Underestimating, due to lack of information
Posted Aug 15, 2003 15:25 UTC (Fri) by
macemoneta (guest, #2717)
Parent article:
Global IT firm predicts Linux will have 20% desktop market share by 2008 (NewsForge)
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! :-)
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