Linux demand in Thailand 'artificial' (Asia Computer Weekly)

Posted Sep 7, 2003 18:19 UTC (Sun) by stumbles (guest, #8796) [Link]

Well its nice to know Gartner has beliefs all of which I wish they would keep to
themselves. I no longer have any faith or place any credibility on anything this
supposed research group cares to belch from their intestines.

So this "belief" is based soley on Windows only costing $8 over their? Now theres
some hard facts to base some FUD on, why didn't I think of that? Opps my bad,
they only spoke to 2 people who said they would switch to a pirated copy of
windows. Now that's a strong analysis base if I ever saw one.

Sheesh, this Gartner group sure does seem like a bunch of knuckle headed morons
who has only two sources for their FUD...... Microsofts pocket book and the Ouigi
board.

Well I got news guys, my magic eight ball says Linux will knock over Microsoft in all
areas of the desktop.

Posted Sep 7, 2003 18:25 UTC (Sun) by lpbbear (guest, #4827) [Link]

"Gartner believes that most of the Linux shipments will eventually have illegal copies of Windows installed-a fact that makes Linux's seeming
dominance of this market somewhat misleading,' the report stated."

More happy horse manure from Gartner. On the other hand we could phrase this news item a bit differently with regards to the United States.

"Gartner believes that most of the Windows shipments in the United States will eventually have totally legal copies of Linux installed on them
by users who had a bundled copy of Windows shoved down their throats simply because OEMs are too afraid of Microsoft to sell "naked PCs".-a
fact that makes Window's seeming dominance of this market somewhat misleading,' the report stated."

Posted Sep 7, 2003 19:37 UTC (Sun) by a_hippie (guest, #34) [Link]

<1,500 baht (US$36).>

While this price would seem insignificant to many people, an average
person in Thailand would see this is a stifling, prohibitive cost. They
should add a reference to compare money/costs like how much it costs for
monthly rent for the average Thai(sp?)! The last time I was there, most
of my large dinners cost less than 5 baht. I know times have changed, but
how much did the currency value change?

The references to the *low end* computer system being Linux powered must
have been added purposefully while the high end systems are M$-xp powered.
Hummmm, so that's how it works . . .

Finally, and this is *my* belief, most users will use what was installed
on the system. Why deal with M$ installs when Linux is already present
and works and works and works . . Different applications plus productive
output still equals worker satisfaction.

The FUD-machine's non-stop misinformation is getting to be irritating. I
think it must be time for the Gnu/Linux community to begin making
*official* weekly press releases about the pseudo-competition. :)

Wishing you well.

Posted Sep 7, 2003 19:46 UTC (Sun) by cdamian (subscriber, #1271) [Link]

I would like to see a Gartner Group report about how many in Europe or America replaced their preinstalled Windows with Linux.

I know all of the workstations and servers in our company came with some kind of windows and office preinstalled, because there was simply no way to get them without it (all Dell, HP and IBM machines).

Linux users buying laptops or second hand computers have the same problem.

Posted Sep 8, 2003 4:44 UTC (Mon) by gurulabs (subscriber, #10753) [Link]

My company just bought 15 systems from Dell as workstations for a Linux classroom. Dell would not ship them without Windows XP Home and MS Office preinstalled.

Windows XP comes with a provision for a refund (contained in the EULA). We are going to try to execute on the offer.

Posted Sep 8, 2003 7:06 UTC (Mon) by ncm (subscriber, #165) [Link]

LWN's editors would be performing a service by reporting these market-research reports with phrasing something like, "The Gartner Group, in a new report, wrote 'X'. Gartner has not revealed who paid them to say so."

The newsworthy event is not what new (or re-shod) line the flacks are trotting out. Rather, the news is that somebody's flacks have got enough budget to flog the line in a Gartner "report". Each instance is a peek into the worldview of the people who are most afraid of software libre, and (increasingly) to their level of desperation.

The value of this more nuanced form of reporting is in the responses it would evoke. In place of hysterical rebuttals that no one but us ever reads, we might be able to use the reports as seeds for discussion of strategic media monkeywrenching of our own.

