Is Linux poised to Topple Microsoft?

CNN.com ^ | 4 September 2002 | Renay San Miguel

[ShadowAce]

But now Microsoft is a convicted monopolist, forced to ease up on those restrictions. The biggest beneficiaries of the New Millennium ABM Club may be proponents of Linux, the open-source operating system, long considered to be as potentially disruptive to Microsoft's dominance as a missile strike on Communist-era Moscow.

[ShadowAce]

Ping

[DrDavid]

This sounds like great news for Linux and Linux users. However, this news is from CNN, not a source with a reputation for accuracy with Freepers...

[ShadowAce]

True. I'm not sure how much of this to take as gospel. I posted it for its potential to bring out pro- and anti-Microsoft people to discuss possibilities.

[Gorzaloon]

This sounds like great news for Linux and Linux users. However, this news is from CNN, not a source with a reputation for accuracy with Freepers...

Probably because Leftists/Socialists hate Free Enterprise and any successful business. When a better OS is developed, like a friendlier offshoot of Linux, the Market will stampede to it like it did to Windows. Until then, Windows kind of sounds like a defense often given for our legal system: "It's horrible, it's broken, but it often works."

[yendu bwam]

Probably because Leftists/Socialists hate Free Enterprise and any successful business.

No, we just want an operating system that works as its supposed to.

[freedomcrusader]

The notion that open-source software is socialist is misguided. People contribute to open-source projects because they get a complete software product in retrun. They don't "give away" or "donate" their time expecting nothing in return.

Furthermore, the vast majority of non-contributors (where Linux is conerned anyway) buy a distribution.

There are a small number of folks technically savvy enough to download Linux for free and find enough value in using it to do so, but they seem to be the exception ot the rule.

Lastly, no one is forced to participate in Linux. If you believe Adam Smith, then everyone involved in Linux must be serving their own self interests. It's as capitalist as can be.

[On the Road to Serfdom]

If you believe Adam Smith, then everyone involved in Linux must be serving their own self interests. It's as capitalist as can be.

Great Point, Very true.

[DarthFuzball]

I posted it for its potential to bring out pro- and anti-Microsoft people to discuss possibilities.

Let me guess, you were the one that started the food fights in the school cafeteria.

[philosofy123]

Microsoft is the best software company and its operating system is the best and will remain the best with the help of the best brains in the business. The class warfare leftists keep wishing to destroy Microsoft like they destroyed ATT. So far, all monies invested to unseat Microsoft have been wasted. If Linux became a success by government leftist forces, the rest of the world computer users will suffer for generations

[Mr. K]

The title of this article does not in any way match its content...

[yendu bwam]

Microsoft is the best software company and its operating system is the best and will remain the best with the help of the best brains in the business.

Every Microsoft operating system I've ever used was a piece of crap - full of bugs and prone to daily crashes. Anything that works better - like Linux - would be a Godsend.

[r9etb]

It's certainly possible that Linux might eventually take over from Microsoft.

However, for now it's geekware, and not much else.

For all intents and purposes, Microsoft has defined modern computing.

Most people run MS applications, most people are familiar and comfortable with Windows, almost all business applications use MS products, and quite frankly, most people are not likely to change because they basically like the Windows environment.

Microsoft is safe for now.

The company that's really going to suffer from Linux is Apple. Their machines are expensive and poorly supported by local businesses. And, it must be admitted, Mac users often are motivated by a strong anti-Microsoft feeling. Linux allows them to use "normal" machines, and to avoid Microsoft -- which spells trouble for the Mac.

[ShadowAce]

Well, I would quibble with CNN--it's the original title.

[BlueLancer]

"However, for now it's geekware, and not much else."

I have to agree. I use my computer for surfing the Net, email, word processing, and playing computer games. I want something that offers me a wide selection of programs and peripherals without me having to constantly tinker with the OS to make it function. I don't know what people are doing with their computers that causes them to crash so often, but I've been using WIN98SE on one machine, WIN ME (soon to be WINXP) on my laptop, and WIN2000 at work and I have NEVER had a crash. I have had two .. count them, yes, two .. Blue Screens of Death come up on my WIN98 machine because I did something stupid and overtaxed the limits of my machine. I remember having to constantly tinker with DOS to make the necessary adaptions from one game to another, from one program to another, juggling memory and BIOS assets. NEVER AGAIN!

Until LINUX can come up with a user-friendly, driver-friendly, and .. for lack of a better term .. a plug-and-play system, people who are functionally computer illiterate will probably stay with Microsoft and Windows.

"Oh, man, I just ride in 'em; I don't know what makes 'em work"
Oddball, "Kelly's Heroes"

[Dutch Boy]

For most companies an OS is not as important as the application. If you can't buy standard applications to perform day to day business tasks, tastfer data, or build a product for some group of general users, a great OS will go no where.

When Linux or some other vendor can create a product that is seemless with all current data file formats, document formats, images and everthing else then Microsoft will have worries. Then when that same company can make it idiot proof Microsoft will be crippled. Most users, even office workers, have no clue how a computer works other than the 2 or 3 applications they use each day..

[r9etb]

Until LINUX can come up with a user-friendly, driver-friendly, and .. for lack of a better term .. a plug-and-play system, people who are functionally computer illiterate will probably stay with Microsoft and Windows.

But more importantly, Linux faces an infrastructure problem: the business world has pretty much embraced the MS Office suite of Word, Excel, Powerpoint, and MS Schedule. And, to a lesser extent, they're also married to MS Outlook for e-mail.

As a result, there is an unbelievable volume of information stored out there in Microsoft formats. It is inconceivable that people will simply throw it all away, or have to massage and nurse it to be useable by some other program. So for people to switch to Linux on a large scale requires there to be Linux applications that work so seamlessly that people can simply switch over without thinking about it.

It may happen, eventually. But the simple practicalities of the matter say that this "immanent demise of MS" stuff is mostly wishful thinking.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

It will be a long, long time before Linux is on an appreciable number of desktops, but it's not going away and if MS continues its XP path with spyware and copy protection, it will become much more attractive.

[E. Pluribus Unum]

Until LINUX can come up with a user-friendly, driver-friendly, and .. for lack of a better term .. a plug-and-play system, people who are functionally computer illiterate will probably stay with Microsoft and Windows.

Mandrake Linux and the version 7.4 of Redhat are about as plug-and-play as anything MS has to offer, if not more so.

[Jake0001]

Oh really, is that you Bill Gates?

Microsoft comes out with a new software suite each year and a new OS every two years. Each one more cumbersome, expensive and wasteful of RAM and ROM than the last. I find it ridiculous for it to take more than one-minute for a computer to "boot up". I've seen some that take 20!

Small businesses are hammered by the not cheap upgrades and are NEVER compensated when Microsoft's crap doesn't work. And to anyone thinking about upgrading to Windows 2000 for their network - FORGET IT (unless you've got a full time IT guy on staff) because it will bring nothing but grief.

I noticed it was everyone else's fault that the networks were hammered because they weren't vigilent enough in patching their moth-ridden Microsoft software last year (better check the MS web site every 10 minutes just to be sure). I'll admit Microsoft had at one time proven itself an innovative and visionary, but its been roosting on its laurels for the past 4 or 5 years and greedily sucking the business communittee like a lamprey.