“Now Wal-Mart’s website is selling $299 PCs that run on an operating system called Lindows (Microsoft is suing over the name), while another Linux brand called Lycoris Desktop LX is about to hit the shelves at CompUSA. The ubiquitous Linux logo, a penguin, is already a hit at places like IBM and much of the U.S. government. Should the rest of us tune him in too?” Read the article at Time.com. On the other hand, eWeek has a kinda opposite article: “Linux vendors are showing a renewed interest in developing a desktop version of the operating system to challenge Microsoft Corp. But many corporate users are simply not ready for—or not interested in—such a product.”
The Little Penguin That Could – Or Not
About The Author
Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSNews.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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It seems that one of the big problems facing Linux – at least as a Windows-replacement desktop OS – is exposure, or lack of it. People moaned for years about how the Linux desktop was no good for non-technical users.
So it got fixed, and now there are a couple of very nice options that are no more difficult to use than Windows.
Then there was the complaint that there wasn’t any good office software with the same kind of heavyweight feature-list as MS Office and Office format compatibility.
So it got fixed, and now there’s StarOffice 6.0 and OpenOffice.org, which aren’t perfect, but they’re no worse than MS Office of a couple of generations ago, and satisfy the requirements detailed very well.
But it seems that the people that eWeek interviewed haven’t quite got this yet. They’re still basing their views of desktop Linux on what was true a year or two ago, which in the Linux world is an eternity. No doubt this is at least partly due to being used to Microsoft-like product cycles which are somewhat longer.
So how do you spread the word? How do you tell people that desktop Linux has arrived?
Well, the Time article is a good start. Getting good free writeups in respected magazines is priceless. I think this can only take you so far though. If you really want to sell Linux, you need good, old-fashioned, in-your-face advertising. You simply won’t get your message across well enough in any other way. And there’s the rub: in order to do a major advertising campaign, you need money, and lots of it. Which, of course, none of the Linux distros have. Those that do have the odd cent or two knocking around (say, Red Hat) have all the marketing skills of a dead rat.
Every day I marvel at how good the Linux desktop has become, and how quickly it has improved in the last few years. It makes me really hopeful for the future. However, until somebody with both money and marketing brains decides desktop Linux is something they could make a dime from, I don’t see Linux getting anything more than a single-figure share of the desktop market worldwide.
Maybe it’ll be IBM? Maybe one of the distros will get their marketing act together… or maybe it’s time for a joint Linux marketing fund? After all, 20% of a giant pie is still more than 80% of a tiny mince pie…
I suspect the truth of the matter is somewhere in the middle. Windows will probably remain dominant on the desktop for at least the next 2-5 years, maybe even the next 20 years. The other side of that is, personal computers are obviously going to be around for a long, long time, and even Gates himself acknowledges Microsoft will eventually be replaced. Eventually operating systems and basic applications are going to be commoditized, in the same way your basic PC hardware is. It’s not a matter of if, but when. It may not even be Linux that eventually succeeds Windows, but it will likely be something based on some sort of open model.
The advantage Linux has is that it isn’t reliant on one company for survival. Whatever other virtues BeOS might have had, when Be Inc. folded, that was the end of it. While any number of Linux distros can and have expired, the code remains available for the next guy to pick up and improve on. Slackware expanded on SLS, Xandros expanded on Corel which in turn expanded on Debian, Mandrake expanded on Red Hat, and so on. I doubt Linux will take the desktop by storm, but slowly and incrementally I think it will establish a presence. As powerful as it is today, Windows is in the same position as BeOS – it’s fate lies with one company, and all companies screw up eventually. Once Microsoft fails, it’s done. Linux can fail any number of times, and it’s irrelevant. It always has another chance. A hundred failures won’t make a difference. It only has to succeed once. Sooner or later, Linux will evolve to the point where it’s viable on the desktop, and some smart company will figure out how to market it effectively. Give a hundred monkeys a typewriter…
…or alternately someone else will develop a viable (non-unix) open source desktop OS. The example of Linux is probably it’s most lasting impact.
The Time article said this was a bargain. $29 for Lycoris. I’m not sure if this was an OEM price, but it certainly isn’t a bargain. Most OEMs get Windows around $40-50 dollars, the price difference is so small, it is better getting the “real” thing instead of something that looks like it.
Lindows OEM pricing may be something to write home about, but the cost of support and angry customers isn’t that worth it.
I thought that the most interesting point was the criticism in the E-week article had nothing to do with the OS or Desktop Environment its self. The only really valid point they had was 100% compatibility with M$ Office. It shows how far we have come that criticism has focused on the application side of things rather then the UI or hardware compatibility.
