[eMJay]

It seems strange to you because you haven't tied in the economic trends with the direction that the PC market is going to take in the future as a result of these trends. The market share for Linux is going to change because more and more persons worldwide are getting access to broadband internet speeds and cheaper PCs. You made the mistake of assuming that the PC market structure in the developing world is the same as that in the developed world...big mistake...and it's the developing world that is currently driving PC growth; they are the emerging markets, they make up more than two-thirds of the world's population, and they account for practically all of the worlds population growth. Then throw in the fact that the future superpowers will emerge from this populous group.
My argument is that the market share is a reflection of the market structure itself - in the past, the PC market has been mostly composed of affluent countries and the bulk of the PCs came from big manufacturers like Dell, HP and Gateway. But these products are too expensive for most in the emerging market because in those countries, these brands are imported goods subject to tariffs. It's the small local PC dealers who build locally using cheaper parts that will determine what OS goes on the majority of the domestic PCs sold, and M$ has no influence over them. In the recent past, using hacked versions of XP was the order of the day ( which made XP a 'free' OS so to speak), but Vista has more DRM, more hardware requirements and far less appeal as a result. It will take a while for the use of XP to diminish there, but it will happen. When it does, Linux will certainly be the OS of choice in the most populous regions of the world.

[rgreen4]

What I said if you re-read my previous post, is that 10 years ago people said the same thing, that Linux was the future, that it would pass the Mac and take over from Microsoft. That obviously has not come about. Granted Linux has made some great strides, but neither MS nor Apple have stood still. While some do not like Vista for various reasons, no one who analyzes the numbers can call it a failure. OS/X is far improved as well. Both have a ways to go yet, but not nearly as far as Linux which has a list of unsupported periphials longer than that of Vista. Try using a broadcom wireless controller on Linux for example, and if you want to know where to find one - most of the big name notebooks use it in some models.

As for the PC's being imported in other countries - hello - do you believe they are made here? China is the only country that can claim that the majority of the machine is domestic.

Time will tell which is correct, but the basic business model of Linux is it's own worst enemy, and will prevent it from being more than a niche player in the near future. Promoting a fractured OS by word of mouth is not exactly a success story. As I have said before, if all the Linux promoters got together and merged the Baskin's 31 flavors into as few as 4 or 5, then promoted it in advertising, it may have a chance, but with no revenue stream you can't advertise. Yes, it's free for download, but in order to download, you have to have a PC with an OS first. Oh, you can order it online? But again you have to have a PC that connects to the internet to order it on line.

Kind of which came first the chicken or the egg, which came first - the OS or the PC with the OS? And if your PC has an functional OS already, why would you need to get another that you would have to learn all over again? Go to a major book store and find a book on Windows, then try to see how many books on Linux they have.

[piyushsingh]

software market has nearly saturated. Linux has made great advances in previous decade but it don't think it can ever compete with windows or macs as far as popularity is concerned . The major thing in last few years in linux world is just the popularity of ubuntu based distros at the expense of other linux distros. Yes, the market share has increased but it cant go at the same rate.
Things like Asus EeePC can turn things around but these need to be more powerful to have a big impact.
And regarding the market share in the upcoming markets - macs are going to take the major advantage in such markets and i wont be surprised to see the mac share to increase to even 10% in the next 3-4 years. But thats just my thinking.

[1739408]

A lot of people have a narrow view of Linux.. They believe that Linux has no direction or structure to it. They also believe that it has no mainstream corporate backing.

I would like to name a few names that are heavily invested in Linux Technology
* IBM
* Sun Microsystems
* Oracle
* Novell
* Dell
* HP
* Intel
* AMD


These are just a few SMALL companies that you may know of, that have invested upward of Billions of dollars to make Linux mainstream.

[rgreen4]

I thought Linux was FREE?

If they have spend billions to make it mainstream, it sure was a bad investment.

[1739408]

Oh by the way here is the killer app for the Microsoft OS

[1739408]

Where's the Response?



