"They said it at LinuxWorld in Toronto a few months ago. They've buzzed it at analysts, and now the press is saying it to the public. Novell says this is the year of the Linux desktop, and I'm familiar with evidence showing gains in popularity for Linux. Yet, I disagree that this is the year. Nothing is happening this year to make it, specifically, the year of the Linux desktop and I'm going to hypothesize what could change that."
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Member since:2006-06-29
Linspire is already putting preloaded machines together... see http://www.linspire.com/linspire_letter.php
Howeve, you are correct about the visibility problem. These mini's are only available online, AFAIK, and as such, it doesn't seem likely that they'll take the marketplace by storm.
Member since:2005-09-13
//Someone needs to partner with BestBuy, CompUSA, etc., and get an area where trained sales people can show people that Linux is just as easy (at least some distros like LinSpire) as Windows.//
Not to belittle your point, but ... "trained sales people?" ... at Best Buy?
What planet are you from?
Member since:2006-07-03
I'm afraid that while Linspire does some of this, it's missing the boat on the most important aspects. You cannot go to Linspire's site and truly specify the system you want in advance to buying. You can get a preinstalled system but Linspire fails to ask the options first and make the distribution, the user’s distribution (point 2 in the article). Furthermore, I don't see evidence that they have the continuous flow in the product/service chain outlined in the article.
Linspire is still playing within the rules of the existing proprietary vendors' industry. They haven't differentiated a strong enough reason to shift customers' mindsets from Dell or Apple.
Member since:
2005-07-06
LinSpire does most of this already. The problem is lack of visibility. Until people can go into BestBuy, CompUSA, etc., and see Linux computers with equally as good of hardware as the Windows computers and be able to choose between the two people won't start buying Linux computers.
Even better. Someone needs to partner with BestBuy, CompUSA, etc., and get an area where trained sales people can show people that Linux is just as easy (at least some distros like LinSpire) as Windows. You know, just like Apple shoes people how to use Macs in their stores.
Once they get to see how easy it is, and maybe even have the salesperson offer to help setup the person's e-mail account with the e-mail software, then people will start buying Linux computers.