What is needed in a wider scope, that is more then just Linux adoption, is a revolution in business document processing. Something with true centralized document management. The messy semi-desktop-publishing word-processing and toy database stuff on local storage needs to go. Content and presentation need to be separated. High level meta-organization needs to be applied to all of an organizations information. I guess this would be some sort of distributed XML and database thing. This would have great advantages to managing a business or organization and remove the classic herding cats problem of conventional document processing software.
I think you just described Microsoft Yukon – some sort of distributed XML and database thing.
$40.00 to $50.00 bucks. As far as I have read, asked and understand it not even Dell, Gate way and Compaq get Oem prices from MS at $50.00. I’d like to know who is. Now that would be a story.
D/LX sells retail at $29.00
And to think $29 is not even the OEM price imagine how cheap that could be?
“So it got fixed, and now there are a couple of very nice options that are no more difficult to use than
Windows. ”
I don’t think “no more difficult than Windows” is much of a
compliment. Is that the best people can do?
The fundamental battle is not between Linux and Windows but between
Open Source and software patents. So long as an open standard like
JPEG can potentially be sabotaged by a bunch of US lawyers, Linux and
other OS projects will always be at risk.
What happens if somebody finds a way to enforce copyright on the
design of a font, and a license fee becomes payable on anything that
looks like Helvetica or Times? No problem for MS, they just add it
into the price.
But can people distribute software for it?
Yes, they can
I don’t think “no more difficult than Windows” is much of a compliment. Is that the best people can do?
I think it’s a compliment. It is the base standard which a GUI must reach before it can be considered a significant player, and a potential replacement for Windows. Windows may not be the greatest GUI in the world, but a lot of research and development time and a lot of money has been invested in it, and for an Open Source desktop to have reached at least equality with it is, I think, impressive. From this point on, if the speed of X desktop development continues as it has done for the last few years, they will soon greatly exceed Windows in ease of use.
Some would argue that MacOS, supposedly far easier to use than Windows, doesn’t actually meet these criteria, simply because of its unfamiliarity to ex-Windows users.
The fundamental battle is not between Linux and Windows but between Open Source and software patents.
Not really. Outside North America (and probably inside, too), Open Source is already too entrenched to be beaten so easily (for instance, the German parliament is converting to Linux). As Open Source becomes more widespread, I suspect that IT buyers simply won’t stand for serious patent threats to it.
I don’t doubt that software patents will be used to hinder the growth of Linux and Open Source software in general, and indeed they already are to a certain extent. However, Ogg Vorbis has shown one way of routing around patents on formats – simply through technical brilliance. Replace the patented format with something better that is non-patented, undercutting the patented format. It’s taking a while with Vorbis, but I do think it’s working.
Even, given all this, if software patents did ever become a truly serious threat to Open Source, I think it wouldn’t be too difficult to start an Open Source patent pool, giving free patent grants to Open Source software, and going after infringing proprietary software vendors with clubs, and extracting money from them to help fund new patents and maybe the odd developer or two. Fighting fire with fire, as it were. With however many thousands of talented developers there are developing Open Source software, there must be some good patentable stuff in there. I don’t like the idea much, but it might be necessary if some proprietary developer takes the nuclear option.
If the US wants to outright ban Open Source software, well that’s their problem. 95% of the world’s population lives outside the US: Open Source and Linux will survive perfectly well without the US, and US industry will suffer because of this.
What happens if somebody finds a way to enforce copyright on the design of a font, and a license fee becomes payable on anything that looks like Helvetica or Times?
Very unlikely – the design copyright on Times and Helvetica has long since passed into the public domain, as it has on most of the classic typefaces. Design copyright on typefaces is already enforced just about everywhere outside the US, so your point is moot.
I can’t see anywhere else where copyrights might be a problem to Open Source – developers have long known the dangers of this, which is why the GPL exists, and why Debian is so anal about separating free and non-free software in their archives.
We must recognize that the only way to keep mainstream formats open is to make viable alternatives in the OS feild. The only way to do that is to create software that will easily move users from Microsoft(He who has the Gold) to Linux. Otherwise Microsoft keeps their Monopoly.
Lycoris has done a great job at leading people away. Their software looks familiar and that makes people feel good about their product and then when they use it they feel even better.
It is nessessary to know about marketing and human psycology to be in the OS business. It is the most unique business in the world.
that and underwater demolitions…
The Lycoris price is the full price, and not an OEM price. You should visit the site and get your facts straight.