Did your computer go to a


h1. Blue Screen

[eMJay]

Yes, i agree that 10 years ago people were saying the same thing. But the market was still driven by the developed world back then. Things are changing and it seems that some here are failing to see what's coming. Here's an article to educate yourself with. Frankly, I'm surprised at the lack of foresight being displayed here.
www.portfolio.com/culture-lifestyle/goods/gadgets/2008/01/04/Computers-in-the-Third-World

[eMJay]

Windows didn't maintain its market share because it was popular with the masses. It's just popular with those who sell PCs to those who have never used them before. Much of the emerging market doesn't care what OS is on their machine. Have you ever heard the words 'familiarity breeds content'? Well in the PC world, it's what you're exposed to first that shapes your comfort zone. And Linux is being promoted in places and to people who have never touched a PC, thus giving Linux the potential to become familiar to those who will change the face of the pc market for good.
Computers in the developing world don't need to be powerful, they just need to be cheap and sturdy. Even the cheapest PC you can conceive of today packs more power than ones built several years ago. And when you're just buying a PC to access the internet or run a small business you don't need power. Adoption of PC technology in the third world is driven by cost mainly. That's why Macs don't stand a chance in the developing world - it's the wrong market structure. Unless Apple intends to sell $200 computers they are really out of the game. But they are happy where they are because they are in a profitable niche market - higher end laptops. They make up to 30% mark-up on each PC - that and their other ventures brings in per quarter close to a third of what M$ gets in worldwide profits each quarter - not bad for just a 7% market share. M$ makes its money from its market volume particularly in the OEM and business sectors, but they make less per product than Apple makes. Apple makes their profits from being able to charge more per product to a specific niche market in the developed world. Vista's bloat and cost kills its ability to access the new market in a way that can profit M$. That's why they are busy trying to convert XP into a competitor for Linux on the ultra-cheap laptop market that is driving much of the adoption of the PC in remote (and densely populated) areas of the world.


You see, as large as M$ is, it's only reached a sixth of the world. The rest of the world is catching up but this new market is a low cost, volume market that's open to everything because everything is new. Linux is already the first on the scene.

[rgreen4]

1739408 - No, I actually have a life, so I was off doing something else. You want a comment about cleaning out a closet of obslete old software boxes? I did that last summer. Tossed some stuff that went back to DOS applications, I just didn't take a picture of cleaning up. Would you like some 5 1/4" diskettes for your collection, I still have some.

BTW - my last Blue Screen was about 5 years ago while running W2K. I have 6 functional computers running here at the house, 2 Vista only, 2 XP only, one Win98, and the one I am using now that has Vista and XP in a dual boot configuration and occasionally W2K in a triple boot configuration.

eMJay - the last report at year end was that OLPC was now running at $200 per unit because they underestimated the real cost of of the machines. A little more slippage and they will be in the bottom price level of commercially available laptops. Oh, by the way, before you lecture my friend Piyush on emerging markets you should know he is on the other side of the world and probably has a better idea of that area than our San Franciso friends. They go there for a visit, he lives there, just not in the middle of Africa. Check out his profile and get to know him.

[pogson]

So centralized control of everything was bad for the Soviet Union but is somehow good for IT?

[pogson]

GNU/Linux overtook MacOS about 2003. MacOS has made some gains lately but they do not sell globally. They just this year opened a store in China while GNU/Linux has been hot there for five years.

[rgreen4]

Duh - you are centralizing the direction of development, marketing and support of ONE product, not every aspect of a very large country. I suppose you think that MS got to where it is by accident with every programmer working on what ever section of code they wanted to? It shows that you have never worked for a large company.

[rgreen4]

Then perhaps you can explain how the Mac OS/X has a usage rate almost 10 times that of all versions of Linux combined?

[eMJay]

Facts are facts. They don't change based on where you are living, but they can be less visible based on where you are living.

OLPC is currently selling at $200 per unit but that's because they haven't moved the volume necessary to cover all start-up costs and sustain the venture. With time the cost of the product will fall - that's the nature of PC hardware. It's volume movement that makes things cheaper.

My friends and business associates live in several developed and developing countries so I'm fortunate to be able to get a world perspective that most do not. I also travel widely and spend considerable time outside the US (lately, more outside than inside). I even maintain a dwelling in a large third world country. India has a growing upper middle class but these make up a tiny minority of the population and are actually the ones who will follow the western trends where PCs are concerned. They are not the people who stand to benefit from cheaper PCs and are not of the class of persons who will make up the majority of PC users in the emerging markets and especially not India. Piyush's statement about Mac being a contender in the emerging market tells me plenty.

