[Sussex] Linux market to exceed $35bn by 2008

[Paul Graydon]

> This is very true, it an issue of trust at the moment most 
> business only trust Microsoft etc.  Over time with use of 
> open source people will begin to trust open source software.  
> I think OpenOffice.Org is good for this but not the answer as 
> business will not use it as not trusted but Firefox is a 
> another issue all together.  No cares that much is about a 
> browser as done do much work with it and if goes wrong it 
> easy to use IE.  The problem with Office software is people 
> could be using all day and they have to trust it not to crash 
> ever 5 minutes and they loss all there work.
> 
> Now I think the big push for linux will happen during 2006.  
> The reason is simple Playstation 3.  The OS for Playstation 3 
> is going to Linux, in fact you can get linux for PS2 today if 
> want to do some home software development upon it.  The linux 
> PS2 is builded from is SuSE.  Now people will start to see 
> open source in being use and that not crashing where they 
> wouldn't much mind if crash or not.
> 
> This how it could happen?
> The little kid will play games day in and day out with no 
> problems. One day the MD of what's you call it will have very 
> day at work.  His computer keeps on crashing all day long.  
> So when he got home he wanted to put they mood on to the PS3. 
>  Start playing games and notice the word Linux keeps on 
> coming up on PS3.  He rembers he read about some Linux thing 
> in the FT few weeks back where they where say that computers 
> using seamed never to crash. He next day ask his lad did the 
> PS3 ever crash work.

But then people don’t really see computer games consoles as PCs.  Then
again, neither do they expect them to crash.  The X-Box runs an OS
unsurprisingly based on Windows.  I've never heard of an X-Box crashing
ever.  Sticking Linux on a console is hardly going to be the greatest
advertisement, they'll just get the impression that its okay for gaming
software, but that hardly relates to machines in the workplace.  An old boss
of mine expressed some concern when I was trying to persuade him that we'd
get much better value for money if we bought some Athlon based PCs instead
of Intel ones, because he thought Athlon was a gaming chip, wheras all the
adverts showed him Intel was for all purposes..  I lost that argument,
grudgingly, because he at least agreed with my decision that we should stick
to a single OEM company (Dell in the end.. Hence the reason I lost the
argument!)
I think the industry is more in the old "No one ever got sacked for buying
IBM" situation.  No one ever got sacked for buying Microsoft because
managers have heard of it.  It’s a brand name they know, and they use on
that machine in their office, which after all doesn't crash all that often.
It also costs them a fair amount of money, thus it must be good because
no-one would pay that much for crap.  Besides, there are adverts on TV
showing them that they save money by using it.

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