I don’t think “no more difficult than Windows” is much of a compliment. Is that the best people can do?
Some would argue that MacOS, supposedly far easier to use than Windows, doesn’t actually meet these criteria, simply because of its unfamiliarity to ex-Windows users.
Well, my wife has an iMac now. Before that I had her an account set up on my Linux box. At the time, I was using the LWN window manager, and if you have seen it, you know that it is very bare bones, and requires the use of 3 mouse buttons. Well, she took to that like a fish out of water. Well, I got her an iMac. Let me say… she can use her iMac now, but it took a lot longer.
A properly configured Linux workstation can be easier to use than a Mac and easier to use than a Windows workstation. But, it does take someone to configure it.
i just had a dream.. about a commercial.. and it was like a microsoft commercial. and microsoft was saying something about linux.. and there were all these rubber pinguins floating in water, or they might have been rubber duckies.. and then they were saying something about how linux sucked and then there were shotgun shells spelling out MS.
actually that would be a good anti microsoft commercial.. if you pick the right words.
A properly configured Linux workstation can be easier to use than a Mac and easier to use than a Windows workstation. But, it does take someone to configure it.
I agree 100% with that. I do all the configuring/administering work on my sister’s computer, and when i actually gave her the choice of going back to windows or staying in linux, she chose linux (damned brother tried hard to get her to go to windows though). Heck, she isnt even seeing eye-candy, i have her running IceWM, and Abiword as a wordprocessor (old computer, KDE/GNOME + OpenOffice would kill it). Now i wonder if i can teach her to run ‘apt-get dist-upgrade’ once a week when im gone…
This is just a general remark, but if Linux, as a whole, wants to stick together, I think Red Hat, Mandrake and SuSE should, as far as desktop goes, focus on the corporate desktop and Lycoris and ELX on the consumer desktop. Lindows…I just don’t know <g>. All though, need OEM deals. Well, Lindows has one, but Lycoris, for example, only has five or six employees!And look what they’ve been able to do as far as ease of use.
“$40.00 to $50.00 bucks. As far as I have read, asked and understand it not even Dell, Gate way and Compaq get Oem prices from MS at $50.00. I’d like to know who is. Now that would be a story.”
Actually, for XP Home edition, I would be surprised if they were even paying this much. It’s probably less given the volume that they sell and the strict contract obligations they have to fulfill with Microsoft.
I can get OEM XP home edition for less than $90. And I have no contract obligations with Microsoft except for the fact that I can’t sell the OEM version of the software without hardware. Given that Dell and such have custom contracts with Microsoft about what they can and can’t do, I am sure they are getting a far better price, especially because the hardware vendors are the main promoters of Windows technology.
…is grassroots support from the myrid of local comupter shops and online distributors. Most people need someone to help them configure a computer and make good choices before they even break out the cash. These small shops can do that. MS has no love of them, they pay the same pre-retail price everyone else pays–and get in trouble if they sell it too cheap.
If One could get a distro and updates thru computer shops and software stores, as well as important downloads (think a weekly gentoo update on CD for like $5-10), Linux could take over quickly. Remember, most of the US is still dial-up and even 10MB pushes an hour of time babysitting the connection. The local high school and college kids would get valuable experience in configuring and supporting linux, and the little shops could make some money for themselves!
“…is grassroots support from the myrid of local comupter shops and online distributors. Most people need
someone to help them configure a computer and make good choices before they even break out the cash.
These small shops can do that. MS has no love of them, they pay the same pre-retail price everyone else
pays–and get in trouble if they sell it too cheap. ”
Funny you should mention that. I popped into my local shop last week,
and the guy behind the counter was talking about how he needs to learn
Linux, and was Red Hat OK?
I think it’s happening.
You’re all very optimistic about desktop linux, TOO optmistic if ask me, in my university there are dozens of computers with a win/linux dual boot combo that students can use, and for what i can tell, usually linux is only used when people are forced to use it, programming mostly, since the school decided not to install Visual studio on all workstations (they found some students didnt know what a makefile was
), anyway for normal use: “surfing” the web, or using office almost everyone uses windows, including me, i really don’t have time to waste half an hour installing the printer drivers or whatever
When i installed lycoris (b.44) i was never able to get the nvidia drivers to work properlly, and my usb cable modem never worked (and when i asked for help in linux forum i was told to get a ethernet card since usb wasn’t made for networking in the first place bla bla bla), strangely the modem worked with knoppix… go figure
> Give a hundred monkeys a typewriter…
Ah, well, that explains a lot then. ;^)
And to think $29 is not even the OEM price imagine how cheap that could be?
