20090623 GNULinux Spreads Quickly from One User to Another
From s5h.net
Why I Use Linux: Bart’s Story
I have even convinced 4 co-workers that were fed up with all the viruses and problems into switching and once I got them installed and set up, they just love their new virus free machines. I agree with you 100% that Linux is ready for the desktop but Microsoft has a huge advantage that 95% of the computers sold come with Windows by default and that is hard to battle. We will just have to keep chipping away 1 new user at a time.
http://www.itnewstoday.com/?p=534
Recent
Is The U.S. Self Importance Clouding Our Judgement of Software?
In a piece about the market share of Ubuntu outside the United States, Christopher Dawson writes about the innovation that is going on using Linux outside our borders. Since his pieces tend to highlight education, I sometimes discount what he says as being from a too narrow viewpoint, but after reflection, and some other digging, I see that it is perhaps the rest of us that are incorrect in our world vision.
Lies, Damn Lies and Linux Market Share Statistics
"The numbers from NetApplications are clearly unrepresentative of reality," blogger Robert Pogson told LinuxInsider. "Around 2003/4, IDC determined by survey that GNU/Linux was ahead of Mac OS at about 3 percent. Since then GNU/Linux has had growth numbers from 20 to 50 percent in various places. "That would put GNU/Linux at 7 to 9 percent," he asserted.
http://www.linuxinsider.com/rsstory/67031.html?wlc=1242052796&wlc=1242058748
GreyGeek - Subject: Ah, I see that NetApplications primary
usiness model is rebranding Windows executables and selling them to unsuspecting rubes. A year ago Matt Assay said it was at 2.02% ZDNet reported on Feb 24th, 2004 that the 2003 Linux desktop market share hit 3.2% and expected it to hit 6% by 2007. http://blogs.zdnet.com/ITFacts/?p=5334 In 2005 they reported that the 2004 saw the Linux desktop at 4%. I believe that the all the ZDNet figures were spot on. If anything, the Linux desktop market share has continued to increase and is probably currently at 8-10% and rising. Dell and the other PC OEMs wouldn't have invested in selling Linux pre-installed if it appealed only to less than 1% of the desktop market. It is quite obvious that NetApplications latest "report" is merely Microsoft's continuing attempt to control the news about Linux's success in replacing Windows on the desktop. It's not working... No one whith half an ounce of brain would take the bait on a "free" Win7 (a dumbed down version that can run only 3 apps at a time) that will deactivate after one year unless the user PAYS Microsoft to activate it. Win7 is NOT free.
http://www.linuxtoday.com/news_story.php3?ltsn=2009-05-05-007-35-OS-MR-0000
Related: Feeling the heat at Microsoft
A couple of years ago you reiterated that IBM was Microsoft's biggest competitor and you said not just on the business side, but overall. If I ask you who is Microsoft's biggest competitor now, who would it be? Ballmer: Open...Linux. I don't want to say open source. Linux, certainly have to go with that. Perhaps Google on that layer, although frankly speaking, most of what we have there is upside. We're small and they're big. (With) most things, we're big and the other guy is small, so we have more to lose than gain. In this case, we have more to gain than to lose with Google.
http://www.news.com/Feeling-the-heat-at-Microsoft/2008-1012_3-6232458.html?tag=ne.fd.mnbc
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