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OK you are probably right about the small business situation. It is pretty much the same here. But still there seems to be more movement here. This is the second year that the tax authorities have launched binaries for Linux x86 and Mac OS X besides those for Windows.



They may have had a possibly positive impact in the earlier phases of the PC but is that still the case now? All I can see now is that it's stifling the entire ecosystem around their platform.

Is Microsoft progress still synonymous with that of the IT industry? Within a few years even Solaris may be a better desktop OS than anything coming out of Redmond.

And I am not even a Microsoft hater. A few years ago I only programmed using Microsoft technologies but nowadays I write and maintain cross-platform software and am explicitly not excluding Windows.

I tell my customers to run their applications on virtual Windows servers and desktops as long as they need to and possibly forever. That's because they pay me to give them advice on how to run their systems the way that is most beneficial to them, not to me nor any other company.

Neither am I anti-American or I wouldn't run a Slackware system using OpenOffice.org (largely developed in Germany), Mozilla Firefox/Thunderbird, Sun Java, VMware Server/Workstation and I am occasionally trying out several of the BSDs and Solaris.

It's just that I and many of my friends, relatives and customers have been burnt by the shoddy quality and security of Microsoft products that even had some of them on the brink of closing their office.

When I install my complete Slackware based desktop for them I never hear anything from them. The only time they come to me is when their low-quality hardware has failed again.



European companies haven't had or given themselves a chance to compete against those large American business. In that sense they have rightly failed. This is starting to change now and the EU wants to accelerate this process of giving Europe a second chance at getting an IT industry off the ground.

This will not be possible as long as Microsoft has such a stranglehold on protocols and data formats as it has now. That's why several countries over here have already adopted ODF as their standard office format.

Mrs. Smit-Kroes (from the Netherlands :-)) is als investigating the market share of Windows Servers in small businesses that has risen from 35% to 75% over the last eight years, which she find unacceptable.

I can attest personally that Windows 2003 SBS precludes or makes it very difficult for other operating systems to operate in the same environment. There is not a single technical reason for this.

She is really not as much anti-Microsoft or anti-American as she is against anti-competitive practices. She has recently fined three major Dutch beer brands that had entered anti-competitive contracts that allowed them to divide the market between themselves at fixed prices.

Germany wants to create a Linux Valley in the region around Muenchen and Nuernberg. I was there three years ago and stores were literally stuffed with SUSE Linux boxes. Not very strange considering Nuernberg is the home of the SUSE Linux development team.

It wasn't too bad over here either six years ago. Most people download their distributions nowadays or I preinstall it for them with or without virtual Windows.



Does there have to be any? I'd rather think it's sort of an anomaly that a company that has two basic successful products and many unsuccessful ones has managed to get such a large influence on the IT landscape. Do you really think that happened all by itself without strongarming competitors and vendors?



It is very hard to create software that has the quality and breadth of Adobe products. It will probably take a lot of work and time to build something that can rival the best that Adobe offers today. And I agree that the GIMP doesn't cut it today and I doubt it ever will.

OpenOffice.org is more or less the equal of Microsoft Office but it still has some rough edges that could probably take some time to polish. The most important problem in migrating is third party addon software that interfaces with Microsoft Office. It's about time that Sun and Novell start acknowledging this problem and do something about it.

I have to say I don't know what Quicken and MYOB are and what they do that no FOSS application could do since we don't use those programs over here. Is it really that hard to replicate the functionality that those applications provide?

I am building an accounting solution for an accountant at the moment. When it reaches a state that it is generally usable we will certainly try to sell it. Most available accounting solutions have had years of development before they reached their current feature set and usability.



I have to say that I am very happy for the people in your country that want to run Windows and/or Office in their native language. But still many people in other countries don't have that choice today. FOSS at least gives them a chance to have more and/or better native translations than proprietary software.