Wrestling with the monopoly

For nearly two decades every desktop in every office, of every programmer, secretary, manager or filing clerk has had a full-blown office 'productivity' suite, usually running on Windows. However, the desktop revolution during the 1980s and 1990s, and the mass adoption of DOS and Windows, had little to do with the virtues of the system itself. In those early years DOS and Windows were never more than "good enough." But "good enough" was all that was required and the rise of commodity hardware made the package relatively inexpensive. What the desktop PC offered the user was affordability and greater control of his or her working environment. Curiously these merits are commonly ascribed to Linux.

By common assent the Linux desktop is "ready." The Linux desktop is "good enough" and is getting better with each release. Linux offers most of the features that are available to the alternatives, and many features that are superior. It is cheaper and is supported by an expanding range of original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) and independent software vendors (ISVs). Most top of the range business software will run on Linux. It will run side by side with Windows on cheaper hardware, and offers the promise of more cost effective support options and vendor neutrality.

But to break Microsoft's hold on the desktop market and the general inertia of desktop users, Linux has to offer something more, something as compelling to Windows users as the PC was to an earlier generation.

For the home user the answer is simple. Linux offers freedom and flexibility. A Linux desktop is much more versatile and configurable than the Windows and Mac alternatives. You can learn much more and perform more tasks - all at zero cost. The hang-ups can be summed up in two words, iTunes and games. But even then there are ways around the problem. The answer for the office user is probably more complex.

We teach correct principles

The pivotal year for the mass adoption of the desktop PC was probably 1995, the year of Windows 95, when Microsoft finally took complete charge of the office. The tools that brought the PC into the office were the word processor and the spreadsheet, and not the DOS-based operating systems, which were only as sophisticated as they needed to be, and not as sophisticated as they should have been. During the 1980 the markets for "productivity suites" had been dominated by Lotus 1-2-3, VisiCalc and WordPerfect, but all were to fall by the wayside and become mere shadows of their former selves.

WordPerfect had been around since 1977. It and carried the admirable motto: "We teach correct principles and our employees teach themselves." But, by general consensus, the company ultimately failed because it was too nice a company, and Microsoft succeeded because it was too persistent and ruthless a competitor. At the time WordPerfect was generally acknowledged to be the superior product. It possessed a large and loyal user base in both the commercial and personal consumer markets but, by 1994, its share of the word processor market had begun to crumble in the face of a remorseless marketing campaign by Microsoft, aided and abetted by Microsoft's dominance of the PC operating system market. The company was sold to Novell that year for $1.4 billion, but Novell passed it on to Corel 18 months later for just $20 million in cash and $100 million in stock.

This was a fate that befell many of Microsoft's competitors before and after WordPerfect's demise. Productivity suites may have been the initial attraction that drew the desktop PC into the office, but the cement was the workgroup tools pioneered by Novell, which all but disappeared when Windows NT joined the party. Compared to NetWare's advanced networking functionality, Microsoft Windows for Workgroups was two tin cans and a piece of string, but Windows NT changed all that. Windows NT 3.1 was far from perfect, but it was "good enough" and Microsoft's marketing arm was "good enough" to paper over the considerable cracks until Linux and Samba came along to offer the possibility of a more resilient alternative.

Email to a friend

Print this page