[pogson]

" Then perhaps you can
explain how the Mac OS/X has a usage rate almost 10 times that of all
versions of Linux combined?
"



Look at Apple's 10Q:

http://sec.gov/Archi...097759/d10q.htm

"
|Total Macintosh unit sales| | |2,289| |
"

That is 2.289 million boxes/notebooks in a quarter of a year. In the same period, the world produces about 70 million boxes/notebooks. So Apple is supplying 3% of the market. That leaves about 7% for GNU/Linux and a few other small players. Some confuse the market in the USA with reality. It is not. It is just a mature part of the market. The rest of the world is on fire for IT in comparison. Boxes of all kinds are selling rapidly with growth. GNU/Linux has growth rates of up to 50% per annum in some markets. In the USA, MacOS may be on 8% of machines but Apple does not do much outside USA/Europe. I have never seen an Apple store in Canada. I can take you to a dozen big boxes that move PCs. I can take you to places that actually sell GNU/Linux pre-installed or in boxed sets.



GNU/Linux is becoming mainstream in retail trade and it is mainstream in business where the multipliers are large. I work in education. A school can afford twice as many seats with GNU/Linux as they can with that other OS because the price of hardware has fallen so far. M$ has lots of folks locked-in so they have not cut prices and the cash keeps flowing in but that is not the maths in the rest of the world. In China, M$ dropped the price to $3 just to stay competitive. Small businesses around the world do not have a close relationship with M$ and they are moving product as fast as they can. GNU/Linux is hot in Brazil, Russia, India and China, all major players. GNU/Linux does not need to compete with M$ in those markets because of the rapid growth of IT and the obvious advantages of low costs to startups/newbies. Whether the numbers make sense or not to anyone, GNU/Linux is growing rapidly in the global economy. 50% of M$'s customers have given GNU/Linux a close look and will use GNU/Linux where it makes sense for them.

Take a deep breath, rgreen4, and reconsider your position. It is based on false premises. Your conclusions are inconsistent with the reality of the world. NetApplications numbers represent the most M$-friendly markets in the world. The rest of us have different ideas.

[eMJay]

OS usage rates are compiled by measuring internet activity at certain sites. The problem is that usage at these monitored sites are biased because they are frequented mostly by english language users, which does not reflect the internet as a whole. There is, for instance, a practically separate internet that is Chinese-based that the western world never sees. Contrary to wishful thinking, the browsing habits of the developing world do not parallel those of the developed world.

[rgreen4]

Believe what you will, the figures I gave were from an independent source quoted in PC World about actual contacts on the internet from those machines. Because of the difficulty of actually nailing down the exact usage figure, Windows use is usually listed at 90+%, not 90.0%. That does not give Linux the full 8%, which is not supported by any reputable analyst in the business.

[piyushsingh]

If you expect that the usage of linux based OS will increase because of the price factor, then i wont agree at this. The price of PC hardware is ever falling coz of the advances in hardware technologies. Getting a PC with capabilities to do basic tasks , which is what the majority of population wants isn't a big factor at this time.
What will promote the usage to linux is the people involved in the development area. That is a tiny majority of population. A home user will certainly not get linux to run on his/her system just to save some money . When i said macs hold promise , as they will be definitely eyeing large markets where current mac usage is almost nil in these parts of the world.

[eMJay]

Unfortunately, that's the whole point of the OLPC project...cost. Hardware prices are falling, yes. But you are clearly underestimating the level of poverty across the world. Most of the 6 billion who inhabit this planet don't make more than a $100 a month and they have more children to support than the average westerner. A $200 PC is still outside the reach of the majority. The use of the PC and the internet in education is one of the main driving forces for getting PCs to the poorer regions. These regions have the highest percentage of young people on the planet and the cost to equipt them all with this capacity is overwheming for poor populous nations, even at $200 a head. That's one of the main reasons why cost is a factor and will continue to remain so.



You're thinking about Linux like a westerner. To a westerner, Linux is something you download off the internet, and install if you choose to. To the emerging markets, Linux is a means of getting PCs affordable enough that the masses (who are poorer than you or I but outnumber us greatly) will reap the benefits of access to free information. But because of their numbers, they will form the majority of PC users in the long term, and they will mostly be using Linux. It's not that they will be downloading and installing Linux as we do; they will be buying it with ultra-cheap PCs or getting Linux PCs through the school system.