Posted Sep 8, 2003 9:03 UTC (Mon) by rakoch (guest, #4666) [Link]

I wish it were utter crap as most of Gartner's publications but in this case they're unfortunatelly mostly right. Linux is a hard sell in Thailand. I tried for many years with the result that I am now back in Germany working on a large Linux cluster.

Linux caught on at ISPs from the beginning of the Thai Internet but that's about it. Major organizations (like Thai Airways, Shinawatra, banks, hotels) don't have any significant deployments. Even at Universities Linux penetration is marginal. Dr. Putchong's Smile cluster is one of the larger deployments: http://smile.cpe.ku.ac.th/

Reasons for the uphill battle there:
- Windows is "free", too
- Linux has a reputation of being "cheap". Sun is THE Unix here
although support and supply with spare parts is horrible
- Linux is perceived as being extremely difficult to learn
- Support for Thai script is not as good as in Windows
(not that Windows is perfect, either)

In spite of that, Linux is slowly gaining ground, very slowly, compared with e.g. Germany where Linux systems already have a significant share in the Datacenter of the average enterprise. A major crackdown on piracy as MS demands would be the best thing that can happen to Linux in Thailand.

-Rudiger

Posted Sep 8, 2003 17:14 UTC (Mon) by ironhacker (guest, #11389) [Link]

I have visited Asia and seen the piracy first-hand. Believe me, piracy is rampant. Not only is there the "Everyone else does it so it must be OK" attitude, it goes even further. "Everyone else does it so if I don't I have a cost disadvantage." Cost control is the name of the game in Asia. Copyright compliance is viewed more as a requirement to not offend America or American companies who buy many Asian exports.

Microsoft adopted "product activation", so now the pirate CDs now ship with pirate activation codes printed on the box label. If Microsoft felt like it, they could crack down on the duplicate activation codes. There are reasons not to do this (corporate customers would scream), but the whole purpose was to stop piracy, right? The fact is that Microsoft prices are "dead on arrival" in Asia. In some cases, the cost of software exceeds the cost of the person using it! That seldom happens in the US or Western Europe, but Asia is another matter. Microsoft enjoys tremendous market share in Asia, but that requires competing with Linux at a Linux price.

Show me Microsoft copy protection that works, and I'll show you millions of non-artificial Linux installs.

Posted Sep 8, 2003 18:20 UTC (Mon) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

I wouldn't actually be too surprised if this were, in fact, accurate. It's not implausible that there is somewhere where people don't use Linux much. Considering the effort China, Korea, and Japan are putting into Linux to make it suitable for use in their countries, and the fact that no similar effort for Thailand is evident, it seems unlikely that Linux is really all that commonly used in Thailand.

People seem to assume that, because they have an honest motivation for getting Linux, everyone who gets Linux has an honest motivation. Obviously, this does not follow logically. Motivations for getting Linux are independant, and so shipment statistics have to be correlated with other factors to be useful. Given that Windows updates generally require new hardware, and new hardware normally comes with a new version of Windows, there wouldn't be any use for black market Windows CDs unless people had a source for new hardware without Windows on it. While it's not true that every box shipped with Linux is destined to get a pirate copy of Windows, it is closer to true that every pirate copy of Windows is headed for the most cost-effective machine without Windows.

Posted Sep 9, 2003 22:35 UTC (Tue) by spitzak (guest, #4593) [Link]

In Thailand, it is trivial to get a machine with a pirated copy of
Windows pre-installed. There is no reason to go through the trouble of
finding a "Linux machine" and installing a pirated Windows yourself, when
for the same (or cheaper) price you can get a machine where you know your
"free" copy of Windows is working already.

Any seller using "Linux" as a cover for installing pirated Windows would
certainly deliver the machine with Windows already installed, since
otherwise they would be unable to compete with others who are delivering
already-installed systems for the same or cheaper price. Since Gartner
apparently could not find such a machine I think that disproves their
entire thesis.