Link to full article on eWeek
Sounds hard to believe? Well, IDC analyst Al Gillen recently said that "Linux is no longer a fringe player. Linux is now mainstream." He made that observation because IDC's research predicts that Linux's overall revenue for desktops, servers and packaged software running on Linux will exceed $35 billion by 2008.
And he basis his claim on his prediction?
The firm he works for makes a living analyzing tech trends and forcasting the future. Whether
this forecast is accurate will be seen in the future. The thing that I would like to know is who funded the study and on what terms? There have been such studies that were funded with a predetermined result (tobacco companies lung cancer research for example.)
Anyone who promotes either Microsoft or Linux has to face the question of whether they have a bias towards one or the other. This is inevitable as several "studies" that have come out pro-Microsoft have turned out to have been funded by Microsoft and to have been heavily slanted towards Microsoft in their methods of gaining data and choosing what to present.
I will volunteer that I neither profit nor lose if Microsoft loses. The only thing that makes me want Microsoft to fail is the fact that I dislike the many criminal acts that they have committed and I like to see criminals punished.
It's not just HP and Linux companies like Red Hat and Novell that are greeting Linux with open arms. IBM, Intel and Oracle have embraced Linux.
None of these companies are doing it because they get warm fuzzies from neo-hippie, socialist dreams of open software and free love, as some hyperventilating critics have claimed. They're doing it because Linux makes good, hard business sense.
Of course they have embraced Linux with open arms. C'mon, do you go with the "date" that charges or the one who gives it away? It's not a matter of wether Linux is a superior product (it isn't), but rather at its price point Linux gives just enough service and it affords those companies a greater bottom line.
If it was only the companies that
supply Linux that had embraced it I might well agree with you. Red Hat is pure Linux and is in the black. IBM invested $1 billion the first year they were in to Linux
services and broke even on it. Now they are profitting enough to make a multi year court battle with The SCO Group worthwhile. Mandrake even after being screwed by venture capitalists to the point of having to enter bankruptcy protection are back in the black as well.
Obviously they have
customers for Linux able and willing to pay big bucks for those services. IBM is not known for being cheap to deal with. These and other Linux service providers do billions of dollars in business each year and each year the total grows rapidly.
I even see Microsoft Office, perhaps the most bloated software suite ever, finally losing ground. That's because Sun's open-source OpenOffice.org 2.0 is looking very, very good.
Not only does it have excellent Office file format compatibility, it's finally become a fast application. I've used OpenOffice for ages, but I've never warmed up to it. It's always been too darn slow. With this last pre-beta, though? woo! Look out Microsoft Office, OpenOffice means business.
Sad, ain't it. Now we can rejoice at the maturation of open source and out sourcing as one more nail in the financial coffin of North American developers and programmers.
Where is the connection between out sourcing and Linux? If anything this reduces it.
It makes it possible for the little guy to offer services in his home town to small businesses. Which would you prefer when having problems, the long on holds waiting for a MS tech to walk you through things from scripts (most of which you tried before calling) or the local tech service company sending a tech over to handle the problem in person?
It does however have the effect of less money flowing to the Microsoft coffers in the U.S. as local companies in each country are providing Linux and Linux Services. It also means that there will be more money left in the companies who used to pay Microsoft, money that they can use for other purposes, whether paying dividends or reinvesting in their own company (and buying goods and services from other companies that they couldn't afford before)
It also takes away the hammer that Microsoft uses to pound nails into the coffins of anyone who creates a market big enough for Microsoft to want it. Microsoft did not create the Spreadsheet, Word Processor, Database or Web Browser markets (among others), other companies did, then Microsoft committed criminal acts to take it from them and destroy those who had created those markets
I fully expect that as Microsofts market is eroded and the Linux market builds that there will be a great many fortunes made and many new products created. Fortunes made both in the U.S. and around the world.
Topic: The revolution has arrived. (Read 12165 times)