[Am-info] "The Time Is Now for Linux on the Desktop"

[Gene Gaines]

Appraising Microsoft.  That's what we attempt to do here.


What are the influences affecting Microsoft?  The Federal
government.  Phooey.  The states?  Not likely.  Other companies?
Little impact on the monopoly, rapacious behavior and moral
swamp of Microsoft.  Customers?  Not if the legal system permits
Microsoft to avoid any responsibility for their products.

What can impact Microsoft?  I see nothing on the horizon other
than Linux.

This article warrants reading with care:


I.B.M. Helps Promote Linux
By STEVE LOHR
New York Times
Published: November 11, 2003

Excerpts below.  Requires free subscription to access, so I
will quote below the sections I found of value.


'... I.B.M. and the Open Source Development Lab, whose membership
includes Hewlett-Packard, Dell and Intel, are beginning a drive to
promote Linux as an alternative to Windows on the desktop.

One indication of their more aggressive approach came yesterday
when an I.B.M. executive, Samuel J. Docknevich, delivered a speech
at a technology conference outside Boston titled "The Time Is Now
for Linux on the Desktop."

The Open Source Development Lab - a nonprofit organization to
advance the use of open source software like Linux - is planning a
program to encourage corporate adoption of desktop Linux, set to
begin in January. "We're going to push a big desktop Linux
initiative," Stuart F. Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source
Lab, said last week in an interview. "It's clearly something our
members want."
... '

Another statement from same article:

'Long gone are the days of OS/2, I.B.M.'s desktop operating
system, when Big Blue tried to confront Windows head on and wrest
dominance of the operating system market from Microsoft.

The I.B.M. plan now is to use Linux as the desktop operating
system in a simplified computing environment that relies on
delivering, updating and maintaining desktop applications over
high-speed corporate networks. Faster, low-cost telecommunications
and improved Internet software make the transition possible, Mr.
Handy said.

Studies have estimated the total cost of ownership of a PC in a
corporate setting at $5,000 to $7,000 a year. The hardware and
software costs are typically less than 30 percent of the total,
with the expense of maintaining, updating and debugging accounting
for the rest.

Deploying Linux and having applications centrally distributed and
managed on server computers, using Internet technology, can cut
the cost of owning a desktop machine in half or more, Mr. Handy
said.

"The discussion with customers usually starts with Linux," he
said. "But the huge gains come from using this server-based
architecture, which is made possible by these Internet
technologies. And Linux is one of them."

I.B.M., Mr. Handy said, is conducting dozens of assessments for
corporate customers of Linux desktop use as part of a program to
reduce costs. The companies, he said, do not want to be named
because they have not decided to switch desktop technologies.

The Linux desktops tap into the applications on server computers,
using a browser. E-mail, calendar, customer relationship
management and word-processing applications are included. Mr.
Handy said this kind of computing could be easily adopted by bank
branch offices, sales people, insurance agents, auto dealers and
others.

I.B.M. is trying it itself. About 15,000 workers use Linux
desktops, mostly software developers and researchers. By the end
of the first quarter of next year, I.B.M. plans to increase the
number of Linux desktops to 30,000 as sales, marketing and
administrative workers try it.'

...

'Shipments of Linux rose to 2.8 percent of desktop operating
systems in 2002, up steadily from 1.7 percent two years earlier,
according to IDC, a research firm. Windows accounted for nearly 94
percent of shipments last year.'

Gene Gaines
gene.gaines@gainesgroup.com
Sterling, Virginia