$19.95. $20 off Windows. I rather spend $20 more for my customers :-p.
Sid: $40.00 to $50.00 bucks. As far as I have read, asked and understand it not even Dell, Gate way and Compaq get Oem prices from MS at $50.00. I’d like to know who is. Now that would be a story.
I’m not talking about Dell, HP, etc. buying Windows at $50. That’s stupid. Most likely around 20-30 bucks. I’m talking about prices Microsoft gives to OEMs that sells more than hundred PCs a month in Malaysia, which is $45. I’m sure it is cheaper there, plus that Microtel PC for sure is being sold much faster than a hundred each month.
Stacey Abshire: The Lycoris price is the full price, and not an OEM price. You should visit the site and get your facts straight.
I was talking from the article, I didn’t make the statement out of nowhere, but from the article. This whole thread is about discussing the article.
Besides, an certificate (no CD, no manual, just a piece of paper) ost $19.95.
marm: Some would argue that MacOS, supposedly far easier to use than Windows, doesn’t actually meet these criteria, simply because of its unfamiliarity to ex-Windows users.
David Coursey, who a year ago is Microsoft minion #1 didn’t find it hard to use OS X. I wonder what his experience would be with OS 9. A LOT of people DON’T KNOW how to use Windows. Plus most of them wouldn’t switch unless they get something in return.
Is these UIs that copy Windows easier to use than Windows itself? Nope.
Can I run the apps my office run? Most probably nope.
🙂
marm: Not really. Outside North America (and probably inside, too), Open Source is already too entrenched to be beaten so easily (for instance, the German parliament is converting to Linux).
Germany is nothing. Third world countries are picking up various OSS software to save cost – they don’t have all the money in the world you know. Moving from never using computers to using computers with OSS software, is an increase of productivity. Not only that, many of these governements have a problem with piray and the US Government pushing them to stop it. OSS is the best way for them.
And amazingly, in these third world countries, the OS they choose happens to be a distro that doesn’t clone Windows. There is a whole new unsaturated market out there.
marm: If the US wants to outright ban Open Source software, well that’s their problem. 95% of the world’s population lives outside the US: Open Source and Linux will survive perfectly well without the US, and US industry will suffer because of this.
But in the short term, OSS would suffer too. A lot of OSS developers are from the USA. Maybe they would drive down to Mexico or up into Canada and live there – but most wouldn’t. Projects like OBOS probably wouldn’t exist anymore.
Besides, the government doing something like this is imposible. Intel has OSS stuff. IBM too. Sun too. Apple too. HP/Compaq too. Maybe AMD too. Combined together, they make a much bigger industry weigh than Microsoft and the few anti-OSS companies. (Note: Most of the companies, if not all, I have mentioned do have closed source apps, but they are open to make OSS apps too).
Jay: And look what they’ve been able to do as far as ease of use.
Something any company with 5-6 employees could do…
Mabhatter: MS has no love of them, they pay the same pre-retail price everyone else pays–and get in trouble if they sell it too cheap.
Even if they are that small, the most they would pay for Windows under OEM pricing is $90..
Hug0: You’re all very optimistic about desktop linux, TOO optmistic if ask me, in my university there are dozens of computers with a win/linux dual boot combo that students can use, and for what i can tell, usually linux is only used when people are forced to use it
Most likely you are from North America or Europe – whose market is mostly saturated. Linux on the desktop growth in the Far East is very high (can’t find the numbers….. where are they?).
Hug0: When i installed lycoris (b.44) i was never able to get the nvidia drivers to work properlly…
See, most of the problems are hardware related. This doesn’t limit Linux growth because people getting Linux is people who aren’t using computers and need new hardware in the first place. Besides, isn’t b 44 a *beta*?
And to think $29 is not even the OEM price imagine how cheap that could be?
$19.95. $20 off Windows. I rather spend $20 more for my customers :-p.
You are still pulling prices out of thin air. How much would Lycoris cost to OEM’s not the public?
You are still pulling prices out of thin air. How much would Lycoris cost to OEM’s not the public?
The website says for a certificate (e.g. no CDs, manuals blah blah blah), it cost 20 bucks. Lycoris sill haven’t replied me about OEM pricing. Strange, about every other Linux company (Red Hat, mandrake, Lindows, ELX, Xandros, Corel, SuSE, etc.) replied 24 hours later when I ask for OEM pricing.