A desktop Linux rival to Windows is two years away,
according to Stuart Cohen, chief executive of the Open Source
Development Lab, the global standards group that aims to drive up
Linux use in the enterprise.
Speaking in London last week, en route to the launch of the OSDL
European user advisory council in Frankfurt, Cohen said, "Linux is
not there today in terms of features suitable for power users -
those who make the most of their existing Windows desktop
environment. The cost of migrating a heavy user of Microsoft Office
is not worth it."
Any savings users could make in terms of lower licensing costs
would be cancelled out by the additional training requirements of
end-users moving from Windows to Linux.
Cohen thought mainstream roll-outs of Linux for line-of-business,
calendar, e-mail and word processing applications was two years
away.
However, he said it was possibly to deploy desktop Linux today
where end-users required limited computing flexibility. He was
confident that end-users who spent most of their time at work
running a single application could become Linux users.
"Many end-users run a single application [on their PCs]. These
people can easily migrate onto Linux," Cohen said. For these users,
he recommended that IT directors evaluate the deployment of Linux
in a thin client environment.