If only press column inches were directly related to
market share and revenue.
If this was the case, then the makers of Linux would now be very
rich people. Since the late 1990s, people have been forecasting
that this will be the year of desktop Linux, but this very much yet
to be the case.
Despite an almost daily avalanche of IT press stories and
predictions as to when it would conquer the world, Linux shipments
still only really account for around a 20th of all IT
shipments.
As Mark Twain would perhaps have said if computers had existed
in his time: The demise of Windows is greatly exaggerated. And even
though there is a lot of willingness for Linux to succeed, it may
be that on the desktop it will never gain critical mass. Or will
it?
Maybe people are looking at the wrong things, suggests Gary
Barnett, research director at Ovum. “People keep asking ‘is Linux
ready for the desktop?’ and it is ready, of course, but it’s the
wrong question. The right one would be ‘is the desktop ready for
Linux?’ This is because for mainstream users, there has to be a
very big motivation to completely change the world they’re used to
and that they’re surprisingly happy with.”
It is still early days for the OS adds Eddie Bleasdale, director
of open source-based IT services provider netproject: “Change is
something IT managers abhor because they’ve spent a huge amount of
time and effort building systems. So they aren’t going to just
going to replace Microsoft with something else – it has to be
something that is orders of magnitude better and will provide huge
benefits. That’s why take-up has been slower than we’d hoped, but
people have been working to improve the software and it’s now at a
point where it’s very good.”
As a result, Bleasdale believes that desktop Linux now offers
two key advantages over its rival. The first relates to
security.
Received wisdom suggests that one of the key issues for those
thinking of making the shift is a belief that there are inherent
security vulnerabilities in the Windows operating system that
represent a significant risk to their business. On the contrary,
Linux is attributed with being inherently more secure and,
therefore, representing a lower risk.
Moreover, continues the belief, even those who believe they can
secure Windows to an adequate extent have the cost and overhead of
continually having to apply security updates to keep the exposure
to a minimum, in addition to the time and money that has to be
spent deploying and managing third party security offerings such as
anti-virus software. Linux also tends to run in thin-client mode on
machines or appliances where it is easy to lock down.
“This results in very low cost of ownership. The main reductions
come from the low cost of administration and looking after the
systems. Also there’s a lack of components going wrong, but if they
do, they’re easy to repair and fix,” Bleasdale says.
A survey from Quocirca—based on feedback from 8,128 IT
professionals who responded to an online questionnaire in 2005—
supports these views. “Windows is perceived to be a problem by a
significant number,” the report says. Others, to quote a couple of
respondents directly, are unhappy that “each new version of Windows
is heavier on system resources and forces a hardware upgrade”,
while “Linux gives you higher performance on equal hardware”.
But to make matters even worse for Microsoft advocates, there is
also a widespread perception, especially among smaller businesses,
that the complexity of the software vendor’s licensing policies are
making cost management trickier than it needs to be. Those in the
desktop Linux camp have found that “switching can dramatically
simplify, reduce or even remove licence-cost related issues”.
So with this in mind, the key question then becomes who has made
the move, or intends to make the move, to Linux on the desktop and
to what end?
Of the IT professionals questioned by Quocirca, 22% indicated
that they are either reviewing or are likely to review whether to
migrate over the next year or so; a further 18% saying that they
are either likely to standardise on desktop Linux or have already
done so.
While Clive Longbottom, a service director at the research
company points out that respondents are likely to comprise a
“self-selecting sample” with high probable interest in Linux
anyway, he does acknowledge that the numbers of people
experimenting with the OS are surprisingly large – although many of
pilot projects now appear to have hit hurdles and are grinding to a
halt.
As to where interest in desktop Linux has centred to date,
meanwhile, Barnett indicates that it is mainly larger companies
that have grasped the nettle, but again only for specific job
functions. These include warehouse staff, call centre agents and
workers in remote or branch offices, for example, in cost-sensitive
industries such as banks or retail outlets.
Other sectors that see the appeal of being able to lock down
their systems easily, often don’t require big personal productivity
applications or use a lot of custom-built ones include schools,
healthcare and the public sector, although in the latter instance,
he points out: “There’s been a lot of talk, but not much
action.”
“There are definitely very clear areas where Linux is useful on
the desktop, which is mainly kiosks and single function
applications. For example, if you’re working in a call centre and
are only using a terminal emulator and web browser hooked up to a
server, you don’t need Microsoft Office so it’s perfect,” Barnett
says.
Mark Blowers, a senior research analyst at Butler Group, agrees.
“It’s not for power powers, but it is suitable for those logging on
to email and writing the odd letter now and then. Desktop Linux is
gathering momentum. We’re not at the point where everyone is
thinking about using it, but there’s a definite move to raise
questions and say ‘why not take a look?’”
Moreover, says Chris Ingle, group consultant for IDC’s systems
practice, for many organisations, desktop Linux has become a
licensing negotiation tool and this is only likely to increase as
they look at alternatives before deciding whether to upgrade to
Microsoft’s next big Windows release in the shape of Vista,
formerly known as Longhorn.
“The issue of Linux on the desktop is one thing, but the future
of the desktop is quite another. It’s about how you enable people
to access the resources they want to use in the most convenient
way,” Ingle explains. “There are so many complexities beyond
whether Linux is suitable or not and they relate to how can
companies can best use a range of options and devices to access
services”.
Another dose of reality is the lack of availability of commonly
used commercial applications in the area of applications, the most
significant area, according to the Quocirca study.
“Linux on the server has been used for a long time and is
relatively mature in hardware and application support terms, but
Linux on the client side has not had the same weight of backing
from the major IT vendors,” Clive Longbottom reveals. “Time and
again, research shows that the major technical hurdle for desktop
Linux is applications. Although there are masses of small-time
desktop ones, most just aren’t compatible with their Windows
equivalents.”
There are also challenges to be considered when migrating any
bespoke Windows applications such as Excel spreadsheets with macros
or Access-based systems, which can be an expensive and challenging
prospect.
Moreover, while open source alternatives to Microsoft’s Office
personal productivity suite such as OpenOffice are “on the whole,
functionally equivalent”, according to the Quocirca study, they do
nevertheless lack some of the more advanced features such as
support for macros.
But this already tricky situation is made even more problematic
by the fact that you can expect the occasional document exchange
problem with Microsoft Office users. What ever you think of
Windows, you are going to have to communicate with it some
time.
Interaction with Microsoft Exchange and Lotus Notes is likewise
only possible by deploying third party utilities such as
CodeWeaver’s CrossOver Office, which layers a Windows runtime
environment on top of the Linux OS.
Elsewhere, you are also likely to come up against challenges
with user acceptance. The vast majority of your company will almost
certainly not be familiar with the Windows interface. In this
regard, any functional advantages of Linux could be rendered as
irrelevant.
As a result, for any desktop Linux project to succeed, it must
be backed up by a suitable training and support programme, which,
while providing opportunities for the channel, also increases
migration costs and can put customers off.
Longbottom explains: “The current big blocker at a business
level is the switching and immediate support costs and the balance
has not tipped there yet. You can easily get into a situation where
customers save money on direct IT and maintenance costs, but they
spend more on migration, particularly on end-user and technical
support training.”
This means that any sell here will rely on a high level of
consultancy and being able to build a “rock solid business case”
that can demonstrate that the value to be gained from making the
move is overwhelming.
“It’s about looking at the risk/cost/benefit equation and
working out if the level of hassle and the migration costs balance
out. The question that has to be asked on the customer’s behalf is
will it be worth it at the end of the day?” concludes
Longbottom.