Global IT firm predicts Linux will have 20% desktop market share by 2008 (NewsForge) [LWN.net]

20% desktop market share by mid-2006

Posted Aug 14, 2003 20:08 UTC (Thu) by AnswerGuy (guest, #1256) [Link]

I personally believe they're wrong again. Linux is likely to reach 10% by the end of 2004 or mid-2005 (it's hovering close to 5% now, world wide). After that there will be an accelerated inrush and it can double in just one more year.

Currently it appears that desktop Linux and OpenOffice.org adoption by government and educational institutions (in the U.S. and abroad, and including grade and secondary schools) is driving up the adoption rate considerably. Spain and Brazil, Korea and China, and India are just the tip of the iceberg, the small part of this trend that are poking up above the mass media and trade press waters.

Linux adoption is also driven by both ends of the computer hardware supply chain. Linux is attractive for new 64-bit Opteron and Itanium systems because it's already available and a huge corpus of software is readily and freely portable to the new platforms. Meanwhile Linux can still run on old machines that won't run the latest XP, ME, or whatever. (I've just shutdown my 14 year old 386 recently --- and I still might use it as a router or small server later; my other 386 was retired when the motherboard died after spending 10 years as my mailserver and 5 years before that was the workstation on which I taught myself Linux. It's hard drive was must moved into a slightly newer 486; and it's still my mail server).

20% desktop market share by mid-2006

Posted Aug 15, 2003 15:45 UTC (Fri) by Tar (subscriber, #2456) [Link]

> Linux is likely to reach 10% by the end of 2004 or mid-2005 (it's hovering close to 5% now, world wide)

5%? I don't think so, it's hoovering around 1% for a very long time already according to Google Zeitgeist and Google gets ~250-300 million hits per day IIRC, that's over ~8 billion per month.

Globally 2-3% maximum IMHO, at places way way higher but average is still low.

20% desktop market share by mid-2006

Posted Aug 21, 2003 9:57 UTC (Thu) by ekj (subscriber, #1524) [Link]

Yes. But Zeitgeist ignores the fact that there is still a large number of site that infact work well with many browesers, but direct you to a error-page if your browser doers not *claim* to be IE on MS-Windows.

Thus Konqueror, Firebird, Opera and even freaking *Lynx* comes with options to "Identify as IE". Many change to this, simply because it works better in a world with too many clueless "webdesigners".

20% desktop market share by mid-2006

Posted Aug 21, 2003 17:37 UTC (Thu) by hazelsct (guest, #3659) [Link]

The Google Zeitgeist gives a good approximation for active installed base (this is why Windows 98 is so large). I think Siemens is trying to say that Linux will have 20% of new OS shipments, and 5% is not entirely unreasonable now -- though if it is accurate, then the Zeitgeist should be rolling over any day now...

20% desktop market share by mid-2006

Posted Aug 15, 2003 17:09 UTC (Fri) by tjc (guest, #137) [Link]

Linux is likely to reach 10% by the end of 2004 or mid-2005 (it's hovering close to 5% now, world wide). After that there will be an accelerated inrush and it can double in just one more year.

I think all such speculation -- yours, mine, NewsForges, whoevers -- has a high probablility of error as far as the timing is concerned. One thing I think is safe to say is that once we pass the inflection point where the benefits outweigh the obstacles that adoption will be rapid, perhaps very rapid. This point will vary from company to company, and from industry to industry, but I think the obstacles are great enough that it will be like a giant toggle switch: it will take sustained effort to get to the half-way point, but once there it will snap over hard to the other side. The second half of this process will be more fun to watch than the first. :-)

Open Office as an alternative to MSFT Office is a big piece of the puzzle, but the real obstacle is the thousands of smaller apps produced by 3rd party ISVs that most companies, organizations, and industries depend on. It's not likely that there will be enough interest on the part of volunteers to produce open source alternatives to all of these 3rd party apps. To get past the midway point Linux will have to be deployed by enough companies in areas that don't depend on such 3rd party apps (customer service and point of sales systems, for example) that Linux starts looking like a lucrative market to these 3rd party ISVs.

20% desktop market share by mid-2006

Posted Aug 21, 2003 20:17 UTC (Thu) by crouchet (guest, #1084) [Link]

>>Open Office as an alternative to MSFT Office is a big piece of the puzzle, but the real obstacle is the thousands of smaller apps produced by 3rd party ISVs that most companies, organizations, and industries depend on. It's not likely that there will be enough interest on the part of volunteers to produce open source alternatives to all of these 3rd party apps.<<

I don't think this is really the issue. Sure, there are lots of those specialized programs out there and the users will not move until they can get than functionality on Linux but that really is only a small fraction of the people who use PCs. We have long seen some users who were tied to a particular OS or hardware such as Apple or SGI because the one program that would do their special task would ONLY run there. That did not stop the adoption of Windoze and it will not stop Linux.

Linux now has all the tools most users will need on their desktop. The issues now are old familiar issues: Those making purchasing decisions are not personally familiar with Linux and are therefore wary; ANY migration is a hassle; IT only wants to support one os (and preferably force everyone to have identical desktops and software installations); unlike most LWN readers, most users hate it when anything changes on thier computer.

The answer to all of these is simple: keep using and improving Linux and give it time.

Underestimating, due to lack of information

Posted Aug 15, 2003 15:25 UTC (Fri) by macemoneta (guest, #2717) [Link]

Yes, they are definitely underestimating. I would be surprised if Linux desktop penetration only reached 40% by 2006. They keep forgetting that Linux is a stealth OS; no purchase, no registration, and free to copy. There is no way to properly estimate the number of desktops using Linux today, so projections on faulty data only provides faulty estimates.

What I can see is that my father-in-law (he's 89) is using Linux (email, web to read the news and kcheckers are his favorite applications), my nephew is using Linux, I'm using Linux, and of my friends, 4 out of 5 are either using Linux or investigating it now. My wife's employer has some desktop Linux, and is working on a "Linux Standard Operating Environment". Redhat and Mandrake are the distributions in use.

Only a year or two ago, this wasn't the case. The rate at which people are looking positively at Linux is incredible. The reasons are varied: finally "good enough", Microsoft licensing, virusus/worms/trojans, cost.

Some never even heard of Linux (or paid attention) until all the media attention on the SCO lawsuit, so I guess what they say is true; there's no such thing as bad press. Thanks SCO! :-)