Inertia the obstacle to Linux on the desktop

The Year of the Linux desktop may never come. Instead, there will continue to be significant encroachment into the territory that Microsoft believes to be its own. This will happen for all the reasons you might expect. Linux is cheaper and more versatile and secure than the alternatives, and most of the arguments for not installing Linux don't hold much water.

By by Richard Hillesley, 31 Aug 2007 at 16:55

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According to Jollans: "What made Linux happen on the server were a set of business drivers: reduced cost of ownership, combined with increased security, reliability and flexibility. Those drivers play just as well on the desktop, and implementations are happening, though not on the same scale, as Linux on the server." IBM is currently running pilots, similar to the Peugeot-Citroen deal, with more than 100 different customers, running Lotus Notes on Linux desktops.

Modern users find no greater difficulty in moving from Windows XP to Vista or Ubuntu or Apple OSX. Most of the arguments used against the Linux desktop are not based on a current technical assessment of a fast moving package, but on the historic dominance of the desktop by Microsoft and the habitual reluctance of consumers to change - "We know a certain way of doing things and expect things to stay the way they are." This attitude has its virtues. To be a trained user of a word processor on the employment market is taken to mean that you can use Word and Excel, and reviews of the Linux desktop are often predicated on its ability to translate Microsoft documents, or the replication of existing features in Word or PowerPoint. But the difference in skills required to use Windows and Office, or Linux and OpenOffice, is minimal, and the jump from Windows XP to Ubuntu or SLED is probably less traumatic than the leap from Windows XP to Vista.

The best argument against the adoption of the Linux desktop is that it is unfamiliar to many users, which is no argument at all. In a commercial environment, Linux does everything you might want it to do, without a fuss, and is supported, to different degrees, by Red Hat, Novell, IBM, HP, Sun Microsystems, SGI, Ubuntu, Dell and the majority of corporate ISVs. Ultimately, inertia is the greatest obstacle to the rise of Linux on the desktop.

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