[GRLUG] Linux use

[Bob Kline]

Indeed.  That's where the M$ monopoly
really pays off.  Vendors would much
rather support just one version of their
software than three or more - windoz,
OS X, and Linux, for example.  Much
more profitable to have one near universal
platform.

To me that is the push-pull of monopoly
behavior.  After some level of market
share suppliers and vendors actually
root for a total monopoly, for reasons
mentioned above.

Re Chrome, etc., totally agree.  My wife
basically uses windows 7, but also the
Google items you mention.  My guess is
that 95% of PC users mostly surf and
do e-mail 95% of the time, and play
games the rest.  Which is why Chrome
OS might succeed at some level.

    -- Bob


On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 1:38 PM, Dagny Scott <parsleyfirefly at gmail.com>wrote:

> Training dollars aren't really an issue. From a basic user perspective
> there's really no difference between Windows, Mac and Linux. If you were
> trained on older versions of Windows, you might be more comfortable using a
> basic Linux GUI like Xfce than you would be with a constantly-changing mess
> that is a current Windows UI.
>
> The issue is with software: there's a lot of specialized software out
> there. As home users, we don't think about this issue, except sometimes with
> games. I use practically the same software on Linux that I do on Windows --
> Thunderbird, Pidgin, Chrome/Chromium, LibreOffice, GIMP.
>
> But most companies have specialized software that they run, stuff that's
> vital to their specific industry, and most of that will target whatever has
> the largest marketshare (with the exceptions of a few industries, like
> audio/video production, that run on Macs).
>
> The only way I see any of this changing is specialized software moving to
> the Web. We've already seen this somewhat with some CRM software moving to
> the web, but this will have varying degrees of success depending on the
> industry.
>
> Dagny
>
> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 1:24 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> According to the same source, OS X has
>> about 6% the desktop market.  Now that's
>> based on BSD, which would transparent to
>> most users.  So this suggests that Linux
>> as much as anything lacks a marketing
>> vehicle, and both Linux and OS X never
>> got the $billions of training dollars from
>> corporations that windoz got.  And of course
>> people stay with what they know, so now
>> breaking in to the windoz monopoly will be
>> very tough.
>>
>>     -- Bob
>>
>>
>> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 12:41 PM, Bob Kline <bob.kline at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 12:30 PM, John-Thomas Richards <
>>> jtr at jrichards.org> wrote:
>>>
>>>> On Fri, Aug 26, 2011 at 08:38:42AM -0400, Eric Beversluis wrote:
>>>>
>>>> Regarding Linux on the desktop, that arrived (for me) in 1997.  I used
>>>> to care whether Linux would take over Microsoft's monopoly position
>>>> until I realized that I don't run Windows and haven't since 1997 (except
>>>> when working for organizations that required me to use their PCs but not
>>>> on my personal computer).  What do I care which OS
>>>> [insert-business-name] provides for its employees?  I don't work there.
>>>> Debian with OpenBox, vim, Kile, mutt, evolution, Firefox, and a few
>>>> others is all *I* need to be productive.
>>>> --
>>>> john-thomas
>>>> ------
>>>>
>>>
>>> An OS needs a certain volume before
>>> it gets commercial support, in the way
>>> of drivers and package support.  I suspect
>>> that the alleged small number of Linux users
>>> is balanced by the fact that many of them
>>> are IT professionals, and the stated growth
>>> in non-desktop areas.
>>>
>>>    -- Bob
>>>
>>>
>>
>>
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