Well it was a nice thought, I guess. Even though Novell is the distributor of Suse Linux, it seems that the adoption within their own offices is pretty slow.

Novell may be evangelizing Linux and Open Office on the desktop, but more than half of its own employees can still boot Microsoft Windows and Office if they wish.

Ron Hovsepian, Novell’s president, speaking at a press event in Sydney, said that “about 2,000 employees right now out of 5,000 are single-boot only, which is Linux only, the rest are dual-boot.” He said that a project to migrate the 3,000 dual-boot workers to open source is likely to be completed over the next year or so.

The shift from Microsoft Windows and Office to the open-source software was first mooted in March 2004, when Novell Chief Information Officer Debra Anderson was handed the task.

At the time, Anderson said she hoped most of Novell’s staff would have moved to Linux and the OpenOffice.org office suite by mid-2005.

Hovsepian’s remarks indicate Novell will have at most a few months’ experience as a complete Linux and open-source desktop shop behind it when, according to the company’s predictions, the software starts taking off in the mainstream. He told CNET News.com on Friday that Linux on the desktop would start taking off over the next 12 to 18 months, with the scheduled mid-2006 release of Suse Linux Desktop 10 being one of the factors fueling growth. Source: News.com

Tags: novell, open source, open office, ms office, microsoft windows