[LUAU] Re: Goobuntu Linux

[Clifton Royston]

On Wed, Feb 01, 2006 at 03:53:18PM -1000, Jim Thompson wrote:
> On Feb 1, 2006, at 3:33 PM, prb at lava.net wrote:
> >I see evidence for it in the server market. I see very little on  
> >the desktop. I did manage to get my father to switch, though. I  
> >told him that the only way he would continue to get free tech  
> >support from me is if he converted. What does he do now? He runs  
> >all his old software on Win4Lin, but with a couple of key  
> >exceptions, browsing and e-mail.
> 
> I came >this close< to converting Jamie off XP in December.
> 
> >>And 10 years ago, very few (if any) did so. [put Linux on servers]
> >
> >But it is far easier to justify the switch to Linux servers. First,  
> >the majority of the switch is from Unix to Linux. There is  
> >surprisingly little movement from Windows to Linux.
> 
> I think you are (again) dealing in historical artifact.  Yes, most of  
> the early move was Unix -> Linux, but there is ample evidence that  
> Linux is now
> slowly eroding the growth Windows market share, especially on the  
> server.  

  I think that's very clear at this stage.

  It is worth keeping in mind that many businesses, large or small, do
their damndest to avoid or delay upgrading or converting critical
applications, short of absolute disaster.  Microsoft has found that
getting customers to upgrade even from NT to 2000, or from 2000 to XP
or 2003 Server is a big undertaking.

  Thus you will see most server growth in Linux (or other open OS)
occurring when a company deploys a whole new application or
infrastructure and decides they can get something just as reliable and
they don't need to pay MS for it.  My understanding from people in that
world is that the NY financial services sector is growing heavily
dependent on Linux, with deployment spreading into more banks.  For one
example, I know two of the biggest names in financial services use open
source mailservers on open source platforms for all of their external
mail.

  I think it's reasonable to think that as more and more businesses
have internal experience with deploying specific applications on Linux
successfully, they'll weigh it more and more heavily for each new
project.  It's applications that sell servers and OSes.

...
> 2010		74		49.74
> 
> As you can see, if current trends continue, by 2009 there is nothing  
> but Windows and Linux in the "value server" market, and by 2010,
> something has to give.   

  Heh.  Have you perhaps read Mark Twain on statistics and extrapolation?

  "In the space of one hundred and seventy six years the Lower
Mississippi has shortened itself two hundred and forty-two miles. That
is an average of a trifle over a mile and a third per year. Therefore,
any calm person, who is not blind or idiotic, can see that in the Old
Oolitic Silurian Period, just a million years ago next November, the
Lower Mississippi was upwards of one million three hundred thousand
miles long, and stuck out over the Gulf of Mexico like a fishing-pole.
And by the same token any person can see that seven hundred and
forty-two years from now the Lower Mississippi will be only a mile and
three-quarters long, and Cairo [Illinois] and New Orleans will have
joined their streets together and be plodding comfortably along under a
single mayor and a mutual board of aldermen. There is something
fascinating about science. One gets such wholesale returns of
conjecture out of such a trifling investment of fact."
  -- Clifton

-- 
    Clifton Royston  --  cliftonr at iandicomputing.com / cliftonr at lava.net
       President  - I and I Computing * http://www.iandicomputing.com/
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