Within the private sector Linux desktop deployments -- at least those that have been publicly revealed -- remain few and far between. This is somewhat surprising for many observers, given that desktop Linux is cheaper to install, comes with a free integrated suite of productivity tools, and is generally held to have as capable a user interface as Windows.
Why do so many companies have an ongoing aversion to desktop Linux? There is no single answer but anecdotal discussions repeatedly suggest that perceived issues of risk may be Linux's major problem: many companies see it as complex and difficult to use, fear they don't have the right support skills in-house, or don't trust the perceived lack of accountability that comes from having more than 200 different Linux distributions to choose from.
Such perceptions are short-sighted: companies such as Red Hat and Novell, which bought Red Hat competitor SuSE in 2003, are backing the charge on to the desktop with enterprise-level support reinforced by partners such as IBM and HP that are already well respected by all kinds of businesses.
Having or delivering the right skills and maintaining strong internal advocacy is of course important in any Linux deployment. With a growing range of skilled local integrators providing on-the-ground support it is now easier than ever to find people who speak Linux fluently enough to get it up and running who can also teach your technical staff to keep it that way.
"In actually looking at Linux on the desktop, we've found that it's much less of the actual desktop than it is a discussion about the applications our customers are using," says Ivan Kladnig, Linux business development manager within the Software Group of IBM Australia-New Zealand, which is looking to establish a Linux Desktop Centre of Competency in Sydney to encourage customers to give the platform a go. "The office productivity tool set, e-mail, collaboration, and other parts of the software stack are really what are important."
No matter what your requirements on the desktop, the benchmark for Linux acceptance is going to be how well users make the transition to OpenOffice, which in its recently released 2.0 version is the safest alternative to Office. Talk with a company that has actually implemented OpenOffice -- whose acceptance will be essential to most desktop Linux deployments -- and anecdotal evidence is likely to suggest that most users, with the right training, quickly come to grips with OpenOffice and find it quite acceptable.
"Most of our users are happy to run OpenOffice, which runs natively on Solaris and could just as easily run on Linux," says Andrew Buckeridge, IT director with Perth-based building materials, construction, contracting, and transport company BGC, which abandoned Windows desktops more than four years ago. The company now runs Sun Microsystems Sun Ray thin clients that are based on Sun's Solaris operating system and it runs OpenOffice as the key productivity suite.
OpenOffice may be the most popular open-source productivity application but it's not the only one relevant to corporate needs. Capable open-source standards like the GIMP image editor and Evolution e-mail client, paired with a growing range of point solutions from independent and commercial developers, offer enough functionality to let most companies replace 80 percent of Windows desktops without users even knowing the difference.
3%
5%
The article described: "Furthermore, Linux's lower resource requirements may allow it to run on existing desktops that will need replacement for any upgrade to Windows Vista."
I believe that this is the only characteristic that Linux may get the go ahead. Most PC's (Greater than 500MHz) generally run todays business applications with little or no problems. If you get a Pentium III-500 with 256MB of RAM, you are set when it comes to Windows XP, Office 2003, Microsoft .NET 2003 etc...
When Windows Vista's requirements are beyond that of what "standard" onboard video cards provided in Motherboards (ie 32/64MB shared with RAM), and the fact that an AGP video card (starting from $80RRP), wouldn't the IT departments be having fun arguing their case that the general workstation needs a new 128MB Video Card, another stick of 512MB of RAM, just to boot Windows Vista. Take into account that Office 2005 is also completely changed (GUI wise) and there goes the 2006 ICT budget.
Although I am a linux supporter, in the business workplace, you need to be able to rely on proven technology, and Microsoft is proven, reliable technology. When Office 2003 and Windows XP Service Pack 2 came out, I really thought how good Microsoft actually is. I can't think of a more easier, more productive combination of software. To change that is only going to worsen people's views.
Anyway, Linux will NEVER dominate the PC market, Microsoft just has too many fingers in too many pies to lose their dominant position