[plug] Linux Desktop Market

[Peter Tran]

The fight for the desktop market will be a very long a gruesome battle I
believe, Microsoft has the market cornered and unfortunately we would need
to see a few more generations before any real Linux adoption is to take
place.

People don't like change, corporates even more so.

If you could draw up a watertight advantages vs. disadvantages chart and
cover things such as conversion of MS Office documents to a format in Linux
and then reconverting it back to a format for other people to use. Support
Costs, Software Costs, Hardware Costs. You might stand a chance.

Unless you have an avid Linux person on site (most small businesses ->
medium businesses don't) it would be a rather hard sell.


Pete.



-----Original Message-----
From: plug-bounces at plug.org.au [mailto:plug-bounces at plug.org.au] On Behalf
Of simon
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2005 3:28 PM
To: plug at plug.org.au
Subject: Re: [plug] Linux Desktop Market

Chris Watt (something.rotten at gmail.com) wrote:

> So, does anyone think that a company could be founded on the ability
> to offer premium computers (so computers ready for the internet,
> office apps, etc.) could be sold to the public or do you think there
> are still factors hindering the adoption of this system, esp. by
> schools, seniors and first time users?

One word - 'Office'. Noone cares about windows. However, the vast majority
of
corporate users need Office to communicate with each other (ie, theyve
settled
on a standard). Usually people like to use the same stuff at home as they do
at the office.

Desktop supremacy seems unlikely until people are given a valid reason to
all
swap from office to a competing linux based product (which aint gonna
happen),
or Microsoft Office import/export filters on the competing products becomes
so
good that there is never an issue (which is unlikely to happen), or
Microsoft
open their file formats for office (was that the sound of hell freezing
over?).

In short, widespread home use wont occur until you get the corporates. You
wont get the corporates until you solve this office problem.

--
=================
Simon Scott
simon at chrome64.org
mob: 0409113359
=================



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