux > _was_ good as server. Nowadays very few deny this. > > It would be certainly interesting to follow this development. > > Cheers, > -- > Ryurick M. Hristev mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] > Computer Systems Manager > University of Canterbury, Physics & Astronomy Dept., New Zealand > >
