Linux desktops are easier to implement than IT staff expected if
they targeted the right groups of users, a study from Freeform
Dynamics has found.
The study commissioned by IBM found that Linux PC adoption was
driven by cost reduction. 71% of respondents indicated cost
reduction as their primary driver for adoption, while 35% stated
the ease of securing the desktop was another primary driver.
The online survey of 1,275 IT professionals from the UK, US,
Canada, Australia, New Zealand and a spread of other countries
across Western Europe and the Nordics found that transaction
workers and general professional workers were more than twice as
likely to be primary targets for desktop Linux adoption than mobile
and creative staff. A majority of the respondents indicated that
Linux desktop deployments to these targeted groups was easier than
anticipated.
"Some users care a great deal about their desktop computing
environment and may be emotionally or practically wedded to
Windows," said Dale Vile, research director at Freeform
Dynamics.
"The trick is to avoid getting distracted by these, and focus on
the users for whom the PC on their desk is simply a tool to get
their job done. Migrating a general professional user who only
needs to access a couple of central systems, an e-mail inbox and
light word processing is pretty straightforward," he said.
Bob Sutor, vice-president of Linux and open source at IBM
Software Group, said, "Savvy IT departments see the Linux desktop
as a PC investment that saves money during this downturn. We see
the recession fuelling open source on the desktop."
Linux has already made in-roads in mobile computing. According
to a report from advisory and consulting firm
Ovum, a new generation of lower priced but less feature-rich
netbooks costing less than $200 (£130) are now being manufactured
by the likes of Freescale Semiconductor and Asus. These will be
powered by specialised Linux distributions such as Android.