[GRLUG] Linux desktop marketshare

[Don Wood]

On Tue, 2007-12-11 at 12:48 -0500, Michael Mol wrote:
> On Dec 11, 2007 12:34 PM, Don Wood <dond at standalelumber.com> wrote:
> > http://desktoplinux.com/news/NS2414535067.html
> >
> > I believe most of this.
> 
> This line got me to lose interest:
> 
> "While all this has been going on, broadband Internet connectivity has
> become almost as easily available as cell phone coverage."
> 
> Grade A bull.  Much of Muskegon county doesn't even have DSL, and
> there are no estimates for when it might be rolled out.  When I lived
> in Muskegon, I used 56k dial-up.  I know lots of people *in Grand
> Rapids* who can barely afford dial-up, much less broadband.  Should my
> living arrangements change, I'll likely be dropping back to dial-up
> myself.
> 
> All the buzz is about Verizon's 20Mb/s FIOS, or Comcast's demoing
> 150Mb/s connectivity.  The controversy over how the FCC measures
> broadband coverage seems like a distant memory.  Read/Write Web
> recently had an article talking about the coming Internet slow-down,
> saying "It will be like the bad old days of dial-up."
> 
> It's amazing how many people fail to realize those "bad old days" are
> still here for a huge demographic.  It brings to mind people's wonder
> at the beginning of the Atomic Age.  Nothing really changed (Where are
> all the nuke plants now?  Why are we having a debate over coal plants
> in Kansas?), people just thought everything was different, somehow.
> 
> If you really wanted, I bet you could make a killing with webservices
> catering to low-bandwidth customers.  Ditch flash, video and large
> images, and focus on text content.  There's a huge peasant class on
> the Internet right now that nobody seems to remember.
> 

I agree with the author about the adoption of desktop Linux is going to
probably begin with low-end pcs. Or as we discussed in the last lug
meeting that companies that are being forced by the economy to look at
their current practices and find lower cost substitutes. His
generalization of Internet access is superfluous to the topic imho.