Experts: What Linux is doing wrong on the desktop

While this is a great report below, the content being reported on made me feel the need to speak up: Most people have no clue what Linux even is, much less find themselves associating it with troublemakers. Yes, desktop Linux has issues. But this is not one of them.

As the speakers at this week’s fourth annual Linux Desktop Summit in San Diego looked out onto their audiences, they couldn’t help but notice that the number of attendees sporting T-shirts, sandals and bushy facial hair — the stereotypical Linux movement diehards — was much reduced from previous conferences.

The message they offered the crowds echoed the longtime desire among Linux fans to see the open-source operating system loosen the stranglehold Windows enjoys on the desktop. But this time that message was leavened with criticism of the quixotic strategies Linux proponents and vendors still often rely on.

One of the biggest obstacles to acceptance of desktop Linux by corporate IT is the perception that proponents of the operating system are, well, troublemakers, according to Rob Enderle, principal analyst at San Jose-based The Enderle Group. “The closest thing you have to a union in IT are Apple users and Linux users,” he said. “Nobody else revolts like that.”

CIOs, for ease of management, generally prefer that employees all use the same operating system. The rule of thumb Enderle subscribes to is that support costs increase by the square of the number of platforms. So if a company runs two operating systems, support costs increase by a factor of four. If a company runs Windows, Mac and Linux, support costs increase 9 times

But whenever CIOs openly try to consolidate operating systems, they run into pockets of resistance from diehards who say “nasty things and threaten to quit.” Faced with that, most CIOs will simply try to limit the growth of Mac and Linux desktop systems “to maintain some respect and decorum, as well as keep their own jobs.”

IDC estimates that 9 million Linux PCs will be shipped this year, with that number growing to 17 million in 2008. While less than 4% of PCs expected to be sold in North and South America in 2008 will come with Linux, about 9% of those in the Asia-Pacific and the Europe, Middle East and Africa regions will be….. Source: CW

[tags]apple,san jose,desktop linux,experts,corporate it[/tags]