Desktop Relevance

[Jarod Wilson]

On Thursday 26 March 2009 16:06:56 Jerry Feldman wrote:
> On 03/26/2009 11:17 AM, Jarod Wilson wrote:
> > On Thursday 26 March 2009 10:47:32 Dan Ritter wrote:
> >   
> >> On Thu, Mar 26, 2009 at 10:14:10AM -0400, Jerry Feldman wrote:
> >>     
> >>> I recall back in the 90s when Unix vendors decided to halt workstation 
> >>> production.  Basically, my point is that while desktop systems don't 
> >>> make money, it tends to be the desktop systems that people tend to learn 
> >>> with. I would also agree that in the corporate world, even if a data 
> >>> center is all RHEL (or SLES), the desktops are primarily Windows. 
> >>> Actually, this is a good thing for IT people because they spend a lot of 
> >>> time fixing broken Windows systems :-)
> >>>       
> >> It's odd that he would say this just at the time when it becomes
> >> clear that ordinary people can enjoy using Linux desktops...
> >>     
> >
> > I don't see anything in the part you quoted that says anything to the
> > contrary.
> >
> > He's simply arguing that you can't make money on a desktop OS (unless
> > you are ginormous and own 90%+ of the market, aka MS, and get resellers
> > to shoulder the majority of the support burden). But at the same time,
> > the desktop is where people learn, and thus to get more Linux server
> > users, you might want more desktop Linux users. Then he's just
> > conceding that even big Linux shops are still mostly running Windows
> > on the desktop. Then he goes for a bit of humour, saying busted Windows
> > boxes are good for IT people's job security.
> >   
> Jarod, that was my comment. Everything after the IMHO was me.

D'oh, whoops. :)

> I happen 
> to know a few IT guys who are always complaining about having to fix 
> windows boxes where the users have screwed things up. One guy who is the 
> only IT guy at his company gets calls nights and weekends.

Yeah, I've been there myself, don't miss it one bit.

> > Bottom line is that a publicly traded company has to make money, and the
> > easiest way to make money on Linux is in the data center. Making money
> > on the desktop is HARD. Red Hat very much likes to see more Linux on the
> > desktop, but it simply doesn't make financial sense to try to sell and
> > support Linux on the desktop. You'd have to build up market share slowly
> > over time, and until you reach critical mass, which may well be never,
> > you aren't going to actually make any money. Investors don't take kindly
> > to things like that, its jut cold hard business facts.
> >
> >   
> This is certainly correct, but we probably need to look at the effect of 
> how Linux desktop users influence the choice of Linux in the data 
> center.

Yeah, I know more than a few people who have said they were going to roll
out linux servers, and since their linux-familiar people were using
ubuntu on their desktops, they were going that route for the servers too.

[...]
> Additionally, Jim is talking mainly from the perspective of the 
> enterprise desktop, not the personal desktop. With an enterprise desktop 
> there is an expectation of support, where in the personal area (eg. 
> community supported such as Fedora, OpenSuse) support is unpaid 
> community support.

Yeah, I muddied the waters by mixing up who said what... :)

Let it be noted that Jim is a BIG Fedora fan, and uses it on his systems
at home. His laptop is dual-boot though: RHEL5 and Fedora. Gotta have
RHEL running in front of customers. ;)

-- 
Jarod Wilson
jarod-ajLrJawYSntWk0Htik3J/w at public.gmane.org